The Inner Ramblings of Lauren

Every time I think that the LDS church is making progress or taking a step in the right direction, they do something to undo the “good” that was previously seen.  Just last week, The Mormon Channel on YouTube released “The Mackintosh's Story - A Son Comes Out and a Family Loves” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bgooicLEE&app=desktop ). While I have my own issues with that video, like Sister Mackintosh commenting that she should be in the corner crying, but she gave her hurt to the Savior, so everything is ok, when she shouldn’t be crying at all. She shouldn’t be sad that her son is gay. She should celebrate with him and be happy that he is alive and happy and living his truth. I truly believe that being gay is a spiritual blessing. I believe that my existence and my life since I came out has taught people around me patience and understanding, and opened them up to a world they previously dismissed. But alas, I digress… Today, the article "The War Goes On" ...

One year ago today, a policy change from the LDS church handbook was leaked onto the internet. This policy is referred to as “the exclusion policy” by many. Before the policy change, I really believed the church was taking strides in including its LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters; I had seen progress before. I was a BYU student from 2005 to 2008. Pre-2007, the honor code read as follows: “Advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit) or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature, are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code.” This meant that if you were a gay BYU student, you couldn't even admit it out loud without fear of being kicked out of school. There were multiple instances where friends of mine were looked at by the Honor Code Office, and friends of friends would be called in to find out whether or not the individual was gay. When called in, we would deny that our friend was gay to help save their academic standing. ...

This past weekend was the ATX Television Festival. This is the 4 th year the festival has taken place and this year drew the largest attendance to the festival to date. I’m not at all surprised that the most people came this year and that is due to one thing: Gilmore Girls . You tell the fans that there is going to be a reunion and we will come running. And yes, there was literal running, but I’ll get to that later. The weekend consisted of many different panels for the television lover. There was Bunheads , Empire , Drunk History , Brooklyn 99 , The Simpsons , Teen Wolf and more. There was no way to attend every panel, so my best friend and I picked what we most wanted and set out from there. Saturday morning we really wanted to get into “Coffee with Amy” (Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of Gilmore Girls ). But on our way to the panel, we heard that people started lining up for this panel around 5 that morning. (The panel didn’t even start until 10). So we knew there was...

Thank you, Gilmore Girls, for joking about ebola before it was ever in the U.S. 

How did ten years go by so fast? Here are the most awesome 10 year olds!     Happy birthday guys! I love you!

My Nana was a wonderful woman, and is definitely missed. She's probably one of the kindest people I have ever had the opportunity of knowing. While we were getting ready for her memorial service I had the opportunity of digging through old photos to come up with a slide show. We ended up using 124 pictures in the slide show, and I think people enjoyed it. I've decided to share some of my personal favorite pictures of my Nana. I think I like this picture so much because of the contrast between the dark colors that Nana is wearing and the white rock behind her. It strikes me for some reason. I think it's beautiful. Nana loved nature. (You'll probably come to realize that when looking at these pictures.) This is from my last October in Provo when Nana, Karen, Emily and Kara came to visit me. I liked when they came to visit and that time we went to Cornbelly's. Nana had a great sense of humor. I'm very glad that Nana was able to come to my college gradua...