Why Women won't ever be priesthood holders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

There's a new group of Mormon "Feminists" in the 21st 

Century -- "Ordain Women."

(The late 20^th Century Mormon Feminists were excommunicated.)

The very title of this group runs counter to Church doctrine and teachings. 

Here’s why these women (or any women) will not EVER be receiving the priesthood in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

1.  There are none, zero, revelations from Mother in Heaven. Why? Because, at least in the Telestial World sense, that’s not her role.

So, why does the Ordain Women group not understand that? 
This is about eternal roles and you simply can’t argue against the eternal nature of things.

2.  The fact the Ordain Women group exists proves that they and some church members have been too affected, too tainted by worldly views.
 While a woman today could be the President of the United States, she can’t be a priesthood holder. Again, this is NOT about equality – this is about eternal roles that have been divinely set and can't be changed.

The Ordain Women members also need to ask themselves why God is going to want to grant them eternal life when they are apparently not satisfied with their eternal role as a mother.

   My wife wonders why I'm so concerned about this issue. The 'why' is because this is a worldly fad trying to infect the Church. 

The world says men and women are the same and can interchange family roles. The world says women can-- and should -- do anything men can do.

 The Gospel says men and women have different roles. There are already too many young mothers working full-time, who probably don’t financially need to be, but do so because the world says it is OK.

This Ordain Women effort is yet another role-breaking contamination by the world.

3.  The Church is a theocracy, NOT a democracy. You don’t protest and lobby the Church, as you do a worldly group. God leads the church. These women seem to think that because other churches have given women their “priesthood,” that the LDS Church would and should do the same.

4.  It is doctrine, not policy that women do not hold the priesthood. Doctrine CANNOT be changed, or the entire Gospel is void. 
Joseph Smith revised 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 in his Inspired Translation to state that women are not permitted to "rule" (hold the priesthood)  in the church (revised from "speak" in the church). 

   Verse 35 also states it would be a shame if women were to rule in the church.
That's what these priesthood seeking Women are in Biblical terms, a shame.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks said at April 2014 General Conference that Church leaders "are not free to alter the divinely decreed pattern that only men will hold offices in the priesthood."

  Black men, until 1978, did not hold the priesthood, because of church policy. And, policy can change.

(It is an apples to oranges comparison to try and equate Blacks and the priesthood to women and the priesthood.)

These priesthood-seeking women also point to the fact that some sisters in Joseph Smith's time did blessings for the sick. Yes, they did blessings, but not because they held the priesthood or used the priesthood authority. These blessings were done by faith.That's a key difference.

  Women have the promise of power and authority in the eternities, based on the Temple Endowment ceremony. However, it is clear to see that this is NOT a Telestial world blessing, but for the eternities. 
And, as was previously mentioned, Mother in Heaven still does not give revelation or direct the church in a Telestial world. That’s not her role.
So, anyone who joins or supports efforts for women to try and hold the LDS Priesthood are surely lacking in their understanding of eternal principles.

FINALLY, These women may claim to be faithful and active, but their actions speak otherwise.

How do they plan to talk their way out of No. 7 of the Temple Recommend interview questions?

“Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?”

Ordain Women's title and teachings are definitely contrary to church doctrine and oppose church teachings. 

Cody Craynor, Church Spokesman, called "Ordain Women" an activist group "whose demands are inconsistent with church teachings and doctrine," in a May 27, 2014 Salt Lake Tribune story.

These women are usually characterized as "devout Mormons" by the media, but if you define "devout" as Temple Recommend holders, these women, because they fail at question No. 7, can't, or should not have a Temple Recommend.

Plus, Ordain Women's lobbying detracts from the Gospel's message and creates chaos and bad P.R. for the church. In fact, for April 2014 General Conference, the only aspect of Conference that gained national media exposure was Ordain Women's efforts.
Thus, these so-called devout women's church membership status are likely on thin ice now...

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.

Whatever Happened to J. Golden Kimball?

                             One of the popular books on J. Golden Kimball.


He was a legend ...
Elder J. Golden Kimball was without a doubt the most colorful of Church General Authorities ever.
His startling language and straight-forward approach has led to many a great story and a fleet of books.
However, few seem to know what ever happened to J. Golden.
He actually died in a traffic accident on  Sept. 2, 1938, 35 miles east of Reno, Nev.
Elder Kimball, 85, had been visiting his daughter, who lived in Reno, and was returning.
Kimball's son-in-law was driving the vehicle and lost control when he approached a detour sign.
Some others in the vehicle had broken bones, but Elder Kimball was the only casualty.
In that era, ambulances didn't run.
It was a passing Greyhound bus that transported the injured to a Reno hospital.
However, Kimball's body was left at the 6:15 a.m. accident scene until early afternoon, pending an investigation.

The First Presidency of the Church stated on the day of his passing:
"We are deeply shocked with the tragic passing of President J. Golden Kimball. He was a straight-talking, stalwart defender of the Gospel. He did valiant work. He will be greatly missed. We mourn with the family in their heavy loss."

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

General Conference Broadcasts Not Exactly 'Live,' Thanks to High Tech

Newer technology, like mountain top electronics, actually slows down broadcasts slightly.

You may notice this most if you have an older television airing LDS General Conference in a separate room from your newer TV ...

There's a noticeable delay of a few seconds in the newer TVs, vs. the older ones.

Conference listeners to radio will find and even greater delay -- 8 seconds or more.

And, Internet watchers of conference may actually be watching up to a three-minute delay of conference.

What is truly live these days?

The live or real-time broadcasts of LDS general conference aren't truly live or real-time. The only place to experience the conference literally as it happens is inside the Conference Center in Salt Lake City.

That's because the quirks of broadcasting and the Internet create noticeable delays, ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes.

That might seem odd, in this age of high-tech gadgets and available media, when many expect speed-of-light delivery.

However, tune both a radio and a TV at your house to conference and you will have different delays.

In fact, if you have a radio on in one room and a TV on in another nearby room, the disparity in the timing of the broadcasts will be distracting, as TV and radio broadcasts are some six seconds apart.

In the 21st century, so-called "live" TV and radio broadcasts are actually slower than ever.

The delays in modern broadcasting have nothing to do with creating some time to censor objectionable content from a live event at the last second.

"The short answer is digital broadcasting," said John Dehnel, chief engineer for Deseret Media Company Radio, which includes KSL-AM/FM, KSFI, KRSP and the BYU Radio Network. "It takes some time to encode the audio to digital."

Basically, that means the fastest broadcast these days is high-definition television, with only two seconds of delay from the source.

High-definition radio has about an eight-second delay.

"The longer delay for radio is in part a deliberate attempt to make HD robust in a mobile environment so that the audio can be buffered in the receiver and not drop out if there is a momentary loss of signal," Dehnel said. "In analog, it might fade or get static, but in digital it's either perfect or it does not work at all."

If you don't think HD radio's delay is long enough, there's a huge delay for the streaming signal over the Internet for general conference — 2½ to three minutes of lapse.

"There is approximately a three-minute delay between the television broadcast and the Internet streaming versions of general conference," said Cody Craynor, a spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "The delay is due to file conversion necessary to stream conference proceedings over the Internet."

So, it all boils down to a slower but clearer signal in the 21st century.

It turns out even the Nauvoo Bell ring on KSL Radio isn't live anymore, because of that technical delay in the HD signal.

"In order to make sure it rings exactly at the top-of-the-hour second, we now play a recording of the bell controlled by a GPS clock instead of putting the live line from Temple Square on the air as we used to," Dehnel said.

(-Adapted from a Deseret News article by Lynn Arave, on Oct. 1, 2010.)

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There's a 'Mormon Point' in Death Valley

DEATH VALLEY, Calif. — Amid one of the hottest, driest and lowest-elevation places on the surface of the earth is a surprising, yet puzzling, reference to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mormon Point is one of the key, signed locations within the south end of Death Valley National Park, a place famous for its high temperatures (120 degrees-plus is common in the summer, and an all-time high of 134 degrees was recorded on July 10, 1913).

About 16 miles south of Badwater (the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level) and on the east side of Death Valley, the words "Mormon Point" appear on a sign along the Badwater Highway through the national park.

Where did the Mormon name originate from?

Most sources say it is unknown, but "Chronology and Names of the Death Valley Region in California, 1849-1949," by T.S. Palmer, published in 1989, does claim a beginning.

"So named from the early Mormon explorers," the book reads.

Since early Death Valley history is full of references to Mormon explorers/travelers, that seems very likely. Also, travelers into the early part of the 20th century did not follow today's I-15 route into California, traveling more northward seeking water sources. This route took some toward the southern edge of Death Valley.

The first map reference to Mormon Point was in 1910.

Into the 1990s, the prominent road sign was misspelled "Morman Point" for many years until the Park Service finally got it corrected.

Wildflowers in spring are very prominent in the Mormon Point area. Desert bighorn sheep can sometimes be spotted nearby.

Only Death Valley visitors who enter or leave the national park via Jubilee Pass and the town of Shoshone are likely to ever see Mormon Point. Most visitors to Death Valley never travel south of Badwater.

Mormon Point is actually a large promontory, or cape, of the Black Mountain Range, where there are ash beds, mudstone and conglomerate rocks formed some 12,000 to 2.5 million years ago during the early and middle Pleistocene geological epoch (covering the world's recent period of repeated glacial cycles). The area is located at about sea level.

Various geological websites also refer to the Mormon Point "turtleback," a term used to describe range front features created by undulations (wave motions) along exposed surfaces of large, young fault escarpments.

Because precipitation is extra low in Death Valley, erosion has not completely eroded the turtleback formation.

Lane Manly, an ancient freshwater lake that was up to 800 feet deep in its heyday, used to exist southeast of Mormon Point, inside Death Valley.

Gold Valley is just east of Mormon Point. Colorfully named Funeral Peak (elevation 6,384), Coffin Peak (5,503) and Deadman Pass (3,263) are all found just northeast of Mormon Point, too.

(-Originally published in the Deseret News, May 13, 2010, by Lynn Arave.)

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

When General Priesthood Meeting Featured Innings in the Tabernacle ...

When was General Priesthood Meeting not like any other General Priesthood Meeting?

On the evening of Saturday, Oct. 5, 1930, in the middle of a General Priesthood meeting talk by LDS Church President Heber J. Grant, the wrong flip of a KSL Radio studio switch caused havoc.

The network radio line feed of the World Series instantly replaced President Grant over the Tabernacle sound system, going to some 6,000 priesthood holders.

That particular World Series featured Philadelphia vs. St. Louis and St. Louis won the game that evening, 3-1.

(However, Philly eventually won the title in the series, 4 games to 2. Note too that Philly moved to and became Kansas City in 1955.)

The startling baseball broadcast continued for eight minutes while Sylvester Q. Cannon, Presiding Bishop of the Church, raced from the Tabernacle to KSL to get the problem fixed.

In those days, KSL was located atop the Deseret News Building in the former Union Pacific Building on the southwest corner of Main Street and South Temple.

KSL Radio head engineer John Dehnel confirmed that the incident is not folklore - it did take place. Records are spotty on the event though. Some past historical articles have only briefly mentioned the event and have erroneously stated it happened in the 1920s during General Conference.

There's simply a lack of information on the incident because KSL Radio was embarrassed by it. For some reason neither the Deseret News nor the Salt Lake Tribune reported on the mishap afterward either.

Dehnel has some of the only information on the event.

He believes KSL was using some special speakers on Main Street to broadcast the World Series to the public when somehow that alternate feed accidentally got switched into the tabernacle, too.

It had to have happened during General Priesthood session, because Dehnel said that's the only time when KSL would have been airing something different than General Conference.

The first World Series action, between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Athletics, to air instead of priesthood meeting involved a close steal of second base.

(By the way, Philadelphia ended up winning the 1930 World Series, 4 games to 2.)

Dehnel said KSL's limited records also indicate that church leaders were quite amused by the accident.

Finding someone who actually remembers the conference-baseball mix-up is difficult since someone would have to be in their late 80s or older to have any chance of remembering the occurrence.

The oldest living General Authority I could find at the time, Elder David B. Haight, 92 in 1998, of the Quorum of the Twelve was living in Berkley, Calif., during 1930 and said he didn't personally hear General Priesthood meeting. Still, he had heard about the incident and acknowledged it really happened. However, he stressed it was a mistake.

Ironically, President Grant's opening General Conference address on Friday, Oct. 3, 1930, had lauded the advent of modern technology. He made reference to how amazing it was that several church members in New Zealand had written him recently about hearing KSL loud and clear. Also, President Grant had made the first-ever broadcast on AM-1160 eight years earlier - on May 6, 1922.

The first LDS Conference radio broadcast had taken place just six years earlier in October of 1924, just two years after KSL (named "KZN" for its first 18 months) originated.

-Further irony is how many General Priesthood attenders today would still be checking their mobile devices for updates -- during the meeting --  if a World Series Game conflicts with that meeting now? ....

(-Adapted from the Deseret News, a Sept. 26, 1998 article and research by Lynn Arave.)

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Was Elvis Almost a Church Member?

Was Elvis Presley almost a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)?

Did an archived Book of Mormon in the Church History Building once belong to the king of rock 'n' roll?

A Book of Mormon — possibly Elvis Presley's personal copy, reputed to have been in his room when he died — is contained in the archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And, a 2007 movie, "Tears of  A King: The Latter-Days of Elvis Presley, The King of Rock N Roll meets The King of Kings," was .filmed in Utah and was inspired by that archived Book of Mormon and the story behind it.

The background story goes like this:

                              A Book of Mormon similar to what Elvis may have had.

The Book of Mormon was given to the LDS Church by members of the Osmond family, who received it from a woman named Cricket Butler. Butler, a friend of Elvis, gave the Book of Mormon to him in the months preceding his death. The book was subsequently returned to Butler by Elvis' father, Vernon, two days after Elvis' death.

 "It is well known that Elvis Presley was a devout Christian who had deep religious convictions despite his personal weaknesses and struggles with a Hollywood lifestyle that was thrust upon him at an early age," Robert Starling, associate producer of "The Tears of A King movie" stated back in 2006.  "What is lesser known is that he reportedly met on several occasions with missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that he studied carefully the Book of Mormon."

The movie crew videotaped an interview with Bobby Kauo, who gave the LDS Church missionary discussions to Elvis when Presley was in Hawaii to film "Paradise Hawaiian Style."

Genuine or fake?

Ken Sanders, who owns Ken Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City, said back in 2006 the Elvis book could easily be worth $5,000 to $10,000, if it is indeed authentic. That's pretty good for a soft-cover Book of Mormon of that period, generally worth $5 to $6.

He said $100,000 is the most any early Book of Mormon has been worth to date. However, Sanders said he remains skeptical the book was truly Elvis'.

"All my initial instincts are it's a forgery," he said, after examining four pictures showing pages from the book.

Sanders' philosophy is a book is a fake until proven genuine. 

Grant A. Anderson, church history specialist in the LDS Archives, confirmed in 2006 that the archives do have a book reputed to be Elvis Presley's, a 1976 edition common in its day.

"All we know is what has been told to us," Anderson said. He stressed that the book's history of transfer looks consistent and logical, but the church has conducted no handwriting tests on it.

Anderson said the church has copies of early Book of Mormon editions, but it is not common to have celebrity-owned copies like this.

Alan Osmond told the Deseret News in an e-mail back in 2006 that he did receive the Elvis Book of Mormon from Cricket Butler.

"I interviewed her on cassette tape, had her sign a letter of authenticity and saw pictures of her with Elvis. She said Elvis had talked about the Osmonds and would have wanted us to have it. We had a private barbecue scheduled by Elvis at his house a couple of weeks after he died. We also knew him, met him, conversed with him and have had personal conversations with him."

Regarding the Book of Mormon's transfer to the church, Osmond said: "I did give the book to the LDS Church via my wife's cousin, Elder Rex Pinegar (now an emeritus member of the Seventy). This was for safety's sake, to protect Elvis' privacy, and to preserve the sacredness of this book! Several people that knew I had it were too anxious to see it and touch it. So I put it in a very safe place — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (archives)."

(Alan's brother, Donny Osmond, told the Deseret News during a 2010 interview that he had personally inspected the "Elvis Book of Mormon" and also believed it to be genuine.)

Former Salt Lake City police forensics expert George Throckmorton said he understands there may actually be two separate "Elvis Books of Mormon" out there.

Elvis may have also received a Book of Mormon from the late Ed Parker, who was his karate instructor and bodyguard.

-So, the jury may always be out on this, but it is intriguing nevertheless.

(-Expanded/Updated from a Deseret News Article on Oct. 2, 2006 by Lynn Arave.)

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.