SALT LAKE REJECTS NEW WARD BOUNDARIES; ACCUSES STAKE OF GERRYMANDERING

Artist's Rendition of the Proposed Stake Boundaries

Salt Lake City, UT—Mormon Church leadership has rejected proposed ward boundaries in the new South Essex Stake in Essex Massachusetts. The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer has learned that the boundaries have been rejected because of what one source calls “obvious, blatant gerrymandering.”

Among the many irregularities discovered were ward boundaries that actually cut through several homes. When asked to explain why some ward boundaries cut through individual residences, Church leaders were told that “well, sometimes one ward needs the Priesthood holder because he is the center for the ward’s basketball team but the other ward needs the kids for the youth program.”

Even more unusual was the discovery of a ward boundary that cuts right through the bedroom of an apartment. Local leaders explained that “yah, a lovely retired couple lives there, so one ward got the sister because she makes homemade sacrament bread and the other ward got the husband because he’s been in the scouting program for 47 years.” While denying the accusation of “horse-trading” among ward leaders, one source who wants to remain anonymous admitted that “warm, fresh sacrament bread is a fair swap for a descent scout master.”

Church leaders found that another ward had several pockets of ward members inside other wards. When asked to explain that situation, local leaders clarified that “the former stake president has kids throughout the stake, you know, they are a large, established LDS family here in Massachusetts.” They added that the former leader is “afraid either his wife or his children will stop going to church if the whole family can’t go together.” The former stake president’s wife, in a note attached to the boundary documentation, commented that “it is just easier for everyone to come over every Sunday for dinner if we all have church together.”

This is not the first time ward boundaries have been rejected amid allegations of gerrymandering. One source told the Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer of a stake that tried to make a ward that packed together “all of the most out-of-control Primary children” with leadership taken from the stake’s various psychological and criminology experts. Salt Lake explained that “the Lord wants those little bundles-of-energy and opportunities-for-adults-to-learn-patience spread more or less evenly throughout Zion.”

LDS SCIENTISTS DISCOVER LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MISSIONARY MASS

Scientific conclusions made with math like this
but with skinny and fat missionaries

Provo, UT—Scientists at BYU’s Center for Physics, Heath, and Tracting announced this week the discovery of a law governing the total mass of all currently serving missionaries. C-PHaT scientists have proven that, although the mass of some missionaries in places like Brazil might go down, that decrease is balanced by mass gain for missionaries serving in places like the US Mountain West.

“We have proven that the total mass of all combined missionaries is a constant, even though individual missionaries may fluctuate, proving an absolute conservation of missionary mass,” stated Dr. Joyce Floyd, a fellow at C-PHaT. Dr. Floyd added that, “what this proves is that the total mass of missionaries is an eternal constant that can never be created nor destroyed.”

The discoveries Dr. Floyd and her colleagues have made were inspired by observations made in some wards in the eastern United States. In one ward, a sister missionary in Brazil had lost 40 pounds in her first six months. This was of course of interest to C-PHaT scientists, but they also found that, in the same ward, two other missionaries serving in the Mountain West had gained 20 pounds each. Said Dr. Floyd’s colleague, Dr. Drew Brunick, “when we saw this conservation of missionary mass, we had to see if this was an isolated incident or part of God’s unchanging laws of proselyting physics.”

With data from the church via monthly missionary reports, C-PHaT discovered the eternal principle of missionary mass conservation. Dr. Floyd noted that even when some missionaries “finally shed a few pounds at the end, just before they go home,” this loss of mass was countered by the gains in “missionaries who finally got used to all that weird, foreign food, and who even planned on bringing some home.”