I recently discovered that until 1970, the Relief Society used to collect dues from its members. I have not been able to fin anything in-depth about it, but based on what I read, I presume that operational expenses were funded by these dues.

President Harold B. Lee announced in July 1970 that the collection of dues were to be stopped, and whatever money was in possession of the Relief Society to that point was to be handed over to the Church. I’m not sure I see the logic in this decision.

First of all, this decision meant that the Relief Society would need to cover operational expenses through the tithing fund, which would place more stress on such a system.

Secondly, this decision meant that the Church was eliminating an additional revenue stream.

Why would any organisation want to cut off a viable revenue source just to place extra burden on other revenue sources?

Last night, I was spending some time trying to track down old friends and people I taught on my mission. I was saddened to come across the obituary of John O’berto who died in 2002.

We taught John in the spring and early summer of 1993. He was a great guy who embraced the gospel. He was on his second marriage and his wife was a member. They owned a cafe and let missionaries eat there once a month for free.

I left only a couple of days before his baptism, so I lost track of how things turned out.

Well, the obituary states that he remained active in the Church. He went to the temple the following year, and was sealed to his wife and her children. He was an instructor in the high priests group and when he died, he was serving in the high priests group leadership.

I’ve only ever been able to find out what happened with one of the people we taught, so this was very encouraging. I just wish I could find the others.

Blogger has a new comment moderation feature that I have implemented. The plus side is that spam will no longer get through. The down side is that a user’s comment will not appear immediately unless s/he is a member of Our Thoughts. Usually, I am pretty quick with moderation, but when I am out or asleep, your message will not appear for a few hours.

It’s not a perfect system, but I think it is less intrusive than word verification.