There's certainly been a lot of buzz over these past few weeks leading up to the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, better known as William and Kate. I've only watched a bit of the coverage but I will confess that I, too, find myself a little intrigued by the glamour and romance surrounding this hopeful fairytale.
What's most interesting about this particular post is, not only has it been read 10 times more than any other post on my blog in 2011, but it's probably the quickest blog post I've ever written. I was spending a week taking care of four of my grandchildren and in between the crazy I was watching coverage of the Royal Wedding. When these thoughts suddenly popped into my head, I just knew I needed to share them on my blog. I think it took me all of 30 minutes to write and publish these insights. Little did I know, that many of you were apparently thinking the same thing! Thanks to LDS Living Magazine for picking up on the post, as it's been a favorite all year long!
Are Mormons offended by the play The Book of Mormon Musical? In a nutshell, yes, most are. And in my opinion we should be. After all, I do believe God would be, too. But my concerns don't stop there... I can't say that these concerns would be classified as being offended, but rather a deep unhappiness with the distorted and misrepresentation of my Mormon faith -- which unfortunately many are being led to believe are accurate.
I'm really grateful that I felt compelled to address The Book of Mormon Musical on my blog, because thankfully when people who are wondering how LDS members feel about the play, Google has a credible search result. This post is particularly busy on the weekends when most people actually see the play. It's also been a great avenue for nonmembers to find a positive Mormon blog and blogger. Thanks to Deseret News for posting such a great article for me to send these curious folks!
This Saturday, September 24, 2011, Mormon women around the globe will gather in various places for the general Relief Society meeting, broadcast live from the LDS Conference Center, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mormon women are encouraged to participate in this meeting from wherever they are. Information about about how to watch or listen can be found at LDS.org - HERE.Oftentimes I feel that the Church does a such a great job of getting this type of general information out, especially as of late, that it's becoming less and less needful that Mormon bloggers help out. The popularity of this post and others like it this past year, have proven to me otherwise. I'll continue to help in this manner and would encourage others to do the same.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that immediately after tweeting the general Relief Society meeting last night, LDS Church News already had up summaries from each of the members of the general presidency: Julie B. Beck, Sylvia H. Allred and Barbara Thompson. Each of these faithful LDS leaders gave inspired and uplifting talks to the women of the Mormon Church.
Another thing I've learned this year, is that not every member is able to watch our conferences in realtime or care to take notes themselves. So this is another important example of how we all need to help share information with each other. It's also emphasized to me just how much we Mormons love hearing the counsel of our leaders.
This is big. I mean this is really reallyBIG! This weekend the unofficial #TwitterStake, who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , will once again gather to tweet and share General Conference -- using the hash tag #LDSConf. And for those of you who don't already know this, these Mormons are very good at what they do!
And if you don't believe me, check out what Deseret News had to say about the efforts of this amazing group of digital missionaries, HERE!No surprise here, but I love helping members share the gospel online! And thanks to Deseret News, LDS Living Magazine and Mormon Times, our team effort helped to get the word out about what many members do online during our General Conferences -- and helped to enlist more to help out!
It would not be an overstatement to say that Mormons, or rather The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has had a BIG year in 2011! From a Mormon blogger's perspective, and as one who tries to keep up with everything 'Mormon', I finally reached a point where I had to say "uncle"! It didn't take long into 2011 before I realized that there was no way that one Well-Behaved Mormon Woman could possibly keep up with it all!
Now this post didn't take long to get into the Top Ten -- considering I wrote it on December 27, 2011! Right from the start it was well received by my own blog readers and was picked up a few days later by Deseret News! It was a really fun post to write and as I said in the post, I could have written a book about all the amazing things that have happened concerning Mormons and Mormonism in 2011!
For many Brandon Flower's fans, finding out that this rock star is a Mormon, may comes as quite a surprise. In fact, Brandon is the latestI'm a Mormon profile at Mormon.org -- along with this inspiring video interview, sure to go viral!
Those of us online who enjoy promoting the LDS Church and helping to share the great social media that the Church creates, knew right away that this I'm A Mormon video was going to be a hit online. Sure glad I decided to post this one, as no doubt it's brought quite a few nonmembers to my blog -- and continues to do so...
Well, this post speaks for itself about my feelings regarding politics, entertainment, and the media. I can't say that I've changed my mind about that, but I will say that the Church has done an excellent job in setting an example for members, and the world, about how we should respond to this type of attention. Like I said in this post about how things have gone in 2011, its generally been a positive. However, I'm not willing to be so naive as to think that "all is well in Zion" -- because 2012 will most likely have much more for us to respond to...
What an exciting day to be here in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah, attending the October 2011 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There were inspired messages presented throughout the day, with much to ponder and find personal application for in our lives. Being a Mormon means following living prophets and apostles. That's an amazing concept for people outside of our faith to wrap their heads around. But we do, and this is what our General Conferences are all about -- hearing and listening to living prophets of God!This Well-Behaved Mormon Woman had the thrill of a lifetime this past General Conference! I had the opportunity, by invitation of LDS Public Affairs, to live tweet from the LDS Conference Center, all four sessions of Conference. This should give you some idea of how important social media has become to the LDS Church. I'm now hooked and will do my best to make it up there for future conferences. I'm already starting to make plans for April General Conference. Besides tweeting each session from the Conference Center, I did my best to follow-up with a blog post for each session. It was an exhausting but exhilarating experience -- filled with the spirit!
As an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I think I have a pretty darn good sense of humor when it comes to being poked at for my "peculiar" beliefs. That being said, I think there are times when people actually mean to cross the line and offend. I think the producers of The Book of Mormon Musical are specifically of this type.
If you've noticed, there are three post in this list of 2011 Top Ten blog posts that have something to do with The Book of Mormon Musical! This tells me that my readers are very interested in what others are saying about Mormons and Mormonism -- and are interested in how we can respond.
Many posts that did not make the 2011 Top Ten Popular Post for A Well Behaved Mormon Woman, but came close, had much to do with how we can better discuss our Mormon beliefs and share the gospel online. I'm very proud of those posts, which are very close to my heart and what I do online. I'll be sharing with you some of my favorites of 2011 in an upcoming post.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have faithfully, not only read my blog in 2011, but have shared it with your friends and family. Currently I have over 1000 subscribers to my blog via my Facebook Page, NetworkedBlogs, Blogger Friend Connect, Google+, email, etc... and I expect to continue reaching out into 2012.
I also want to take this opportunity to publicly thank Deseret News, LDS Living Magazine and Mormon Times for featuring various blog posts of mine throughout this past year. That too, has been a thrill! I love being part of a team that works together, online, to inspire and share our gospel message with others. Needless to say, 2011 has been a great year for this Well-Behaved Mormon Woman! For the most part I've stayed out of trouble and have made some wonderful friends. You might also be interested to know that this blog is also featured on LDS Living Magazine - Mormon Report as a Best of LDS Blogs! Their mission: "Scouring the web for all things Mormon. We sort through it all (so you don't have to) and handpick the best (so you don't miss it)." :)
I think it's important to look back to see what has interested readers most, so that I will know best where to take A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman into the future. I'm excited about the future and what that means to be a Mormon, online -- and how we can better share our beliefs with others, while at the same time strengthening the faith of each other, as members. I feel extremely blessed to have each one of you in my life. To me, this blog is personal, although I don't often write about much of my personal life. However, I may change that up a bit this year, as there's so much I'd like to write about and discuss.
May this New Year be filled with the Lord's choicest blessing for each of you, and your families...
tDMg
Kathryn Skaggs
To Katherine,
ReplyDeleteassuming that this is not a spoof, how did you derive the title of your blog? I don't think you are aware of the stereotypical and connotative baggage associated with that title.
@Nellie --
ReplyDeleteI suppose I am not! Oh dear, I'm assuming that this is NOT a very 'well-behaved' title then?
I took the post topic from a Twitter hashtag that was/is being use to look back at 2011 -- #Rewind2011.
See here:
href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23rewind2011"
Guess I better go do some research, eh?
Thanks for bringing it up though. At least this gave me the chance to respond and let anyone who might be wondering the same as you. ; )
tDMg