Promises of Eternity

"The more people come to know us, the better they will understand us... We're a little different. We don't smoke. We don't drink. We do things in a little different way. That's not dishonorable. I believe that's to our credit."
--Gordon B. Hinckley, in an interview with The Associated Press in late 2005

Well, depends on which circles you run in, but yeah, I guess that's true.

I owe a huge debt to Gordon B. Hinckley. Because, without him, the Mormon church probably wouldn't have grown as it has in the past 12 years. Without that growth, PBS would probably have not dedicated two nights to a documentary about the Mormon church. Without that documentary, my friends and I would not have conceived the greatest drinking game. Ever.

Every time someone says "Joseph Smith," you take a drink. Which gets tough for quotes like this one:
"It's unfair in part because you really can't blame Joseph Smith for what a man like Warren Jeffs does abusing a 14-year-old girl almost two centuries after Smith himself died. There is no direct connection between these people and Joseph Smith. Blaming Smith in particular or Mormonism in general for ongoing Fundamentalist polygamists is like blaming Karl Marx for communist China."

And by the time she gets to communist China, you're too buzzed to grasp her point.

But the best part comes from a sweet former drug addict:
"They came in and told me the most preposterous story I have ever heard in my life: about this white boy, a dead angel and some gold plates. And I thought, I wonder what they're on?"
Why I Am A Mormon [PBS]

So, really, my tie to Hinckley has nothing to do with his warm personality, or his changes within the church. Neigh, his expanding the church as if they were Wal-Marts warranted the attention of PBS and for that, I spend most of the summer talking about "the most preposterous story I have ever heard in my life."

I think you are an alien being
This excerpt from The Trail was particularly telling to me:
"At a photo-op in front of a Texaco gas station here, scheduled so Romney could blast rival John McCain's proposal for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, Romney addressed his relationship with Gordon B. Hinckley, the Mormon church's president who died yesterday of natural cases at age 97. Romney called Hinckley 'one of the great leaders in our faith.'"
Romney, Remembering Gordon Hinckley [The Trail on WashingtonPost.com]

A "great leader" whose death spells the end of your avoidance of your Mormonism in public. At a time when you'd want the evangelicals to forget about that.

Survey question
If you lived a life without smoking, caffeine and alcohol, which part would be the hardest?

For me, it would be caffeine. I do enjoy alcohol, but I've been able to go a while without it. But I was able to do that because I had a bunch of Cokes and coffees. No coffee and I fade away like Yoda.