Meet our newest voice, Anneke Garcia. We are happy to say she will be joining us throughout the season with a new perspective on headlines in the news. Anneke is an instructional designer currently based in Salt Lake City and a mom of two boys.  

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It was the picture that shattered all of our records.

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Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, and the older I get the more this increases. It’s a time when it just seems a little easier to focus on happy thoughts, family, loving our fellow human beings, and, for those of us who are Christians, the Savior.

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12 Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

1 Timothy 4:12

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can depend on left-leaning members to draw a growing demographic, which would otherwise be repulsed by organized religion, to learn about and even accept the Restored Gospel.

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This “Voices” feature was written by Tanisha W. 

I have been in the Church since I was two years old. I have gone through primary, the young women's program, and seminary and truly Love Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ.

I have thrived in the church despite various ups and downs but ran into a roadblock when my stake decided to form a "student" ward which, rapidly turned into a "singles" ward. The challenge that I faced there, in adjusting and feeling at home compacted when my father passed away in 2006. I began struggling more than ever with identity and felt a loneliness and emptiness as I tried to make sense of life.

I made the mistake of quitting too many of the activities that I had been involved in, in other aspects of my life, and found myself socially and emotionally dependent on this singles ward setting. I became incredibly depressed and the only message I was hearing on a consistent basis in church was about marriage. I grasped onto any message of the Savior and clung to it, but those messages didn't come often enough. I began to have panic attacks and on one Sunday after Sacrament Meeting I was stopped by an older man that told me how as a child, he was jealous of black babies because he believed they were breast-fed chocolate milk. The turmoil in my spirit escalated and I froze, not knowing what to say. I did not need this added attack on my body image.

I've since been able to return to my home ward where I felt a much greater peace as I enjoyed serving in the primary. But as I have come out of my depression I've begun seeing how much of what I was feeling the whole time, was race-related.

The singles ward after sacrament was somewhat of a meat-market with flirting and chatting among the majority of the young adults looking for dates. This didn't appeal to me at all in the first place, as that is not the place that I am at in my life right now. Then I began to realize that even if I were interested in dating, there was no one in my area to even talk to with the same ethnic heritage as me. Increasingly I realized how many "what-if" scenarios existed. I realized that the culture of the church is one that is not really welcoming to people of African descent, particularly not African-Americans.

I am 28 now and have steadily been searching information on blacks in the church, and see that I am not alone in how I feel.  I have found the Black LDS Facebook Group where church members of African-descent along with members of other backgrounds can discuss the gospel as well as the various experiences that we have gone through.  I have also discovered the Genesis Group, an organization that the church formed in 1971, in order to further fellowship African-American saints.  I have found these treasures and many more.  I have been greatly blessed by the information that I have found and look forward to what the Lord has in store.

-Tanisha Waggoner
~ Aspiring Game Designer and Entrepreneur
Hana o sakaseyou!

If you haven't heard it yet, there is a new event on facebook that is gathering some steam. It's the radical idea that people should ask the church leadership why women can't pray in general conference and/or to ask that this change. The event can be found here.

Now some of you might be surprised to realize that a woman has never said a prayer at General Conference. Some of you might think that it is bad to contact church leaders about changes to policy/practice. Well, whatever your reaction, you're certainly not alone. There are already comments pouring in. Thus far some of the vitriolic comments towards anyone who would dare to write a church leader about changing a policy looks like it might be on track to match the vitriol from the Wear Pants to Church event. I wanted to try to hit some of the primary complaints I've seen from people against this idea.

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Jeremy Robinson shares his journey on the issue of marriage equality, which he titled: "Who Is My Neighbor? A Straight Mormon's perspective on Same Sex Marriage"  

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Welcome to those of you visiting after reading Rob's guest post on Modern Mormon Men.  MMM.com approached us to participate in an online discussion describing why our candidate, President  Obama, is the right choice for us Latter-day Saints.   Additionally, we offer this website and its accompanying Facebook group as supplemental material to Rob's MMM piece, the Case for Barack Obama.  MMM also includes Romney CTR's case for Governor Romney.

A little about us: we are not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nor the 2012 Obama Presidential Campaign.  However, we are Mormons, and we are for President Barack Obama.  We created this website in order to represent the unique perspective of Mormons who are voting for Obama.  We are all active and believing Latter-day Saints in Washington State, Florida, Utah and Washington DC.  We are not necessarily Republicans or Democrats, and we are not anti-Mitt Romney, but we are united behind President Obama as he seeks his second term.   Let us know what you think and thank you for visiting!

Much will be said today on the 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. Many will stop and reflect on how the attacks changed individual lives and how they altered world politics and policies. I had some particularly mormon thoughts today as I compared the two most significant events on 9/11 for American Mormons, 9/11/2001 and 9/11/1857.

 

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