Brownie Cake
The season for delicious goodness has finally arrived, and I am sure we are all anxious to indulge. I’m still on a family history kick, so I couldn’t help but post a family recipe from my dear great aunt who is fighting a brain tumor …
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Wedding Wednesday: To Register or Not to Register?
The time just keeps flying by. I can’t believe it, but only a month from today I will be getting married! We have gotten a lot more wedding things done which is a huge relief. Just last week my fiancée and I sent out a …
Family: Staying Connected
Whenever I take my friends home to visit my family, one of the first responses I get is that of surprise, usually followed by the words, “Your family is really close!” To that statement, I whole-heartedly agree! I am the second youngest of six children, four of which are married and have children of their own. From the oldest sibling down to the youngest sibling there is an age gap of fifteen years. Many of us are hundreds of miles away from each other, but even now, we are closer than ever.
Ever since my oldest sister went off to college, my parents have made it their mission to make sure we stay together, no matter the age, distance, or obstacles that may be between us. Being a close-knit family requires a bit of flexibility and creativity, but it is absolutely worth it. Seeing the different ways that my family has decided to stay close to one another has me itching to share, so I decided to write down some of my family’s favorite ways to stay connected.
The Texting Chain For years we have had an ongoing texting chain between each member of the family. We share thoughts, pictures, jokes, stories, and encouraging notes with one another all throughout the week. Because of our texting chain, we are constantly being updated on everyone’s lives and can share in each other’s joys, and help encourage each other in difficult times.
G chats Every Sunday we have all set aside a time that we can hop online talk to each other face to face. It is like we are all in the same room! We have spent countless hours wiping away tears after laughing way too hard. We also set apart a time to have everyone tell about the best part of the week. This not only keeps everyone updated, but it unifies us in our love for one another.
Traditions We Look Forward to All Year Long Traditions can be one of the most unifying aspects of a family. One of our traditions just happens to be making movies. A few years ago, my brothers and I decided to put together a movie during our Christmas break. We started out jotting down ideas for a plot including zombies and an apocalypse, and before we knew it our ideas had exploded into a full-blown theatrical production created in iMovie. Ever since that year, the entire family brings their talents, skills and creativity to the table to create the year’s Christmas movie. And when it’s done, we start planning next year’s movie.
There are so many ways to keep connected, no matter the distances that may separate family members. Now, I’m not saying that you have to make yearly movies in order to stay close, but rather, find something that your family can all contribute their strengths to and watch how such a simple act can bring a family together!
By Jessica Porter
Pinterest Win: Hearty Chicken Stew with Butternut Squash and Quinoa
This is a recipe I’ve seen pinned fairly often, and to be honest, the main reason I want to share it with you is because it is DELICIOUS. It’s perfect for fall (and pretty much any other time) and the ingredients aren’t too crazy. The …
4 Tips to Stress Less
Serving a Mission I recently returned home from a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On a mission, one is constantly on the go. There is always something that can or should be done, and there are always people to see …
Interstellar Movie Review
Introduction
Interstellar, Christopher Nolan’s newest film starring Anne Hathaway, Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, and Michael Caine, is a film fundamentally about family.
Sure, it’s a sprawling science-fiction epic about the survival of humanity that transcends space and time, but at its core, Interstellar is about a father and his daughter, and to a lesser extent, his son. The case could be made that it’s about two fathers and their respective daughters in fact.
Thoughts
The film suffers from Christopher Nolan’s tendency to be over-ambitious (functioning almost like three distinct hour-long vignettes spliced together). However, the emotional, familial core of the film brings the different strands together, uniting the myriad of themes, questions, and characters.
McConaughey’s character leaves Earth to try and save the human race, promising his daughter, Murphy, that he will return. The most tender and heart-breaking moments are those shared by McConaughey and Chastain, who plays adult Murphy. Their connection drives the plot and works because of phenomenal acting by both Chastain and McConaughey.
The film questions the worth of individuals, asking whether saving those you love matters more than saving all of humanity. The bonds of love, romantic and familial, are explored and have a key role to play in the resolution of the film.
A beautiful sequence towards the end of the film illustrates the transcendent nature of familial love, connecting individuals across divides of space and time. While the film is agnostic about God (and could be construed in some sense as anti-theistic), this sequence is of particular beauty and importance to Latter-day Saints.
The family relationships play a key part in the resolution (which was a bit too neat for my taste), illustrating the importance of family. This unification of family across time and space resonates strongly with many value systems and LDS theology in particular. The visualization of the ideas is thought-provoking and gives some interesting insight into the connection between the living and the dead, as well as potentially how God views the world.
Conclusion
Despite its flaws, Interstellar is a thought-provoking, well-crafted, well-acted piece of filmmaking. The centrality of family and human connection to the plot and thematic questions creates a film that has an emotional punch, touching threads close to many of us.
Written by Conor Hilton
Pumpkin Cookies
The cold season is finally deciding to settle in, and that means it’s time to break out the cider, hot cocoa, and . . . pumpkin cookies! Normally I make my pumpkin cookies with a box of spice cake, but I decided to venture out …
Wedding Wednesday: Meeting The In-Laws
In exactly a month and sixteen days my fiancée and I will be walking through the doors of the Salt Lake Temple together. I am so excited and can’t believe how fast time is flying by, although it still isn’t coming soon enough! Nothing major …
Polygamy: What is Family?
Polygamy & The Church
Recently on the Church’s website, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released an article, providing updated information regarding polygamy and the practice of it throughout early Church history.
Polygamy is a radically different understanding of the family than frequently espoused in current Mormon ideology. When polygamy was practiced, a family potentially involved a man, multiple women (who may or may not have had other husbands), and children.
Questions
As members of the Church living in this dispensation, we must face the following pressing questions. For example:
- What is a family?
- How do we understand the idea of family?
- Have we unnecessarily restricted our idea of what makes up a family?
- Is a family limited to a husband and wife with children?
- What does it mean for our interactions as a community that the definition of “family” has changed throughout Church history?
- Do we gain something by accepting different ideas of what constitutes a family?
Perhaps the most important question is the following:
- How should we respond to the former practice of polygamy?
3 Lessons to Learn
Unfortunately, I do not have a satisfactory answer to these questions. However, I can provide some possible lessons to learn from polygamy, regardless of whether I understand or like the practice.
- The family and community are central to the Gospel. This concept may take different forms, but the fascination with relationships, in many varied forms, illustrates the importance of building connections.
- Polygamy helped establish Mormons as a peculiar people. Since polygamy was outside the norm, this practice firmly established Mormons as peculiar and forced a sense of community.
- Polygamy functioned as a sort of Abrahamic sacrifice. This sacrifice allowed people to bind together, recognizing the shared cost to the community.
Now, these three lessons are not one hundred percent positive. It’s possible (and not necessarily wrong) to see the aspects of polygamy that led to these three positive lessons in a negative light. Again, I do not understand the practice of polygamy.
Conclusion
Without a doubt, the practice of polygamy is difficult to understand, particularly within a modern context. Much of what happened is unclear and unexplained, complicating our conception of what occurred. Despite these problems and my inability to personally understand the necessity of polygamy, I better appreciate the value of family and community, by striving to make sense of the past.
By Conor Hilton
Pinterest Win! One Pot Zucchini Mushroom Pasta
If you’re like me, which is to say, addicted to Pinterest, then I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of the same recipes floating around. Certain recipes get pinned hundreds of thousands of times. But I want to know, do they actually work? Or is it …