Anne Woodland

            Reading the scriptures is always interesting.   There are many beautiful, poetic passages, especially some of the Old Testament ones about the Messiah, but also there are some straight up weird things.   Or maybe it’s just my perspective that makes them weird.   Sometimes knowing more about a society’s culture goes a long way to clarifying things.   In particular, whenever I read the Book of Ether from The Book of Mormon, I’m always amazed at how bad at maintaining usurped power those people were!               Let me clarify slightly, so the entire Book of Ether spans hundreds, if not thousands of years of Jaredite history in fifteen chapters.   It tells of the divine guidance that led to the civilization’s formation and the wickedness that led them to destruction. (Maybe I should have put a spoiler alert in there somewhere.) ...

            First off, I apologize for not posting anything for almost half a year. There’s been a lot going on.   I got married two months ago (Yay!), and as those of you who have not gone through the process may surmise, there’s a lot of planning and paperwork that goes into marriage before and after the actual wedding.               Anyway, moving on: one thing that I particularly dislike about depression (and to be honest, I don’t like any of it) is that depression takes something logical and transforms it into something irrational. Earlier this week, I wound up in a really low mood because of this phenomenon.   My husband asked me if I’d finished filling out some confounding immigration paperwork on his behalf.   I hadn’t, and immediately my depression grabbed that, along with the fact that my husband is easy-going and filling out the forms is one of ...