A Few Facts about my Faith

Leaders of my church have recently exhorted us to write up some brief statements about our religion, for the purpose of dispelling myths and informing the curious about our faith. I thought that this would be a good place to do that.

FACTS
**I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also referred to as LDS (latter day saints) or Mormons. The term 'saints' refers to believers, just as it did in the new testament.
**We are Christians
**There are over 13 million members worldwide, with about 6million in the USA.
**We believe that Christ's true church was lost from the earth following the martyrdom of the original apostles, and was restored through Joseph Smith in 1830. Joseph's telling of the events is here.
**Joseph Smith was a man, as was Mormon, and both were called to be prophets, just like Abraham or Moses or Noah. Joseph Smith also served as the president of the church, as did Peter in the New Testament.
**We have prophets, apostles, and seventies, as outlined by Christ in the New Testament. They speak to us in conferences twice a year.
**We do not have a paid clergy.
**Women do not have the priesthood, nor do they serve as clergy. Women are involved in leading and serving in other areas of the church. The church does not suppress, repress, or abuse women.
**We hold our weekly worship meetings in chapels, and they are open for anyone to attend. Temples are for worthy members, and are places for meditation and renewing of commitments to God, as well as for ordinances such as marriages. There are currently 136 temples worldwide (you can see about them here).

FAITH
**We believe the Bible to be the word of God so far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
**We believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as three separate beings.
**We do not believe in original sin, nor infant baptism. We believe that we are responsible only for our own sins.
**We baptize by immersion. We believe that baptism is essential for salvation, and thus use our temples to do vicarious baptisms for those who have died without this ordinance.
**We believe in ongoing revelation, both for individuals and (through prophets) for the world.
**We believe that we are "saved by Grace, after all we can do" meaning that repentance and good works must be ongoing, but that we know salvation is a gift, and can only be given, not earned.
**Additional information can be found here in our Articles of Faith.

FAMILY
**We believe that the family is the basic unit of both church and society. We work hard to support and strengthen home and family.
**We believe that a marriage is ordained of God and is between one man and one woman. Polygamy was briefly practiced by some church members in the mid 1800s, but has not been practiced nor church-endorsed since 1890.
**Additional information about our teachings on families can be found here.

Yummm!!!

So, S is most definitely in the 'eat everything' stage. The most serious issue on my mind now is, what things do I take away, and what things do I just let him go ahead and chew on?!
Here are a few of the things I've found in his mouth this week:
*shoes/shoelaces
*the dog's bone (a real bone)
*paper
*newspaper
*a rock (his brother keeps interesting things in his room!)
*a broom (yes, a regular 4 ft broom--he knocks it over and goes for the bristles)
So, I take away the doggie bone, shoes, and newspaper...but I confess I just let him keep the rock. He really really wanted it, and it was too big to choke on. He was already chewing on it, so it's not as though taking it away would spare him some germs, you know?
Am I a terrible mother?!

In Case You Ever Wondered

I solemnly swear that I answered the questions honestly. All of them.

You Are 14% Evil

You are good. So good, that you make evil people squirm. Just remember, you may need to turn to the dark side to get what you want!

How Evil Are You?

And this is why, when I was 14, and bid a friend farewell with "don't do anything I wouldn't do," she looked me in the eye and said "I don't think I can be that good."

Who knew?!

A Few Films

In the last month I have seen a lot of movies. There are not a lot of entertainment options here, but the library has lots of videos, so that’s what we do here. Rather than writing out full reviews for each of these, I’m just doing the Readers Digest version…

Movies I am glad I saw
I Am Sam rated PG-13 for subject matter and one brief outburst of language. This is one of the most moving films I have ever seen. Sean Penn deserved an oscar for this performance as a mentally challenged father battling to keep custody of his daughter.
Cold Mountain rated R (if unedited) for language, violence, and sex. Based on a book, I imagine the book is fantastic! A civil war story, intriguing and well-told.
The Guardian rated PG-13 for intense scenes and language. About the coast guard rescue divers (in particular off the Alaskan coast); I have no idea if this story has any basis in truth, but it was a good film. It was predictable to some degree, but we still enjoyed it. And for once Kevin Costner didn’t stink.
Dreamgirls rated PG-13 I think. Somehow I had gotten it into my head that this was some sort of ‘documentary’ about The Supremes but that is not the case. I suppose it might be somewhat based on their story (I don’t know their story) but the movie is actually made from a broadway musical! I had no idea! There are not a whole lot of musical films made anymore, and it caught me very much by surprise. It was a great surprise, however, as it was very well done, and Jennifer Hudson ABSOLUTELY deserved her oscar for best supporting actress. It was one of the best performances I’ve seen in years.

Movies that took up hours of my life I will never see again (in other words, utter wastes of time!)
World Trade Center. I know it’s a touchy-feely subject, and it’s based on a true story, and Nicholas Cage is a great actor (really he is) but good grief, the movie is nothing special.
Ultraviolet Oh my poor brain cells. I skipped parts of it, and should have skipped the rest. There is no acting, no characters, not much plot, and a terrible script. There are a couple of scenes with cool cinematography (such as the one where the focus turns from one character to another by focusing in on their sunglasses), but that alone hardly warrants sitting through this travesty.
Memoirs of a Geisha yeah yeah yeah, based on a bestselling book, romantic and whatever…the romance is twisted (as she says, a geisha can never be a wife) and we found it altogether disturbing. I did find the DVD special feature about the hair, makeup and costuming to be fascinating…although they did take a great deal of artistic license on all counts, so it’s not very authentic.

And one which I can’t decide if I liked it or not…Georgia Rule PG-13. It had a lot of language, and dealt with some very harsh content (alcoholism and a girl who had been molested by her stepfather)…on the other hand, it had funny moments, and I think it did a good job of bringing heavy issues into public awareness. It also had some bits of Mormon culture; not disrespectful, but still somewhat amusing when contrasted with the hard lives of the other main characters.

Books and Guts

Yesterday someone gave me a whole lot of grief for not vaccinating my baby according to the recommended schedule. It's a convoluted story about how it all came up, but she knew that I was only doing one vax at a time, and asked how often I was doing them "every two weeks?" I said no, I was doing them a couple of months apart. She got a shocked and condescending look on her face and said "but then you'll never be able to get them all done by the time he's two."
"I know, but he'll have them before he starts school."
"Oh, but he really needs them by two."
I launched into an explanation of how I have done my research, from authoritative sources such as the CDC (Betcha *she* hasn't read the pink book cover to cover, even though she's an MD!)
She looked at me as though I were insane, and said "Well, I can see you've done your research, and you have the right to make those choices for your children, but I'm glad that other parents aren't making those same choices or we would lose the herd immunity. Other parents don't ask as many questions, they just accept. You are lucky that they are getting their shots, because they are helping protect your child."
I could have hit her. She's glad that other parents don't take the time to research for their kids? That they don't question? That they don't CARE?! Oh, and I should be greatful to those uncaring parents because they are 'protecting' my child?
*deep breaths*
After the fact, I came up with a number of great retorts for her, but in the moment I was just so overwhelmed with her staunch insistence that I was doing my children a disservice by caring enough to be educated. I've spoken with other doctors who may not have agreed with me, but they at least respected that I was trying to make educated decisions.

I make my parenting choices based on three things: education, intuition, and prayer. I would venture to say that the prayer actually overlaps into the intuition, because much of the intuition is actually inspiration. I 'go with my gut,' be those feelings based on Divine guidance or on instinct. Book and Guts people. That's how I mother. I'm far from perfect, but the method is not flawed, and I think we'd have a better world if more people tried it.


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Edited to add:
A few of those responses I thought of later:
"Oh, have you read the CDC's book cover to cover? Because I have..."
"Herd immunity? Are we talking about children or sheep?"
[after she asked if family members had had reactions, and why I was worried about them] "It's not just about reactions. Giving multiple vaccines at once, or close together, gives a child toxic levels of aluminum."
[after "you'll never get done by two"] "Well thank heaven for that!" (this was my dh's response when I told him. Yay Hubby!!! He's pro vax too, but at least he has the sense to want them spread out!)
"Oh, so you're saying that good parents don't ask questions? Have you ever read 1984?"
[after "what if he got measles out here in the middle of winter"] "Well, hallelujah if he gets the real thing and can develop real immunity, that's so hard to do nowdays!"

New Neighbor

Here he is!

Doggie loves Baby

My happy kids
(look at how patient and good that dog is with him!)



I dont' know why sound isn't working...I'm trying to figure that out. In the meantime, enjoy the visuals. :-)

Scooter

Photos of Home

Here are some pictures taken from the ferry on the way out to Pelican




Here is the Lisianski Inlet (our fjord) on the way into town


Here is town


Here is my neighbor, taken from my porch.


(He is a great blue heron. When I took this picture I thought it was a rare sighting...but now I have seen him up there several times, so I believe it is his nest.)

Vaccines—Polio/IPV

The IPV is recommended at 2m, 4m, 6-18m, and 4-6y. Doses must be given at least 4 weeks apart, and while 4 doses are on the recommended schedule, 3 doses is considered sufficient vaccination so long as the final dose is given after age 4. The IPV is not recommended over the age of 18years unless the person will be traveling to certain regions with high rates of polio. The MTC does not have this on their list of recommended vaccines (although it might be recommended for specific missionaries if they are going to those areas).

Polio gets a bad name because of cases like FDR, who developed lifelong paralysis. Many people know someone who was paralyzed by polio…what they do not realize is that millions of other people had polio and were NOT paralyzed. In fact, only around 5% of cases of polio resulted in any kind of paralysis, and fewer than 2% of those had lifelong paralysis. In other words, only something like 1 of 2000 infected people had residual paralysis, and not even all of those were para- or quadriplegics. The truth is that polio just isn’t as dangerous as we have been told. Now this is not to say that it’s no big deal—the risks were and are real, but they are just not terribly common.

That said, there have been NO cases of wild polio reported in the western hemisphere since 1991. In other words, the only cases of polio in the USA in the last 16 years have been those caused by the vaccine. Polio IS still found in SouthEast Asia (58%), Africa (21%) and the eastern Mediterranian (21%). However, researchers believe that polio will be fully eradicated from the planet by 2010. Polio is a ‘posterchild’ for vaccination, just as smallpox was. (Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, and the vaccine has not been administered since that time, although small samples of the virus do still exist in laboratories.)

For decades the oral (live) polio vaccine was given. As with any live vaccine, it was quite effective, but also very dangerous (it caused paralytic polio in about 10 people each year). Now the USA uses only the injected Inactivated Polio virus (IPV), but since this is a relatively new vaccine here, we don’t really know how effective it is. Doctors believe that 3 doses provides about 99% immunity, but we don’t know if that is accurate, nor how long it lasts. France has been using the IPV for years, and gives boosters after the initial series. However, the CDC believes that polio will be completely eradicated by 2010, and at that time polio vaccinations will be unneeded, so they have not pursued the matter.

SO, it’s entirely possible that this vaccine will be outdated by the time my next child is born…but, in the meantime, it is here, so I will write up the remainder of my research about it.

IPV contains formaldehyde, phenoxyethanol (ethanol—toxic, depressant, tranquilizer), and neomycin, streptomycin, and polymyxin B (antibiotics—Included to prevent germs in the vaccine cultures!)

The vaccine serum is grown in cells taken from monkey kidneys. There are documented cases of monkey viruses spreading to humans via polio vaccinations, and there is current suspicion that SV40 (another monkey virus) may be being transmitted, and may be causing certain cancers in humans. Some experts even believe that early HIV/AIDS transmission to humans came via contaminated polio vaccine serums. Of course this cannot be proven, but the spread of AIDS among humans occurred at around the same time and in the same areas as the increasing usage of the polio vaccine, so the theory is not unfounded.

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My Conclusions
Polio can be a dangerous thing, with lifelong side effects. The oral polio vaccine was scary, but the IPV seems relatively safe…on the other hand, if we are truly within a few years of fully eradicating this disease (and it has been gone from our area for over a decade) then what is the genuine risk to my children? If eradication is not successful, or if we travel to infected areas, then the vaccine makes sense…but if it really is on the way out, then what is the point of exposing oneself to the risks of a vaccine when there is no risk of exposure to the disease?