CHURCH UPDATES PAINTINGS FOR HISTORICAL ACCURACY

SALT LAKE CITY, UT—The church has begun a process of updating some paintings to enhance historical accuracy.  The first such update is to a painting called Joseph’s Last Farewell.  A church spokesman commented that the updated version “gives a greater sense of the polygamous relationships Joseph had at the end of his life.”

THE FRIEND TO COVER RECENT SUPREME COURT RULING

SALT LAKE CITY, UT—According to reports, The Friend’s August 2013 issue will feature an article addressing the recent Supreme Court Ruling on DOMA or the Defense of Marriage Act.

The article, titled “We Are All Friends,” will explain the implications of the ruling for Primary-aged LDS children who may feel confused. Sources indicate that the cover picture will show “very concerned grandparents reading the newspaper or watching television,” while children in the foreground “smile, play, and hold hands, seemingly unaware of same-sex hand-holding taboos.”

Only a few unconfirmed details about the article's text have emerged. Reports indicate that the article will discuss the work of the Supreme Court saying that “some nice people who wear funny black shower curtains to work have been thinking about families.” It goes on to elaborate that “now, even if you have two daddies or two mommies, you are just as much their child and just as much a family.” 

Further reports indicate that children will be told that “having a mommy and a daddy is still just as nice, and now we can all feel like we belong.” To clarify other aspects of the ruling, including how divorced same-sex partners can now have custody rights, the article will explain that “kids with a different kind of parents will now, no matter what, get all of the blessings of having those people in their lives.”   

One illustration is said to show “a range of happy children playing together, obviously enjoying the spiritual, emotional, and financial benefits of marriage equality.”  

MTE INTERVIEW WITH TOM MOULD: POKING HIM WITH THE LONG POINTY STICK OF ZION’S FINEST QUESTIONS

The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer, Zion’s Finest News Source, is glad to give you, our dear readers, the in-depth and groundbreaking interviews that answer the real questions.  We are pleased to post this interview which we recently conducted with Tom Mould, author of Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and The Mormon Folk Tradition. Though other, frankly lesser publications, may attempt similar interviews (and don’t think that we don’t see you, Dialogue!), only the Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer is willing to really poke current people with the long pointy stick of Zion’s finest questions.  As with all MTE interviews, this was conducted at an undisclosed location and without the victim's interviewee’s knowledge or consent. Cus that’s how we roll. 

MTE: If you had to guess, what secret sins do you think kept Romney from becoming president?

Tom Mould: I don’t really know what you mean by this question.  I’m not sure if it was secret sins…

MTE: Give us your reasons why Harry Reid might secretly be a Muslim?

Tom Mould: Wait, what? I don’t think Harry Reid is a Muslim.

MTE: Do you think that it is just a coincidence that after the Book of Mormon came forth, people starting using “moron” as an insult?

Tom Mould: Um, I really doubt that there is a connection, and please stop following me around this grocery store.

MTE: You study Mormonism, so of course you watched General Conference.  So, podium question: who wore the suit best: Andersen or Nielson?

Tom Mould: You know I’m an anthropologist, right? 

MTE: One more General Conference question: whose tie would you predict will be the real trend-setter as summer starts to heat up?

Tom Mould: Do I even know you?

MTE: Okay, so now let’s talk about your book: There are rumors that the movie rights are being shopped around Hollywood and Vernal.  If you could pick the actor that you want to play the lead, who would it be?

Tom Mould: Did you even read my book? 

MTE: One thing our readers noticed was how skillfully you handled the hot and steamy sex scenes by not including any.  Is this because you are saving them for your next book, or is it because you don’t feel that you are a good enough writer to incorporate vampires?

Tom Mould: Did you even look at the cover?

MTE: Do you feel like the last name Mould has ever held you back?  How about Tom?

Tom Mould: I didn’t until now. Wait, you’re not recording this, are you?

CONFESSIONS OF A DESIGNATED IN-BETWEEN DATE

FLAGSTAFF, AZ—My name is Brandon Welch, I’m 17, almost 18, and it seems like I’ve become the designated In-Between date. If you don’t know what that is, the designated In-Between date is a boy that takes out girls between the dates that they really want to go on. Last Saturday it was Bella Norton, who only went out with me because her parents make her go out with someone different every 3 dates. And, like the safe person that doesn’t drink so he can drive, I’m the designated, safe, In-Between date.

On the outside this seems like a pretty good gig. I get to go out with lots of girls. Sometimes I don’t even have to ask them. They will just come up to me, like when Sandy Koch asked if I wanted to go to a movie. She needed a designated In-Betweener so she could go to prom in three weeks with Alan Stevens. Sandy and Alan had already seen the movie, or, let me restate that, they had been in the dark room where the movie was playing. Sure, as the designated In-Between date I didn’t have to ask her out, but it turned out that she actually wanted to see the movie now that it was me and not Alan next to her. Bummer.

All of the girls I go out with would much rather be with someone else. Julie Thompson spent the whole time at Putt-Putt talking about Jeffrey Horner, all of the things that they had done together and what a great missionary he will be. I’m not sure that she understands some of the church’s rules or what makes a great missionary. And it seemed like a good idea when she said that she wanted to “try some things out on me,” but it wasn’t as much fun when she started whispering Jeffrey’s name. And I don’t even want to know what was up with that nickname!

Sometimes being the designated In-Between date can be okay. I get the inside scoop on lots of relationships, and I have learned a lot about how girls think. It isn’t all misery in the permanent friend zone. But I’m not sure that this is keeping kids from getting serious. Sometimes the girls just have me pick them up and then drop them off at some party, only to have me pick them up later.  I know that Bella is still upset about her family’s dating rule, and she said that half the reason she still sees Logan Price is because her parents don’t like him. She might have dumped him by now, but, let me tell you, it won’t be for the designated In-Betweener. 

FOUND IN FORTY-FIVE YEAR-OLD MAN'S JOURNAL FROM THE 80'S

LDS CHURCH HAS NO COMMENT ON REPORTED PORNOGRAPHY ERASING SPYWARE

TYLER, TX—Edward (name changed) had mixed feelings after he started his computer late Tuesday evening.  The college junior, at home for the summer from Texas A&M University, found himself again bored and lonely, but when he looked for soothing in his sinful habit, he found that his files of pornography had been erased.

“I was upset at first, and then worried,” said Edward. He continued, “I was worried that my mom had found them and erased them, but then I realized that she doesn’t have the password and that the computer had not been turned on.” What had actually happened was some spyware Edward had inadvertently loaded had erased his files.

Mark Summers from McAfee, a prominent spyware detection and removal company, said that “we started to get reports (like Edward’s) in April. It was mostly men and they were all Mormon saying that their porn was gone. Some were panicked, while others seemed mystified and even relieved.”

McAfee has pinpointed the pornography erasing software as a spyware program called Nrop.  “Frankly,” said Summers, “it is just the sort of sophisticated, clever, and virtuous programs that we would expect, the source seems to be Orem, Utah, and the rather corny name refers to how it reverses porn.”  Added Summers, “Mormon programers tend to be bright but goofy in their program naming practices.”

The program was apparently covertly bundled with any downloaded files from the General Conference Priesthood session and with downloads of For the Strength of Youth and Preach my Gospel. The program not only blocks incoming pornographic images or texts, but it targets existing computer files. What happened to Edward seems to be typical. Edward explained that “the program found my folders like the one labeled 'Hot Eskimo Sorority Girls' and erased it completely.  I was pretty upset initially, but then I was glad that it had all been erased. Sort of.”

No one from Church headquarters would comment on the Nrop spyware, though an official who could not be named said that “the Lord and BYU’s Computer Science Department work in mysterious ways.”

HEALTH INSPECTOR CLOSES SACRAMENT PREPARATION ROOM

VALDOSTA, GA—Lowndes County health inspectors, doing a routine check of an LDS church, closed the building’s small sacrament preparation room because of a number of health code violations.  Said county inspect David Harris, “it was really pretty filthy in there.  I mean, I’m sure that the members of that congregation have faith and everything, but you would need a lot of God power to not get sick from anything that came out of that place.”

Health inspectors found moldy bread as well as small plastic cups with traces of mildew.  “What also stood out,” remarked Harris, “were the metal trays. Let me just say; I served two tours in Iraq, and what I saw in those trays will haunt my nightmares forever.” 

When asked to comment on the situation as a whole, Harris noted that “unsupervised fourteen year-old boys in charge of food storage, preparation, and clean up could be a policy that the Mormons might want to revisit.”  

ARCHEOLOGY GRAD STUDENT RECONSTRUCTS 20 YEARS OF SACRAMENT MEETINGS BASED ON EVIDENCE GATHERED WHILE CLEANING ONE PEW

PROVIDENCE, RI—Graduate student Helen Moore recently reconstructed 20 years of sacrament meetings from the evidence she collected while cleaning one pew in a local chapel.  Moore, a student at Brown University’s Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World, said that “once you see what is really going on with the pew, the micro particles in the fabric cushions, debris caught between cushions and seatbacks, and artifacts near the base, cleaning the chapel becomes an act of historical and cultural discovery.”

Moore did not anticipate such an archaeological trove when she showed up with her Ipod on Saturday morning. She did not want to mop the bathrooms again, and washing the windows with four primary children running around “seemed like a hopelessly Sisyphean endeavor,” reported Moore.  When Moore began cleaning the 3^rd pew from the front “just as something new to do,” she was shocked at what she found. 

“I knew that there would be food particles,” explained Moore, “but the variety of midden was truly amazing.” Moore reported that “to the untrained eye the stratigraphic layers of archaeological material can be hard to distinguish, but (in and around this pew) they were remarkably clear and consistent.”  Moore further elaborated on how “beyond the ground up Cheerios found at all layers of my investigation, it was at lower ones that I found cereals that have long since become extinct, including Cap'n Crunch’s Choco Crunch, Smurf Berry Crunch, and even Dino Pebbles.”  It was the discovery of Berry Berry Kix, a discontinued cereal introduced in CE1992 that pushed Moore to dig deeper. “At first I had no idea what I was looking at,” stated Moore.  Moore continued, “among the goldfish cracker fragments I saw colorful nutritive particles that I could not identify, but once I got them back to the lab and ran a phytolithic analysis, sure enough, it was the rare General Mills cereal at exactly the level one would expect.”

Moore made several other key discoveries that helped her recreate nearly two decades of religious and cultural rituals at the site. “Some key artifacts really made it easier to fit all of the pieces together,” said Moore. When asked about those artifacts, Moore mentioned a piece of a sacrament program outlining the now discontinued practice of a “Missionary Farewell,” a stylus trapped in a pew cushion from an old PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) circa CE2003, and a scrap of paper from the “Daily Tasks” portion of a Franklin planner page. Said Moore, “like so many other archaeological sites, this one was a rich source of primary evidence resulting from both historical accidents and lapses in ancient and contemporary cleaning protocols.”

LONDON TEMPLE CELESTIAL ROOM COUCH FACES POSSIBLE RELEGATION TO LOCAL WARD FOYER

Guess Which London Celestial Room Couch 
Will Miss the Big Couch Tournament Again 

LONDON--A white couch, currently a fixture in the celestial room in the London temple, seems to be at risk of relegation to a lower level church foyer. After many years at what all furniture considers the highest league, so to speak, the sofa finds itself struggling to keep its place. Given the very real relegation possibilities, perhaps to ward buildings in Reading, Wigan, and near Queen's Park, some of the couch’s cushions are hoping to get picked up as loans to couches that do not face relegation.

COPY OF “PREACH MY GOSPEL” CAN’T BELIEVE HOW LITTLE SISTER MISSIONARY KNOWS

Copy of Preach My Gospel 

PROVO, UT—Okay, so I know that missionaries are young and may not have been paying attention in seminary or church, but, as a copy of Preach My Gospel, I cannot believe how little Sister Katherine Lawrence knows about missionary work and the church in general.

Sister Lawrence got me when she first day she came to the MTC, but right off I could see that she didn’t know very much. Page vii is my introduction. The first note she wrote was “where can I get a copy of Preach My Gospel?” She crossed that out once her companion explained that the picture on the page was the cover of the book she was reading.

It didn’t get any better on the next page. This page features a diagram with a family at the center. On a page that explains the role of personal study and learning, Sister Lawrence’s only study note is “that boy is kinda cute.” Page 2 features an artist’s rendition of Lehi’s dream with a brilliant depiction of the Tree of Life. Sister Lawrence makes this note about it: “I bet this is where Christmas trees come from.” On page 6 she wrote, “ask companion what Restoration means,” and on page 12 she wrote, “ask her who all of these presidents are.”

I have a great section explaining studying and preparing to teach lessons that goes from pages 19 to 21, and Sister Lawrence’s only comment is: “I’m sure my companion will know how to do all this and when the time is right I will just give my heartfelt testimony!” In fact, in several places her only comment is “or just give a heartfelt testimony.” She seems to think that a heartfelt testimony is a magic wand that she can just wave over any situation and whatever she wants to happen will happen.

In other sections, well, it is pretty appalling. On page 46, which gives a list of other key religious figures who were inspired by God, next to Mohammed Sister Lawrence wrote: “caused 9/11,” next to Confucius she wrote: “name says it all,” and next to Buddha she wrote: “Fat.” The entire section on Finding People has only two study notes. One says, “the pure in heart will find me,” and the second says “most wards have some wierdos who give the missionaries people to teach.”

Heaven help both of us.

Note: This report is an homage to an article published in The Onion dealing with: “Copy Of “The Scarlet Letter” Can't Believe The Notes High Schooler Writing In Margins”

DESERET LEGAL ANNOUNCES NEW TEMPLE MARRIAGE PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT OPTIONS

SALT LAKE CITY, UT—Deseret Legal recently announced new options for those seeking the increasingly popular prenuptial agreements for their temple marriage.  “With temple marriages almost as vulnerable as any marriage,” said Deseret Legal spokesperson Denise Hughes, “saints want to protect themselves just in case their eternal marriage isn’t quite as eternal as they had hoped.”

“Many individuals worry about child custody,” said Hughes, “so we offer options, including a pre-marriage agreement that will guarantee full primary custody of all children with the exception of crying babies, surly teenagers, or any offspring with the propensity to projectile vomit on the carpet.” Deseret Legal calls this option PCGO, or “Primary Custody of the Good Ones.” Hughes went on to explain that this even requires that the other spouse “take any children resulting from the ill-fated union to Bishops, Branch Presidents, Stake Presidents, Area Authorities, pastors, rabbis, therapists, law enforcement officials, parole officers, rehab counselors, or dentists when the need presents itself.”

It is not just custody issues that Deseret Legal has in its new prenup options. “Many young people, women especially,” expounded Hughes, “worry about the possibility of ever getting married again if the marriage they are currently planning fails.”  It is for these people that Deseret Legal has developed the Guaranteed Post-matrimonial Sexual Status clause or GPSS.  According to Hughes, “the GPSS means that a young woman can know that her official post-matrimonial sexual status will be the legally binding and universally recognized status as ‘Unlicked Cupcake, Unchewed Gum, and Still Fresh-as-Spring Flower’ no matter what.”  Hughes added that “this puts so many young female minds and hearts at ease.”  When asked about male options, Hughes said that the GPSS offered in male prenuptial agreements is ‘May Now Have Somewhat of a Clue As to What He’s Doing’.”

Updates have also been made in the fault areas of these agreements.  Fault areas include parts of the contract that give one spouse greater property or financial compensation if the other spouse is found to be at fault.  Spouses can now get a much larger share of the marital assets if the other spouse “becomes involved in Essential Oils, supplement companies, colonic treatments, and any multi-level marketing businesses or general snake oil crap.”

Some of the fault clauses are gender-specific.  Contracts can stipulate the husbands are entitled to more if the wife “hung around church on Sundays talking to the most annoying people after the contractually agreed upon 45 minutes” or if she “failed to complete/nag until completion of any Eagle Scout projects.”  Women can get a larger settlement if it can be proved that the husband “consistently wore colored shirts to church,” “just had the kids watch videos on his phone instead of really working with them,” or “allowed his eyes to linger too long on the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover.”  Said one engaged woman, “just knowing that if he so much as notices some half-naked actress on the cover of GQ means that I can have the house, the boat, and two thirds of his retirement reassures me that I can make this marriage work. Or not.”

LONG LIST OF OFFENSES PROMPTS AREA MAN TO CUT OFF RIGHT HAND

ROMULUS, MI—Producing a long list of offenses, Brother David Roberts met with reporters to explain why he recently cut off his right hand. “Well, let me just go through the offenses that my right hand has done to me,” explained Roberts, “and it should be clear that every one of you would have cut it off and cast it out.”

Roberts’ list of offenses began way back in elementary school.  Roberts noted how his hand had, against his will, “waved at Cindy Warner even though my best friend Greg, who liked Cindy all during third grade, was standing right there.” Roberts indicated that “it was then, back in fourth grade, that I knew that that right hand was going to be trouble.”

According to Roberts, the conflicts continued as the years passed. Listed along with the “Waving at Warner” affair were instances of inadvertent nose picking in highly public places, going up in the air with Roberts being unable to answer the question, and slipping too low while slow dancing.  “These acts of treachery might not seem like a big deal, but let me tell you, they caused me and the entire body lots and lots of problems,” stated Roberts.

“After a while, well, the betrayal had to stop,” said Roberts categorically. “How long can you let it pick up the wrong groceries, click the wrong links on the internet, and push buttons on the tv remote control when you really want to sleep before doing something about it!”

Roberts went on to show how his scripture reading had helped him deal with the terrible impact of his RRHS (Rebellious Right Hand Syndrome). “Once I saw it was RRHS, it became clear to me what was really holding me back spiritually,” expounded  Roberts. “I mean, I could be Bishop by now if my right hand would have been as obedient as my left.”

To demonstrate what finally helped Roberts apply the scriptural injunction, he produced a rather blurry photograph of himself dressed almost completely in blue and yellow. “As you can see here,” stated Roberts, “I’m about the world’s biggest Michigan fan. See, I’m all maize and blue.” Roberts then pointed, with his left hand, to his right hand in the picture, which was clearly green, saying, “and there you see it—the right hand had painted itself as green as Michigan State’s Sparty himself.  I had caught it red handed, so to speak, and I knew then and there that I had to eliminate the little Judas,” Roberts concluded emphatically, pounding his remaining hand on the table. 

As the news conference ended, Roberts made one more threat: “Oh, and right eye--don't think we haven't been noticing you! You saw what happened to the hand on your side, you know, with stumpy, so let that be a warning.”