roughstonerolling.com Blog

Having grown up loving horror novels and movies, “true” ghost stories and everything else that goes bump in the night, I decided the co-existence of vampires and Mormons would be a fun proposition. At the same time, I mused that the priesthood kind of spoils every supernatural threat. If a bishopric faced Linda Blair instead [...]

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A lot has been shared today about President Hinckley. I offered my thoughts on other blogs, but won’t expand on them here. Suffice to say, my family and I love him, and when we heard the news we cried and prayed together. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Recently, a brother in my ward, with [...]

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I’ve given and received priesthood blessings for almost 30 years, much more so recently, and can say without any stretch of the imagination that they truly work. Most of the time they’ve had subtle, benign results, and sometimes they’ve been more dramatic. For example, all through elementary school my daughter hadn’t missed a single day [...]

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Stake conference came early this year, and it came broadcast. I actually liked it better this way– 15 minutes of business before, 15 minutes of parting shots after, and the body of the meeting, talks from GAs. The broadcast was customized for Southern California Saints, giving off the feeling that the messages were meant just [...]

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While working on a recording together, Johnny Cash asked Bob Dylan if he knew “Ring of Fire.” Dylan said he did and proceeded to play it on the piano, croaking it out in typical Dylanesque fashion. When he was done he turned to the Man in Black and said, “It goes something like that, right?”
“No,” [...]

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I first saw this picture when I was a kid, leafing through a “Best of Life Magazine” book. It struck me then, and still does, for a number of reasons. One, this heartbroken woman, Evelyn McHale, age 23, left her fiancee and then jumped off the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. In [...]

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A favorite quote of mine– attributed to a few different people, but I preferred hearing it from Woody Allen– goes, “I’d never belong to a club that would have me for a member.” This is what I think of when I think of Mormons and Christianity. Not the LDS Church in respect to the hierarchy [...]

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I loved this quote and had to share it. This is John Durham Peters, a renowned communication theorist and Mormon, in a recent interview in Dialogue:
“I basically suspect intellectuals. I distrust our motives. I don’t think intellectuals always know what’s good, and we like to think we know what’s good. To use the Book of [...]

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I’m a big fan of Barry Levinson films. Diner…Rain Man…Bugsy…Wag the Dog… The man can tell a story. In one of his lesser known classics, Tin Men, Bruno Kirby (may he rest in peace) is in a bar teaching an old Mexican the words to “La Bamba.” Bruno clearly doesn’t speak Spanish and as he [...]

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One of the benefits of being an HPGL is getting to pick who you want to teach a particular lesson (that is, if they don’t beg off, as is often the case). This week the lesson was out of the manual, Lesson 23: The Shepherds of the Flock, which covered the sustaining of Church leaders. [...]

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I’m reading an engaging memoir/biography of Hugh Nibley entitled Sergeant Nibley, Ph.D: Memoir of an Unlikely Screaming Eagle, covering his years in the service during WWII. One of the personal pleasures for me is, it’s co-written by his son, Alex, whom I home taught when I was in college. When I knew Alex he would, [...]

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Thank you, Mr. President, for your kind introduction.
It is an honor to be here today. This is an inspiring place because of you and the First Lady and because of the film exhibited across the way in the Presidential library. For those who have not seen it, it shows the President as a young pilot, [...]

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I recently went to my doctor for a physical and learned my cholesterol was through the roof. He sent me to a local renowned cardiologist who confirmed this. The superstar specialist added that it was largely due to my genetics as well as my diet, and prescribed Vytorin. But the prescription didn’t stop there.
“No more [...]

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Life. You end up laying a lot of things at your own door that you didn’t plan on. Bad decisions. They didn’t tell you that you can steal your own life. Skimming a little here and there.There’s repentance, that’s nice. They call it a “do-over.” There are no do-overs in life, not really. A do-over [...]

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Living in Southern California has its obvious perks. For example, it’s late November and today was a sunny 70+ degrees. We’ve got this swell ocean slamming against our multi-million dollar properties. There’s Disneyland (we’re going there on Thanksgiving), Universal Studios, Hollywood, Malibu, BH 90210, etc.
And, of course, our landscape is bursting with celebrities.
I’ve had the good [...]

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Last Sunday on “60 Minutes” a segment aired about a new generation taking over for the baby-boomers, called the “millennials.” These are the young people born between 1980 and 1995 who grew up raised by doting parents who said they were “special” and “unique” and “winners.” They belonged to little league and soccer teams where [...]

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As we discussed I Corinthians in Gospel Doctrine last Sunday, some of the things covered reminded me of recent LDS history. In 3:4-5 it says,
For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye [...]

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This was a talk given by High Councilman Greg Prince to a sacrament meeting in the Chevy Chase Ward in the Washington, D.C. area, August 12, 2007. Brother Prince is the co-author of “David O. McKay: The Rise of Modern Mormonism.” He offered to send a copy of his talk to my wife who was [...]

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