josiahreckons

[josiahreckons]

Facial hair is growing on the saints

I recently went to a barber for a haircut and a beardcut. My beard was about the longest it’s ever been. My hair was too. Since the cut, I’ve been getting a lot of second glances or stares from people who recognise me but not quite. Facial hair on men at the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints seems to be a departure from the church’s social norms in the recent past, though. Similar to…

[josiahreckons]

Sabbath Speeches: Authenticity

This talk was delivered in a sacrament meeting in the Summer Hill Ward, in Palmerston North, New Zealand on the 10th of March 2024. ‘To thine own self be true’, is a line from Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. It is spoken by a man giving his son advice. The sentiment has become very popular. Be true to yourself, we say. Intuitively, it feels like a good thing. Sometimes it’s hard to even pin down who…

[josiahreckons]

Modernising the standard works with machine learning (part III): LDSBot

In part II, I used ChatGPT to modernise verses from the LDS standard works. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned GPT-3.5, trained using supervised learning and reinforcement learning. I recently read about LDSBot, an OpenAIAPI project that uses the ChatGPT-4 model. LDSBot is part of the Mormonr project by the B. H. Roberts Foundation. I wanted to see how LDSBot would modernise these…

[josiahreckons]

Modernising the standard works with machine learning (part II): ChatGPT AI

Modernising the standard works with machine learning (part II): ChatGPT AI

In part I, I used KJV and WEB translations of the bible to train a machine-learning translation model to modernise text from the Book of Mormon into WEB-style English. It was the first time I’d made such a model, it wasn’t the most advanced, and the results were promising but not good yet. I plan on working further along this track but, in this post, I operate in lazy-mode by using a pre-trained…

[josiahreckons]

Do babies need a name to be blessed before the church?

Do babies need a name to be blessed before the church?

Yesterday, our fourth daughter was born. We had been thinking about names for a long time. Name discussions over the course of our marriage have revealed surprising cultural disparities. My wife’s Polish background shaped many of her ideas about suitable naming practices. For instance, I think it’s perfectly fine to have multiple middle names but my wife thinks that’s very strange and doesn’t…

[josiahreckons]

Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees

When I was a deacon, I sometimes passed the sacrament to older people whose hands trembled so much that they regularly spilled their water. Then as a teacher, I would only fill the tiny sacrament cups halfway, to try and make it easier for them, but it only helped a little. Deterioration of hand function in the elderly is a result of many factors (worn joints, less muscle, changes in neural…

[josiahreckons]

Taking half the sacrament

We were late for church on Sunday. We use public transport, and there is no direct route to church. Our bus was running late and we missed the tram we planned to catch. The next tram was half an hour later, and we arrived at church during the sacrament. We heard the prayer blessing the water, after which a man with a sacrament tray in his hand approached us in the corridor. I hesitated. Are we…

[josiahreckons]

Will a man rob God? Tithing and temples

Tithing hasn’t been an especially challenging issue for me personally. I can see tithing serves a function. It costs money to run a church. I participate in the church, and although 10% is a lot, I feel ok contributing. I’m used to it, I guess, and I’ve never had to choose between tithing and rent or anything like that. I can’t remember ever having a spiritual confirmation of the principle of…

[josiahreckons]

Modernising the standard works with machine learning (part I)

Modernising the standard works with machine learning (part I)

When I watched “The District” in the Provo MTC in 2008, a missionary approached a man who spoke very positively about the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. It sounded like he thought it was the only version of the bible worth reading and made LDS use of the KJV seem like an attractive feature of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, as soon as I entered the mission field,…

[josiahreckons]

Spare the rod

“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” (Proverbs 13:24). I once read that this verse didn’t refer to disciplining a child by hitting them with a rod, but rather firmly guiding them with something more like a shepherd’s crook or an authoritative scepter. This idea is appealing to me because I don’t want scripture that teaches child abuse and the…

[josiahreckons]

The Uchtdorfs visit Warsaw branch

The Uchtdorfs visit Warsaw branch

On Sunday (10th April), Elder and Sister Uchdorf visited our branch in Warsaw, Poland. I’d never attended a sacrament meeting with an apostle present, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was all pretty normal, though. We started with a hymn I didn’t know: Niech będzie wola Twa (Thy Will, O Lord, Be Done). Cellphones interrupted us during the sacrament five times (one of which played a ringtone…

[josiahreckons]

Ye shall not print any marks upon you

Tā moko are culturally significant Māori tattoos. They are traditionally considered tapu (sort of like sacred), and the act of tattooing (also called tā moko) follows strict protocols like a rite or ceremony does. While Māori didn’t have a written language, it’s understood that tā moko would symbolically represent a person’s heritage, tribe, social standing, history etc. Tā moko began to be less…

[josiahreckons]

Jacob was a heel

Jacob was a heel

The name Jacob comes from the Hebrew name Ya’aqov (יַעֲקֹב‎), which may mean to supplant, or deceive, or could mean heel. Heel didn’t mean a contemptible person in Hebrew, but that’s what I sometime think of when I read about Jacob’s lack of compassion, his lies, and his favouritism. I’ve sometimes heard people try to justify Jacob’s immoral actions. I can understand this. We often overlook the…

[josiahreckons]

Saint School - Use your words

Saint School – Use your words

Occasionally, when a regular Sunday School teacher in the Warsaw branch is away, I might take their class. When I have enough time to prepare, I might post my lesson plans on Josiah Reckons as Saint School. This blog post is a lesson I planned to teach the youth class on the 16th of January 2022. It’s probably too long. The assigned scriptures in Come Follow Me for this Sunday were Genesis 3–4;…

[josiahreckons]

Sabbath Speeches: Important truths of the gospel

This is a talk I would have given today in sacrament meeting but I was sick. The assigned topic was “Important truths of the gospel that I have learned during my ‘Come, Follow Me’ study this year”. I refer to some things covered in previous posts (here and here) this year, but this was the Sunday before Christmas, so naturally, I had to make it a bit about Christmas. Good morning brothers and…

[josiahreckons]

Clean from the blood of this wicked generation

Clean from the blood of this wicked generation

In my experience, the opposite of cleanliness is most often described as dirty. If someone’s hands have dirt on them, they are unclean and unsanitary. Clothes also get dirty, and need to be washed to be clean. Even if it’s not dirt, people sometimes describe it as dirty. Anything with something unpleasant or undesirable on it or in it might be described as dirty. If something is covered in soot,…

[josiahreckons]

Earthquakes in scripture

The sky was a weird greyish colour, because of the dust blowing over from the Sahara. I was tired after travelling all day (two flights and a bus ride) to L’Aquila, Italy, and I began the 20 minute walk to a B&B. Signs of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake were still apparent. Many buildings showed extensive damage, and were out of use. As I approached where I expected to find the B&B, the number of…