Mormon Families Help in Remote Villages

An organization called  Family Humanitarian Experience (Fhe) is serving hundreds of remote Q’eqchi’ villagers in the remote Polochic Valley of Guatemala and doing it right alongside their spouses and children.

FHe is a new 501(c)3 non-profit organization geared for LDS families who want to serve together and have spiritually uplifting experiences along the way. At the core of an FHe expedition are the training workshops which provide skills and knowledge to villages in the areas of medical and dental, economic development, and teacher training. There are also building projects and numerous cultural experiences that take place. [1]

Last summer seven FHe leaders joined with Singular Humanitarian and CHOICE Humanitarian to lay the groundwork for FHe’s expedition this July to Guatemala. CHOICE Humanitarian is a distinguished non-profit organization based in Salt Lake City with over 30 years of experience in sustainable village development. SHe is a sister organization to FHe for LDS single professionals that develops and provides curriculum and hands-on training to villages around the world in much the same way as FHe, focusing on the areas of business, healthcare, and education.

In July 2011 FHe and SHe worked together to train local volunteers to provide aid in Guatemalan villages.  Aid includes the building of a hospital, enabling teachers to provide education, and health workers to provide care and instruction on sanitation and hygiene.

Families who serve with FHe will go home with deeper gratitude, a deeper love of mankind and for each other, and with the desire to not take anything for granted, especially relationships. This is the gift the Q’eqchi’ people give to us, the ability to love and live more deeply.”

FHe recently launched their website, www.familyhumanitarian.org, and will be closing registration soon for their expedition to Guatemala in early July 2012.

2011 – A Year for Global Disasters – Mormons Help

Earthquakes, a tsunami and massive flooding have combined to make 2011 the costliest year for natural disasters on record according to a recently released Welfare Services report of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). [1]

LDS Presiding Bishop David H. Burton Delivers Aid to Japanese Fishermen

Disasters which occurred during the first half of the year caused $265 billion worth of damage.  This broke the record set in 2005, the year that hurricane Katrina hit the southern states in America.  The amount of damage caused by disasters in 2005 was approximately $220 billion.   Japan’s earthquake and tsunami damage alone has been estimated at $235 billion.

The humanitarian services arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes inadvertently called the “Mormon Church“) offered help throughout the year.  The LDS Church responded to 111 disasters in 50 countries, providing a total of $22 million in emergency aid and organizing thousands of volunteers through the Mormon Helping Hands program to assist those affected. In addition to natural disasters, east Africa experienced one of the worst droughts and famines in more than 60 years.

2012 is starting out to be another difficult year.  The end of February and beginning of March yielded over 100 destructive tornadoes in the Midwest and southern U.S. states.   The Church of Jesus Christ always has relief supplies standing at the ready to offer aid fast.  Hygiene kits and other supplies were immediately shipped to stricken areas.

The Church of Jesus Christ participated in the following initiatives:

• After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, more than 250 tons of supplies were distributed during the first few months following the disaster, including food, water, blankets, bedding, hygiene supplies, clothing and fuel.   Twenty-two thousand Church-sponsored volunteers have provided more than 175,000 hours of service in Japan to date.  The Church of Jesus Christ continues to give aid in Japan.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints responded to the famine in east Africa by committing $2.25 million in support of relief efforts.  The Church partnered with Islamic Relief, International Medical Corps, International Relief and Development and other organizations to provide food, clean water and medical supplies.
• After a rash of violent tornadoes in the United States, the Church of Jesus Christ provided relief in 8 states, with 5,000 Latter-day Saint volunteers helping with cleanup efforts.
• In response to flooding in Thailand, church members in Thailand assembled food kits, sanitation kits, blankets, clothes and other relief items for those affected by the floods.
• In response to Hurricane Irene in the U.S., the Church provided 120 tons of relief supplies and 50,000 hours of service from more than 7,000 Church volunteers and missionaries.

Read More at LDS Newsroom.

Additional Resources:

Basic Mormon Beliefs and Real Mormons

LDS Philanthropies

Mormon Self-Reliance

We Are Children of God the Father

Written by Ryan Nimer, a BYU student, studying a volume of scripture known as the Pearl of Great Price, which is written by prophets; members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “Mormons” revere it as sacred text. This post comes from a book within the Pearl of Great Price known as The Book of Moses; it is an extraction from the translation of the Bible as revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet, June 1830—February 1831.

God the Father is the Literal Father of Our Spirits

Throughout time people have asked and still ask: what is the purpose of life? One of the wonderful things about the restored gospel, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the “Mormon” Church), is that we have the answer to this question. Although the purpose of life encompasses a few important principles, one of the most significant realizations needed to understand this purpose is that we are children of God, our Heavenly Father. One of the Great Old Testament prophets Moses was visited by the Lord and taught about his relationship to God. As we learn about Moses’ experience we can understand more about our purpose in life and our relationship to God as well.

Read more

Blessings from God the Father

Written by Kristen Knecht, a BYU student, studying a volume of scripture known as the Pearl of Great Price, which is written by prophets; members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “Mormons” revere it as sacred text. This post comes from a book within the Pearl of Great Price known as The Book of Moses; it is an extraction from the translation of the Bible as revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet, June 1830—February 1831. 

God the Father’s Visit to Moses Teaches Us a Lot

One of my favorite parts of the teachings from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called the “Mormon Church” by the media) is that everyone can obtain the blessings that obedience brings. All blessings, covenants, and opportunities are available if we live worthily and strive to do our best. No one is more important than the other is; no one has special privileges that another person cannot obtain. Even though women cannot hold and exercise the priesthood (the eternal power and authority of God the Father) like men can, that doesn’t mean that women will not receive all the blessings of the priesthood as they support the priesthood.

Read more

LDS Church Opens New Bishop’s Storehouse

In late January 2012 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes erroneously called the “Mormon Church,” opened a huge bishop’s storehouse in West Salt Lake City, Utah, as reported in the Deseret News.  A Bishop’s Storehouse is similar to a general store supplied with food and basic needs for the poor and needy members of the LDS Church.  The Church of Jesus Christ has a remarkable welfare program based on self-reliance that has been studied and used as an example by leaders all over the world.

This new bishop’s storehouse has 570,391 square feet and will also be used as a staging point for humanitarian aid shipped out worldwide when disasters strike. The Church of Jesus Christ has its own farms, orchards, vineyards, dairies, and ranches, and canneries operated by Mormon volunteers.  The products from these concerns stock the shelves of bishop’s storehouses around the world, and fill boxes that stand ready to ship out for humanitarian aid.

The new facility in Salt Lake City has the capacity to store 65,000 pallets of food and supplies.  The building was constructed for a single purpose — to enable the bishops of the church to meet the needs of the poor and needy.

The massive structure replaces the previous Bishops’ Central Storehouse, located on 1600 Wallace Road, and was paid for with LDS Church fast offering funds, which are earmarked to help those in need.

Ground was broken on the facility May 18, 2010, and construction began in July of that year. The facility, completed Oct. 7, 2011, was dedicated  by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the LDS Church’s First Presidency.

The facility will be the central hub of the Church of Jesus Christ‘s welfare efforts.

The facility also includes Deseret Transportation — which utilizes 43 tractors and 98 trailers and logs about 3.5 million miles per year delivering goods to some 110 church storehouses across the United States and Canada.

The storehouse includes a bulk storage area, rack storage and 63,000 square feet of freezer and cooler space that is humidity-controlled.  The storehouse and preparedness system of the LDS Church is so efficient, that supplies can go out during the first incoming emergency phone call and be gone before the parties hang up.  For example,

After Hurricane Katrina struck the southern United States in 2005, the LDS church staged fully loaded semi-trucks from Texas to South Carolina. When the storm hit New Orleans, the emergency supplies were on site within 24 hours. Another 450 semi-trucks filled with food, water and other needed items were sent to the disaster zone from the Bishops’ Central Storehouse in Salt Lake City in the weeks after the emergency.

Read more at Deseret News.

Additional Resources:

Man’s Search for Happiness

Basic Mormon Beliefs and Real Mormons

We Have Always Existed

Care for the Poor: Best Family Values News Articles of 2011

At the end of 2011, Deseret News named its best articles in six categories, one of which was care for the poor and needy.  This is a review of those best articles.

#10 — Turning Skills into Jobs

This article explains the charitable works of a non-profit organization called Global Artisans.  The organization helps skilled refugees open their own businesses using their unique skills.  The non-profit was founded by Ze Min Xiao, refugee services liaison for Salt Lake County in 2009.

In collaboration with the Utah Refugee Coalition and American Express, Xiao started Global Artisans to help refugees to put those skills to good use. On Thursdays and Saturdays, people from all over the world — Tibet, Iraq, Bhutan, Burma, Eretria — gather to knit, weave or sew together. To make their skills more applicable in an American market, Global Artisans offers business, finance and computer classes.  [Read more...]

#9 — Keeping Families Intact

This article profiles the House of Hope, a residential rehabilitation facility.  House of Hope is a government funded non-profit organization. Ten years ago the facility pioneered a family-centered approach to substance abuse treatment.   This is often the last hope for addicted mothers and their children, who begin by residing at the facility and then report on an out-patient basis.  Funding cuts have put the programs in danger.

The children manifest many problems due to the drug use of their parents.  Some are physically impaired because their mothers used drugs during their pregnancies.  Others are behaviorally impaired because their lives have been chaotic and insecure.  (Read more…)

#8 — Pennies for Change

The internet is transforming the way people make charitable donations.  While there are websites for large, well-known charities, the ease of building one’s own blog, website, or social media venue has enabled people to establish charities that work through very, very small donations.  As a result, nonprofits are beginning to rely less on the rich.

Using social media members of the Millennial generation who are movers but not spenders are able to mount their own charitable campaigns.  (Read more…)

#7 — It Takes a Village

Humanitarian projects that are mounted in third-world countries fare better when they have local leadership on site.  In the early 1980s, James B. Mayfield trekked from village to village in Indonesia, tracking down projects planned and paid for by the World Bank and USAID.   He found that over 80% of charitable projects had failed and fallen into disrepair and disuse.  The people were waiting for the Americans to come back and fix everything.  Mayfield decided to come up with a new idea —  he founded CHOICE Humanitarian, a Utah-based nonprofit that builds schools, water systems and micro-enterprise programs in Africa, Latin America and Asia, he would insist: “The local people will lead the way.”  (Read more…)

#6 — The Children Left Behind

More than 5,100 children are in the foster care system because their parents have been detained or deported.

Twenty-two percent of the 397,000 illegal immigrants deported in 2011 were parents to U.S.-citizen children, compared to just 8 percent from 1998 to 2007. If deportations continue on trend, the ARC estimates the country will add 15,000 immigrant children to the foster care roles over the next five years.

Immigration policies and laws are built around the assumption that families will, and should, be reunited, but this is very complicated.  (Read more…)

#5 — Hurting Charity

Obama and Congress are considering cutting back on tax deductions for charitable donations.  Many charities worry donors will give less and needy people will go without.   Because of the U.S. recession, donations are already down, and funding cuts have also hurt charities.

“People are struggling and donations are hard to come by,” said Steve Taylor, vice president of public policy at United Way Worldwide. “It’s the people at the bottom of the economic spectrum who were already hurt the most by the recession and, if these plans go through, they’ll be the ones to suffer again.” (Read more…)

#4 — A Judge Who Made a Difference

Judges who are compassionate enough to listen to the accused, have an effect on their future behavior.

A judge’s disposition — whether respectful and caring or mean and disinterested — may make the difference between a trip back to prison and an addiction-free life for a drug offender.

In a study of 101 drug courts across the country, NPC Research discovered courts where the judge spends an average of three minutes or more speaking with each offender were more than twice as successful at keeping participants from reoffending. The reduction in recidivism increased as one-on-one time with the judge increased.  (Read more…)

#3 — Seeds of Hope

Cindy Packard and her  husband founded the nonprofit Care for Life, which has brought her back to Mozambique many times.

In the villages where Care for Life works, the death rate has dropped from an average of 22 deaths every six months to five. The percentage of people with adequate housing is up from less than half to an average of 85. Thirty percent more children attend school. Employment statistics have more than doubled. Adult literacy rates have increased from 50 to 77 percent. More than that, though, Care for Life seems to have discovered a formula for inspiring hope among the destitute and giving them tools to help themselves.   (Read more…)

#2 — Water and Hope

This article profiles humanitarian aid work performed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often erroneously called the Mormon Church, in Seamay, Guatemala.  In rural areas of Guatemala, clean water was scarce and almost half of all students failed the first grade.

…the coffee industry, once the backbone of Guatemala’s economy, had essentially collapsed in the mid-1990s when, due to deregulation and free trade, factory farms in places like Brazil and Vietnam flooded the global market with cheap beans, resulting in the loss of half a million jobs in Guatemala. Seamay had been hit particularly hard.  (Read more…)

#1 — Stolen Innocence

The slave trade is alive and well in the United States of America, but some people are trying to stop it.

With job descriptions ranging in scope from prostitute to waiter to maid, more than 150,000 people in the United States are living in slavery, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Because of a deep-seated perception that slavery is a Third World issue, states have had a hard time getting the ball rolling on anti-trafficking initiatives.  (Read more…)

The Deseret News — Best Articles of 2011

Mormons Say Polygamy Morally Wrong

By Amy Choate-Nielsen

Deseret News
Published: Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012 7:00 p.m. MST

David Letterman knows how to get a laugh.Like most comics, he riffs on the day’s news, deadpans the camera and revels in audacity.”Oh, did you hear about this?” the host of CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman asked his audience recently. “A campaign staffer on the Newt Gingrich campaign was fired because he was making negative comments about Mormons. I thought, now, wait a minute — isn’t Newt in favor of multiple wives?”
Laughter rumbled from the audience followed by applause. The polygamy punch line is a familiar one when it comes to poking fun at Mormons — as though Mormons and polygamy are synonymous in mainstream media. Ironically, the practice that’s most linked to Mormons is a practice most Mormons oppose, according to a groundbreaking new study of Mormons in America released Thursday by the Pew Research Center‘s Forum on Religion and Public Life.

According to the study, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unequivocally reject polygamy — only 2 percent said the practice is morally acceptable — evidence of a yawning gap in what Mormons believe and how they are perceived. Mormons’ opinions are overwhelmingly conservative, the study shows, but in many ways, their views are also surprising — especially when it comes to opinions on moral issues, divorce, homosexuality and polygamy. Read more

Mormons’ Focus on Marriage & Family Highlighted in Pew Survey

SMITHFIELD — After dinner, three baths, four bedtime stories and a half-a-dozen goodnight kisses for 2-year-old twins Brock and Isaac and 6-year-old Ellie, Erin and Brian Thompson finally sink into the couch with weary smiles.

Being parents is just what they always wanted. And they love it.

“Of course we have our crazy moments,” Thompson says, “but for the most part we just try to find the good things in the day and remember that they’re only going to be little for so long.”

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Thompsons believe that maintaining a strong marriage and raising and teaching children are essential keys to happiness and their most important responsibilities on earth.

In fact, 81 percent of Mormons say being a good parent is “one of the most important things in life,” according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center‘s Forum on Religion & Public Life — the first survey of Mormons about Mormons, by a non-LDS research organization.

The survey of more than 1,000 self-identified Latter-day Saints from across the country asked how accepted Mormons feel in American culture, as well as their thoughts on religious practices, political issues and family roles.

The survey showed that Mormons are more likely to be married than the general population, 67 percent of the sample size compared to 52 percent of the general public. Read more

Landmark Pew Study of Christian Mormon Beliefs

As the “Mormon moment” extends into 2012, the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life today released a groundbreaking new survey, the first ever published by a non-LDS research organization to focus exclusively on members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their beliefs, values, perceptions and political preferences.

Entitled “Mormons in America: Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society,” the survey was conducted between Oct. 25 and Nov. 16, 2011 among a national sample of 1,019 respondents who identified themselves as Mormons. The results validate a number of long-held stereotypes (most American Mormons are white, well-educated, politically conservative and religiously observant) while providing a few interesting surprises (care for the poor and needy is high on the list of LDS priorities, while drinking coffee and watching R-rated movies aren’t as taboo among the rank and file as you might think).

“While this survey comes amid a contentious election campaign, it is not solely or even chiefly about politics,” said Luis Lugo, Pew Research Center director, in the published survey’s preface. “Rather, we hope that it will contribute to a broader public understanding of Mormons and Mormonism at a time of great interest in both.”

For example, in one very interesting section of the new survey, respondents were asked several questions about what is essential to being a good Mormon. According to the survey, 80 percent said “believing Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ” is essential to being a good Mormon, 73 percent said “working to help the poor,” 51 percent said “regular Family Home Evenings,” 49 percent said “not drinking coffee and tea” and 32 percent said “not watching R-rated movies. Read more

Why Don’t Mormon Women Hold the Priesthood?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called by friends of other faiths, the “Mormon Church”) holds women in the highest respect. The Lord has given worthy male members of the Church, the specific responsibility to administer the priesthood of the Church. Women in the Church are given different responsibilities and callings to serve, teach, and help other members. Below, D. Lauritsen, a Mormon professor, shares an answer as to why Mormon women don’t hold the priesthood:

Why Don’t Mormon Women Hold the Priesthood?

Brief Answer: Though Jesus Christ was the earliest, kindest, and most outspoken proponent and defender of womanhood of whom we have written record (Matthew 15:21–28; John 7:37–50; John 4:6–30; John 8:3–11), he nevertheless did not confer the ecclesiastical responsibilities of the Aaronic or Melchizedek Priesthood on women. He has continued to follow that pattern in his restored Church.

Detailed Answer: Why the Lord established and continues to follow the pattern mentioned above has not been revealed. But if the Lord chooses to change this pattern, his Saints are assured that he will first reveal it through the living prophet, for “surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).

Nevertheless, the Lord has revealed major changes in the role of women in his restored Church, beginning with his establishment of the relief Society on March 17, 1842. With the exception of the grueling years of Church persecution, flight, and relocation, the relief Society has steadily grown in numbers, influence, and accomplishments. Its humble rebirth began in the Utah Territory in 1854 when sixteen women responded to President Brigham young’s exhortation to form a women’s organization to make clothing for Native American women and children. By 1866, the local “Indian relief Society” had become known throughout the Church as relief Society, and by 1880, the organization had units in each of three hundred wards. Read more

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