Why LDS Missionaries Are Successful In Business

CNBC has a business report about how being an LDS missionary helps Mormons become successful in business.

The reporter makes a point about the apparent lack of successful Mormon business women who have served missions. I would disagree. There are a lot of successful LDS women in business.

If you're a LDS women and want to get connected with other successful Mormon business women, I suggest joining the LDS Business Women's Association (LDSBWA) on facebook.

For a lively discussion about women who have served a mission and become successful in the business field, Mormon Feminist Housewives has an blog on the same subject.

UPDATE (7.12.10): The Financial Times has a great article about the rising success of Latter Day Saints in politics, literature and business. Its an article worth reading. 

Poll: 41% of Americans Believe Jesus Will Return By 2050

The British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, is reporting the results of a joint poll from the Pew Research Center and Smithsonian magazine in which they asked Americans what they think will happen by 2050. One of the interesting findings was what Americans thought about the chances of the 2nd Coming occuring: 

 "41 per cent say Jesus Christ will return within the next 40 years while 46 per cent say this will definitely or probably not happen".

While there have been numerous attempts to predict the second coming of Jesus, no body really knows when it will occur. Even Joseph Smith himself didn't know when Jesus would come. Elder M. Russell Ballard makes this point clear in an Ensign article: 

"Can we use this scientific data to extrapolate that the Second Coming is likely to occur during the next few years, or the next decade, or the next century? Not really. I am called as one of the Apostles to be a special witness of Christ in these exciting, trying times, and I do not know when He is going to come again. As far as I know, none of my brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve or even in the First Presidency knows. And I would humbly suggest that if we do not know, then nobody knows, no matter how compelling their arguments or how reasonable their calculations. The Savior said that “of that day, and hour, no one knoweth; no, not the angels of God in heaven, but my Father only” (JST, Matt. 1:40).

I believe that when the Lord says “no one” knows, He really means that no one knows. We should be extremely wary of anyone who claims to be an exception to divine decree."

Although no one knows the exact second, minute, hour, day and year that Jesus comes, Jesus tells us that the faithful will get a general idea of when he will come just as people know that summer is near because the trees are sprouting their leaves. (see Luke 21:29-31) The scriptures are full of signs or indicators to watch for that have happened or will occur that will give us some idea of when we are upon the last days before His coming.

However, I would think that 2050 would be a good guess as to when Christ would come. 

What do you think?

A New Prop 8 Documentary & The Creative Deception It Tells About the LDS Church

There is a documentary that is being released soon to theaters nation wide called 8: The Mormon Proposition and just the trailer itself already is full of inaccuracies and deceptive editing to misinform the public about the LDS Church's role in proposition 8.

Based on the trailer alone, I can tell that this documentary is going to be about as honest as a Michael Moore film in that it employs the same deceptive editing techniques to imply a fact that isn't true. One of the easiest falsehood to catch in the trailer was the way they included clips of anti-gay protestors from other religious faiths to give the impression that they're people from the LDS Church.

I was tipped off immediately that this wasn't going to be an honest film, despite the fact that the  when I saw a well known anti-gay protester in the trailer. His name is Reuben Israel and is listed in the film's credits.

He's easy to reconize in the trailer as the big, fat bearded man in dark sunglasses screaming into the bullhorn "shame on the homosexual community!" His method of spreading his "Christian" message his by protesting and has done so in a variety of different places, including at an anti-war rally.

This isn't the only documentary that Reuben Israel has been in. He was also in another documentary called Article VI: Faith, Politics, America and can be briefly seen protesting against the LDS Church in that film's trailer. In the film itself, he openly discusses his feelings against the LDS Church.

Reuben Israel isn't a Mormon and would never be a Mormon.

He is a well known anti-Mormon who has frequently protested against the LDS Church and has even been filmed dragging the Book of Mormon on the ground. He is the California State Director for The Street Preachers' Fellowship, an organization that actively protests against the Mormon faith.

If the film is already being deceptive in the way it edits the trailer by using a well known anti-Mormon protester to give the impression that he's a Mormon protesting against gays, then I have no confidence that the rest of the film will be in any way as honest either.

This is a film that is going to make Michael Moore proud.