Shawn Hammond

First and foremost a husband, father, and disciple of Christ. BYU and Denver sports fanatic.

[Boot Krewe Media @BootKreweMedia]

Flashback to the time Taysom Hill did this in a game:

Taysom Hill In 1 Game:

-Returned 3 Kickoffs
-Recovered a Fumble
-Played Quarterback
-Played Tight End
-Threw a Touchdown Pass
-Ran for a Touchdown
-203 All Purpose Yards

Thank you # 7

[Shawn Hammond @smham33]

@ThoughtfulSaint Train and BNL in Tahoe in a couple weeks. Can’t wait

[New Orleans Saints @Saints]

A statement from Taysom Hill:

[CougarStats @CougarStats]

"Who has the strongest SOS?"

"The SEC."

"Why?"

"Because they play a bunch of SEC teams."

"How good are SEC teams?"

"Really good, because they play a bunch of SEC teams."

"How do you know if SEC teams are better than teams from other conferences?"

"They are better, because they play a lot more SEC teams than teams from other conferences."

[Shawn Hammond @smham33]

@AmulekAtThat @jaredadairbell 😂

[Ronald A. Rasband @RonaldARasband]

Recently, President Dallin H. Oaks shared that “in coming weeks, we will have the largest number of full-time missionaries in the Church’s history.”

I am delighted to share that more than 88,500 full-time missionaries are now serving across the world—an all-time high in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This remarkable moment reflects the faith and devotion of a rising generation of disciples of Jesus Christ, including many 18-year-old sister missionaries who are entering the mission field.

This moment also reflects the wonderful support that parents, families, friends, and others provide to all of our missionaries as they serve across the globe. We are so grateful for the sacrifices so many of you make.

As has been previously announced, the Church recently created 55 new missions to accommodate this remarkable growth.

What a marvelous time to be engaged in the Lord’s work. As the Lord’s missionaries give their heart, might, mind, and strength to their missionary service, the Lord will magnify their efforts.

He will bless them with strength beyond their own and fill their lives with joy as they participate in the great and marvelous hastening of the Lord’s work.

[Jasmin Rappleye @JasminRappleye]

The Church of Jesus Christ is on a roll with record-level participation from the youngest generations.

First, highest enrollment in Seminary, now most full-time serving missionaries.

The kingdom of God continues to roll forth and fill the earth.

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

"Mormonism's critics said modern scholarship would dismantle the claims of the Church. That has not happened. Mormon studies is embraced in academia, and the claims look better with age."

They assumed the claims would collapse under a microscope.

The opposite happened.

Mormon studies went mainstream. The world’s top academic publishers print it. Major universities teach it. Scholars outside the faith take it seriously.

That was not supposed to happen.

Take the Book of Mormon. Critics called it an obvious fraud, the work of a conman. Now serious scholars, including non-Latter-day Saints, analyze it as a complex and sophisticated work. Literary structure. Naming patterns. Ritual forms. The conman theory is dead.

Take the theology. God with a body. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as separate beings. Critics called these ideas wildly unchristian. The Harvard Theological Review published the research showing many early Christians believed exactly these things, centuries before later councils ruled them out.

Take the temple. Critics called it invented and bizarre. Then a Methodist biblical scholar built her career mapping ancient temple worship, and the parallels were hard to miss. Covenant-making. Ritual clothing. Symbolic progression. These patterns are ancient, not modern.

Take the Book of Abraham. Long treated as the weakest link. Then ancient Abraham texts surfaced decades after Joseph Smith died, telling details of the same story. Details found nowhere in Genesis. A Yale scholar reviewed it and said it recaptures archaic Jewish religion with enormous validity. Whatever Joseph was doing, guessing doesn’t explain it.

A frontier faith with a founder who had an elementary education and spent his life in near poverty was supposed to wither under modern scrutiny. Instead it earned a seat at the academic table.

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

Excellent letter to the editor published in The Dallas Morning News.

Fairview mayor owes Latter-day Saints an apology

Mayor John Hubbard of the fast-growing Dallas suburb of Fairview recently wrote in the pages of The Salt Lake Tribune about a zoning dispute in his city. Hubbard has said his goal is to embarrass leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is headquartered in Salt Lake City, because of their decision to build a temple with a 120-foot steeple that his town approved.  

A forthright response is warranted, not from church leaders, who already reached an agreement with the town of Fairview, but from everyday Latter-day Saints, the kind who are hurt by Hubbard’s jeremiad. 

In his essay, Hubbard significantly misrepresented the nature and character of Fairview. 

He wrote that Fairview is organized around a 35-foot height limit in residential zones. But he did not mention that the temple is located on a major thoroughfare that is currently part of a major expansion project. He also failed to note that the temple site is located on “church row,” where each of the surrounding buildings exceed that 35-foot limit. Churches have been built on this stretch because the road is so busy home builders will not build on it. So much for residential. 
Hubbard said Fairview is a small town but did not note the massive outdoor mall less than a mile down the road the temple will be built on, nor that the mall also exceeds the 35-foot height limit. 

In other comments, Hubbard compared the temple height to Yankee Stadium, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Sphinx. These examples serve to distract. There are six churches in Collin County alone that are taller than the proposed temple and located in residential areas. No need to mention Italy. 
Hubbard claimed in his column that the temple would be the tallest structure Fairview has ever seen. That would make sense given how quickly Fairview is growing. But unfortunately, the mayor evidently overlooked other structures in his town. The temple will be at least the fourth-tallest structure in Fairview.  

Hubbard also failed to mention that in 2006, Fairview granted Creekwood United Methodist Church a conditional use permit for a building expansion that included a proposed 154-foot digital bell tower. The tower was never built, but the permit itself shows that the town has previously approved a structure substantially taller than the proposed temple. So much for how important height is to the town’s character. 

The Church of Jesus Christ has already compromised with the town of Fairview, significantly reducing the size and height of the building to meet the city’s needs. But Hubbard calls the church a bully because it asked the town to follow federal law. After all of this, Hubbard has the temerity to say it is the church that is being a bad neighbor. 

Texans aren’t so easily fooled. I lived in Texas for 18 years. Telling our neighbor what to do on their own property, going back on your word, trying to embarrass them — that’s not the Texas way.  

This kind of name-calling from a mayor does real damage to real Latter-day Saint kids who are trying to belong, and for what? Stopping the seventh-tallest church in the county, a mile down the road from the mall, on “church row.”  

If Hubbard’s goal is truly to be a good neighbor, it’s time to put the embarrassment campaign away, offer an apology, and start mending fences with the Latter-day Saints he’s damaged with his misguided campaign.

Author is the legendary CD Cunningham

[Shawn Hammond @smham33]

@Leondero @KimballCall “You guys”

[Shawn Hammond @smham33]

@marcado_razon @LukeFHan Here’s the church not retracting the “curse of Cain” explanation.

https://t.co/sgJe6qBUiO

[Shawn Hammond @smham33]

@realDrTT Elijah all the way.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

My father cried.
I had never seen it. Not once in my life.

70 years old. Post-war generation. He hated America with everything he had.

60 years. Not one kind word. Not one.

Then March 2011 came.
He sat in front of the TV. Every day. Silent. Fists on his knees.

Your Marines digging black mud with their bare hands for Japanese strangers.

Your 19-year-old sailors sleeping on cold steel floors so our grandmothers could have beds.

Your carrier sailing INTO the radiation while the whole world ran out.

He watched all of it. And said nothing.

Then one night I passed his room and I froze.

Behind that door, my father, the strongest and most stubborn man I ever knew, was sobbing like a child.

I couldn't move. I just stood there in the dark hallway, listening, crying with him.

Then he said it. One sentence. It tore 60 years apart:

"I was wrong about them."

Do you understand what that took?

A lifetime of hatred. Gone.
Destroyed by soldiers carrying soup to strangers.

America, you didn't just save our towns.

You reached inside my father's chest and healed a wound he swore would never close.

He passed away believing in you.

Happy 250th. 🇺🇸🇯🇵
An old man who hated you died loving you. My father.

[Hank Smith @hankrsmith]

“Posterity who are to reap the blessings, will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors.”

- Abigail Adams, 1777

[Shawn Hammond @smham33]

@NFL_DovKleiman

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

“Mormons turned a swamp into a metropolis. Then they turned a desert into an empire. It’s the most American story.”

Their religious beliefs take them to Missouri. Neighbors learn they are anti-slavery and violently drive them out.

They go to Illinois and turn a swamp into a city that rivals Chicago. Only to have violent mobs run them out.

They walk toward Utah. Hoping to find a safe place to gather.

Jim Bridger mocks them. He bets $1,000 they can’t grow crops in Utah. They continue anyway.

The Utah soil is so hard it breaks their plows. So they engineer a way to water a desert.

Their crops grow. Salt Lake City sprawls. They expand. Latter-day Saints settle 500 towns across the West. A network of farms, commerce, and faith.

Their women become the first women to vote. They elect America’s first female state senator.

Their women organize themselves. With very little training, they create a system that lowers infant mortality to among the lowest rates in the country.

When the Depression hits, Latter-day Saints implement the most effective welfare program in the country. Decades later, Ronald Reagan studies it and calls it a model for the country. Its impact is seen today as Utah has the lowest usage of federal food assistance in the country.

The pursuit of knowledge and science becomes a hallmark. They start universities. They send their smartest men and women back east to learn the latest ideas and bring them back.

They are innovative. Technology that changes the world emerges from their culture. The television. The artificial heart. The weapons that won WWII. The beginnings of the internet.

The work ethic and cooperation that propelled them to develop the American West continues today. Their outsized influence on the world is famous.

They know religious persecution better than most. So they champion religious freedom for all, even those they disagree with.

Sociologists are obsessed with their outcomes. A Princeton researcher studied teens in America. She concluded that “Mormon teens are faring best.” Harvard data recently found that kids who grow up in Latter-day Saint homes are the most likely to say they feel loved by both parents. Other national studies consistently find them to be the happiest people in the country.

Gallup finds they are the most observant Christians in the country, a dedication to their faith that is unrivaled. Pew Research finds they know many Bible stories better than any other Christians.

A swamp became a metropolis. A desert became an empire. A persecuted people became the happiest in America. That’s the most American story ever told.

[Merriam-Webster @MerriamWebster]

Why is it ‘cancelled’ in the U.K. but ‘canceled’ in the U.S.?

Because we gave them that L in 1776.