Sophie's Story

   No one is idle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Almost everyone has a calling. A calling is the volunteer job that a member does for the church. Examples of church callings are teacher, nursery workers, greeters, Relief Society President and councilors, ward clerks and leaders of the Young Men and Young Women's groups. Since the LDS have no paid clergy even the Bishop, the equivalent of a pastor in other faiths is a volunteer along with the councilors who assist him.    Callings are held for a period of time after which the person is released from their calling, meaning they are relieved from the responsibilities of their current calling. Most of the time another calling is given.   A few weeks ago I was given a new calling. I was asked to work in Primary. Primary is the program of the church for children three to 12 years of age. It is the group in the church that oversees Sunday school classes for this age group.  The children in the Primary program also

     A shared post showed up on my Facebook page the other day. There was some text over a collage of pictures. I read the text and then read it again. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I went from calm and happy to thermonuclear upset in about 2 seconds.     It was an ad for a bar. The first line of text read, "We have fresh meat for you!" It then went on to announce a newly hired employee. At the bottom of the ad were pictures of women, I assume employees of this establishment. One of them was the new hire.    What caused me to be so angry was the fact that this ad called one of its female employees "fresh meat" I was absolutely beside myself. I couldn't believe that a business establishment would do something like this. Fresh meat is what you put in your hamburgers. Those two words should never be used to describe an employee of any gender.   I find it difficult to understand why, in the wake of the Me Too movement, this could happen.    In

   Recently C and I enjoy watching the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is like the original Star Trek show except that it takes place 99 years after the original series. I like Captain Picard and all the main characters of the show, but I do have a favorite. My favorite character is Data.    Data is the second officer and operations manager. He's also an android with an advanced positronic brain. He can't feel emotions, can't speak using contractions and doesn't understand a lot about human emotions and behavior. He doesn't need to sleep or eat and is resistant to disease (except for computer viruses.)    Despite the fact that he isn't really human, the rest of the crew of the Enterprise treat him as though he is. In fact, in one episode, a scientist from Starfleet wanted to take Data apart to study him. The risk was that there was no guarantee the Data could be reassembled back into the entity that he is. Part of the episode involved a trial wher

   Hi, This is Colby. My tenth birthday is tomorrow so I asked Sophie if I could write the column today to celebrate. She said it would be a good idea.    C read aloud something interesting he saw on Facebook.  It was written by a 90-year-old woman from Ohio. I asked Sophie where Ohio is. She said it is very far away.  The column was about things that she had learned. I liked it so I am going to do one of my own. She had a list of 45 things in her column. I'm going to list at least 10, one for each year. (I may decide to do more....)     1. Mark everything so strangers and predators know they are in your territory.     2. Always use the scratching post.     3. Don't wiggle around while you are having your claws clipped.     4. Do not stand between Scamp and his food dish.    5. If your human is sitting in your favorite sleeping spot, sit on your human.    6. Always use the litterbox.    7. Regular tussling keeps you in shape.    8. Being combed is not too bad

   We celebrated my boss's birthday recently. I brought a present. One of my other coworkers brought the cake. We didn't know exactly what kind of cake she likes. We knew she wasn't a big chocolate fan and we weren't sure about vanilla. One of the techs did remember that she picked carrot cupcakes for her wedding. We decided on carrot.    It turns out that the two techs and I are fans of carrot cake. Friday I worked with our tech Kelly. There was still some birthday cake left so we each had a piece. While we were eating and working we talked about carrot cake. We discussed various carrot cakes we had eaten. We discussed the additions of pineapple, coconut, raisins, and nuts to the cake. We both prefer our cake without pineapple, raisins, and coconut. Kelly prefers her cake nut free. I'm ok with nuts.    Both of us agree that cream cheese frosting is the best. Kelly said she used to get a frosting mix from the store, but once she realized how easy it was to make

   Many years ago a guy I knew outlined the steps to follow when a group encounters a problem. Once it has been determined that there is a problem, the first thing to do is assign blame. I'm not sure what his reasoning was for this being the first step. I know that he told me why it was important to determine who was at fault, I just don't remember what he said.    I do remember thinking that it was a little strange. I would think the next step would be fact-finding followed by finding a solution and then putting that solution into place.    The recent events involving immigrant families reminded me of this conversation from so long ago.     The one thing we can all agree on is that children should not be separated from their parents or adults who are caring for them unless there is a case of abuse, neglect or other mistreatment. That is where the agreement ends.     Then the finger pointing started. It's pretty easy to see who is on what side of the political spectru