Text
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…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
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…

View On WordPress
#Against Authenticity#be true to yourself#Elder Gong#General Conference#Jesus Christ#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#Love is Spoken Here#Matthew 16#Psychopath Diary#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
1 note
·
View note
Text
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…
View On WordPress
#Book of Mormon#Early Modern English#Joseph Smith#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#machine learning translation#Modernisation#Scripture#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
0 notes
Text
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…
View On WordPress
#Book of Mormon#ChatGPT#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#Modernisation#Mormon#OpenAI#Scripture#standard works#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
0 notes
Text
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…

View On WordPress
#baby blessing#christening#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#Mormon#name#name and a blessing#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
0 notes
Text
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…
View On WordPress
#D&C 81#Ezekiel 7#feeble knees#hands that hang down#Isaiah 35#Jeremiah 6#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
0 notes
Text
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…
View On WordPress
#Book of Mormon#culture#half the sacrament#Jesus Christ#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#sacrament#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
0 notes
Text
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…

View On WordPress
#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#Mormon#Temple#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints#Tithes#Tithing
0 notes
Text
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,…

View On WordPress
#bible#Book of Mormon#Josiah reckons#KJV#latter-day saint#LDS#machine learning translation#Modernisation#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints#WEB
0 notes
Text
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…

View On WordPress
#Brigham Young#CCNZ#church college of New Zealand#corporal punishment#discipline#Gordon B Hinkley#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#parenting#Patrick Kearon#proverbs 13:24#smacking#spare the rod#spoil the child#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints#the proverbs
0 notes
Text
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…

View On WordPress
#Dieter F Uchtdorf#Elder Uchtdorf#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#Poland#refugee#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints#Uchtdorf#Ukraine#Warsaw#Warsaw branch
0 notes
Text
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…
View On WordPress
#1 Corinthians 3:16-17#1 Corinthians 6:19#body#body is a temple#Dueteronomy 14:1#Gordon B Hinkley#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#Leviticus 19:28#Mormon#print any marks upon you#ta moko#tattoo#tattoo taboo#Temple#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
0 notes
Text
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…
View On WordPress
#Bilhah#birthright#D&C 132#deception#Esau#heel#Issac#Jacob#Jacob and Esau#Joseph Smith#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#Leah#lying for the Lord#polygamy#Rachel#Rebekah#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints#trickster#Zilpah
0 notes
Text
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;…
View On WordPress
#Book of Abraham#Book of Moses#creation#dinosaurs#Enuma Elish#fossils#Genesis#image of God#Joseph Smith Translation#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#LDS#saint school#Sunday school#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints#violence
0 notes
Text
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…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
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,…
View On WordPress
#atonement#blood and sins#blood debt#blood of this generation#Cain and Abel#clean hands#D&C 112#D&C 88#Jesus Christ#Josiah reckons#latter-day saint#Luke 11#pure heart#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
0 notes
Text
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…
View On WordPress
#earthquakes#Italy#Jehovah#Josiah reckons#l&039;Aquila#latter-day saint#Mormon#myth#Scripture#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
0 notes