Editorials

Our mission as Mormons is not solely to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ; it is also to be seekers of truth. Joseph Smith’s seeking of truth led to the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That would have been enough, but he didn’t stop there. Through his short life, he was continuously seeking and sharing his discoveries with the members of the Church.

Emotions run raw around gender matters in the church. Some feel all is well in Zion, and accuse those who urge change of being presumptuous at best, heretical at worst. At the other end of the spectrum, some speak disdainfully of Latter-day Saints who fail to ask “serious” questions, or who are blind to any faults in the fabric of our status quo.

The desire to provide a place for people to share their stories of gender dynamics in the church and what steps they are taking to improve their experience led to the creation of this website.

One thing I love about our ward is that (at least during the 8 years we’ve lived here) men & women (not married couples) are called as Gospel Doctrine teachers who teach on alternate weeks. As a young mother who has been teaching Gospel Doctrine for the past few years, my current counterpart is a lovely older gentleman (several decades older than I).

We each have the most power for good within our closest sphere of influence. The people whom we impact most profoundly are those who associate with us daily or weekly, at home, at the office, at church. Melissa Inouye has written, “Change in the LDS Church is not a process of lobbying higher-ups, but of each person seeing what needs to be done and then doing it within his or her own sphere of influence”

It can be easy for any of us to dismiss another person’s experiences. Perhaps our own experience has been vastly different from hers, or we feel her case to be an isolated one, far outside the norm. Maybe we think that she is taking things a little too hard, that she is interpreting our shared experiences too negatively, and that things really aren’t so bad. Rachel Chinn Rachel Chinn But we are taught that instead we must “mourn with those that mourn” and “comfort those tha

The Nephites, after being administered to by Jesus Christ, “taught, and did minister one to another; and they had all things common among them, every man dealing justly, one with another.” (3 Nephi 26:19)

Today, we honor the sacrifices made by the early Mormon pioneers. They had the faith, courage and perseverance to leave all that they knew to start anew in a desolate land that held the promise of community, unity and blessings.