RECOVERING PORN ADDICT ALMOST DOESN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH SO MUCH FREE TIME

David Winters now feels like
Robert Young from Father Knows Best

KEMP, TX—David Winters, recovering pornography addict, reported this week that he almost doesn’t know what to do with all of his free time.  Winters said that “last Saturday, in the time that I would have been ‘at the office getting things done,’ my old lie to cover a porn binge, I reorganized the garage, overseeded the lawn, took my three children to play laser tag, and whipped up a lobster bisque with homemade sourdough rolls for dinner.  I cannot believe how much free time I have now.”

According to Winters, that sort of productivity has been more or less typical of the 9 months he has spent actively recovering from his pornography addiction, a recovery facilitated with therapy, study, prayer, and participation in the church’s Addiction Recovery Program.

“I feel bad,” commented Winters, “for those that are just starting out.  They still have that tired, empty, and frightened look that I had when I was still spending hours looking for cheap thrills in videos of naked dental hygienists.”   

Winters’ newfound free time has also allowed him to pursue old pastimes.  He reported that he recently finished all of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky’s major writings in the original Russian.  On this topic, Winters explained, “yah, I hadn’t really used my Russian since my mission (to Moscow), but I still spent less time on Crime and Punishment then I would have spent on the internet looking for pictures of sexy Bolivian postal workers.”  Winters added, “I think I’ll read Chekov and Akhmatova next.”

Besides the free time, Winters has also found a number of other unexpected benefits.  “I sleep a lot better when I travel, now that I’m not mindlessly captivated by porn-after-porn through the hotel cable that was so engrossing that I would not even realize I had watched it all night until the phone would ring with the wakeup call.”

Winters further stated that “now that I’m not involved with porn, it is much easier to not ‘American Beauty’ all of the teenage girls at my son’s church basketball games.  Now that I say that, I cannot believe how creepy that is.”

Things have also started to change for Winters and his wife Jess.  “Of course this has been really difficult for her, but, last week we did something really sexy—we held hands and went for a walk.  That may not sound like much, but with porn out of the way, it was great.  In the past, it would have taken me hours of looking at naughty French lunch ladies to get me nearly as excited.”

“Just the other day,” Winters noted, “I had that old knee-jerk paranoia when my wife happened upon my browser history.  It was great to not worry, but she did get excited when she realized that I had spent 15 hours over 9 days finally reading all of the entries in the family blog that she writes.”

Looking contented with his freedom and spare time, Winters concluded, “d***, with all this free time, I could even go home teaching!”

DENVER 7TH WARD PILOTS YOUNG MEN IN MEDIOCRITY

Logo for the new Church progam

DENVER, CO—Seeking to realistically highlight LDS adolescent male accomplishments, the Denver 7^th Ward held its first Young Men in Mediocrity celebration.  Ward Young Men president Calvin York was reportedly pleased by both the turnout and the response to this pilot.  York reported that “we had at least 35% of the young men there, and a lot of them hardly texted at all during the program.”

Bishop Collins was also pleased with the results.  “The young men didn’t really react, but I’m sure that they were excited,” said Collins, “when we explained how time-wasting and mind-numbing video games would become part of the Church’s new Call of Duty to God: White Ops program.”  Collins explained that “Xbox pretty much drains them of any ambition or genuine sense of adventure, but at least this way we recognize the mediocrity and channel some of it back to the gospel.”

Measuring the reaction of the young men has proven a more difficult task, as most showed little variation from the accustomed grunting and glassy-eyed stares.  The only slight alteration came with the refreshments that capped off the event.  The priest quorum had been in charge of those refreshments, but apparently “Brandon forgot to bring the Oreos.”  Sandy Collins, wife of Bishop Collins, provided flat soda for the young men, soda that was reportedly rather lukewarm, which is to say neither hot nor cold, and which many found so distasteful that they spewed it out.  

HEARST CORPORATION PURCHASES STRUGGLING BYU STUDIES

Hearst Corporation's BYU Studies Makeover

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK—Bernie Sokoloff, spokesperson for the Hearst Corporation, announced Friday the purchase of the financially troubled BYU Studies scholarly journal.  “Here at Hearst, we see great potential in BYU Studies,” said Sokoloff, “and with resources from our other holdings, we can make BYU Studies the Mormon moment equivalent of our fabulous O, The Oprah Magazine.” 

When asked to elaborate on how Hearst might use its publications to improve BYU Studies, Sokoloff explained that “we are already working with Mormon historians on a Cosmo-inspired article with 30 sex tips from Brigham Young’s wives, with the initial title, ‘How to Drive your Man Wild as if you were Competing with 12 Other Women!’” 

Sokoloff further elaborated that the LDS emphasis on the materiality of resurrected bodies “overlaps nicely with key magazine themes.”  To illustrate this point, Sokoloff cited the forthcoming BYU Studies article “Why Wait for the Resurrection to have the Thighs You Deserve.”  Additional history, health, and beauty articles will explore Mary Fielding Smith’s advice on how to get “sexy, rock-hard abs” (push a handcart for 1,300 miles).  Editors from Seventeen will also be brought in to offer “Tips on Keeping Your Hair Cute while doing Baptisms for the Dead” and “25 Fun and Flirty Outfits for this Season’s Cache Valley Family Funerals.”

Publishing industry experts see Hearst’s move as important for its long-range plans.  According to Danielle Miller from industry consultants Magazine Vistas, “Hearst sees this as a strategic purchase that is pivotal in their attempt to gain a larger market share if in fact the Mormon moment becomes a Mormon month or even, heaven forbid, a Mormon millennium.”  Other publishing firms have made similar moves, including Condé Nast Publications recent acquisition of Dialogue – A Journal of Mormon Thought, which it plans on merging with other holdings The New Yorker, Architectural Digest, Self, and Brides, as well as emerging giant Halliburton-Rove Corporation's recent purchase of Sunstone and attempted hostile takeover of The Friend.  

BLESSING IRREGULARITIES LEAD TO RELEASE OF AREA STAKE PATRIARCH

Brother Heberson's map of the Twelve Tribes

TUCSON, AZ—Stake patriarch Wendell Heberson was released last Sunday after what sources claim were irregularities in some of the Patriarchal blessings he had given.  One source close to the Tucson 9^th Stake leadership said that there had been concerns for some time about Heberson’s blessings. 

“It stated at least two years ago,” reported the source, “when Heberson’s unusually short blessing told a young man that he ‘was not among the valiant in God’s premortal army’ and that ‘mortality’s trials will take you far beyond your ability to withstand’.” 

That same source noted that the blessing promised that the young man would “arise well after lunch during Resurrection week” but would “nevertheless inherit his mansion in the Terrestrial Kingdom.”

This was not the only irregularity that came to the local leadership’s attention.  Approximately nine months ago Heberson had told three young men and one young woman that they would be “one of the two to preach repentance in Jerusalem” where “CNN would show, broadcasting through satellite dishes on housetops all over the world, their bodies in the streets until they resurrected, thereby bringing to an end to the ‘Ding Dong the Mormons Are Dead’ global wickedness party.” 

Heberson also promised all of them that their companion would be “a true and faithful servant, of goodly parents, large in stature, and known on the records of the church as one ‘Steve’.”

“At first,” explained another unnamed source, “we just thought that it was cool that so many people were from the tribes of Gad, Dan, and Naphtali, but once he started telling some that they were of the tribes of Ishtar and Zorro, we knew something was not right.”

A third source reported that what finally pushed stake leaders to act without delay was a blessing that promised one young woman that she would “one day, with authority and great glory, clear that den of thieves that is the Tucson 19^th Ward’s High Priest group, a group with which I, the Lord God, am not well pleased”