Ahh....the smell of banana bread is wafting dreamily through the air.
My mother in law has one of the best recipes known to mankind. I don't chop the nuts as neatly as she does, and sometimes I accidentally leave it in the oven a minute too long and it comes out dry... but I can sometimes come close to how she makes it now and again. :-)
This last weekend my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or the Mormon Church) had a giant broadcast from our church leaders to the entire world. This is one of my FAVORITE weekends of the year (it comes twice, better than Christmas!). Since you can watch it online, we hook it up to the TV, snuggle up on our couches, and try to keep the kids as quiet as possible (ha ha) so we can listen to all 8 hours of it (broken up into 4 chunks). I. Love. Christ. And I am proud of being a Mormon!
Now, why am I posting this on my "business" site instead of my personal blog? Well first of all, it will go there too, and second of all, I have a point to make here.
Once upon a time I learned how to make a professional resume as I was finishing up my student teaching in college and beginning to look into applying for jobs to be a music teacher. I had a lot of experience to put on my resume from things that I had done for classes here and there at school, but really I felt like where I learned the most from interacting with kids and working with them on a consistent basis was the positions I held at my church teaching children the gospel each week. At the time I was in a leadership position in what we call "Primary" (where kids go the last two hours of church each week) and I learned a LOT from my time in that job. That helped prepare me for being
in front of a classroom more than anything I learned
in the classroom in college. So at the top of my resume when all the "secular" music teaching experience, and all the supplemental experience at the bottom, I attributed to my positions I held at church.
I then was instructed to take this resume to the resume review center at school where I met with a very nice young woman who reviewed my resume for me. She was impressed that this was only my first draft, she said everything looked great, everything was in the right place, everything was written very well....all except for my church experience at the bottom. Considering what church I came from, she strongly suggested that I remove this from my resume because although legally a principal is not allowed to hire or not hire based on religious background, it could mean the difference between me getting a job or not if I left it on there. She handed me back my resume and said she'd be happy to look it over again if I needed it once I made the necessary changes.
I went home feeling a little assaulted, although I couldn't pinpoint why. I knew she was right, but I felt stubborn about making those changes to my resume. Did she tell this to people of other religions? That could be very well the truth, but I was just bothered by it. Experience is experience, it shouldn't matter
if it happened to take place at my church. In a country where religious freedom is honored and promoted and for heaven sakes, the very principal that
founded our country, why on earth should it matter how I teach based on my religion? However, no getting around it, there are a lot of people out there, good people with high morals and standards, Christlike people even, who just don't like Mormons. And the more I thought about it, the more determined I was to keep that portion in my resume. My thought was, I would rather a potential employer know outright that I was Mormon and
not hire me if they felt so inclined for that reason than work for someone who later found out I was Mormon and be bothered by it. Perhaps that wasn't the right attitude to take, but it was the one I chose. And I was hired at the position I wanted with that information in my resume.
The Mormon Church has begun in certain cities and areas across the nation what they call a media initiative. They are broadcasting the heck out of TV, billboards, bus advertisements, anywhere, commercials and ads about Mormon people. Perhaps you've seen it or heard of it, it's called "I am a Mormon". Lots of different Mormon people talking about who they are. Mormon advertisements used to focus on our doctrine, now they focus on who we are
because of our doctrine. The Denver area is one of the areas chosen to broadcast these bios on TV and everywhere else, and the initiative started on the first of this month. I watched a lot of these bios and we've talked about it at church some, and what kept popping up in my mind was this resume I made forever ago and how MY church looks to some people- which is precisely why I believe this initiative is taking place. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a very recent and
very rapidly growing worldwide religion, and anything that butts it's way into the world that quickly on such a large scale is bound to receive critique, no doubt about it, but unfortunately much of what is assumed about MY church is simply not true. Much of what is assumed about the
people in MY church is also simply not true. And this initiative is going out to help dispel false information about Mormons and their doctrine and educate people about what we are really about.
So I am putting this on here to let you know, I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and my work and my product will be the same for you now that you know this information. It's not something I just happen to do, I am a Mormon because every fiber of my being is dedicated to Christ and his gospel. I think it's wonderful that we are not hiding and enduring the large clouds of false information that float around this world about who we are anymore, and are just coming out and being honest about ourselves! Nothing to be ashamed of, and in fact a lot of good things to learn...
Consider this my resume to you, I am a Mormon.
And if you want to find out more about who I am and what I believe, you can go
here.
If you would like to know more about what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is really all about, you can go
here.
And here is a really cute hat that I finished while watching our General Conference this weekend. :-)
