Tahlequah wins FIRST PLACE

Tahlequah Ward wins FIRST PLACE in the city's Christmas Parade!

Prairie Grove Does it Again

Fourth Annual- Prairie Grove Ward Sponsored the Christmas Party for the local Children's Library.

Our Mia Maid and Beehive classes  planned and carried out the event this year.   Even though the weather was not the best, we had a good turnout.  This was held on Wednesday, December 12^th from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm at the Library.  There were crafts, stories, refreshments and a visit from Santa.
The Director of the Library expresses appreciation for the efforts and children from the community seem to like it too.

Tahlequah-In the Community

Tahlequah is making great efforts to share their testimony with their community. December can be one of the best months of the year for reaching out and making a difference.
Tahlequah Ward has invited the community to join them in a "Christmas Devotional & A Nativity" 

The Ward has also entered the City's Christmas Parade again this year:

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints carolers.  This is the third year for the church to have a float entry in the Tahlequah Christmas Parade.  The LDS church float is adorned with snowflakes of the season and includes a small choir singing songs of Christmas to bring the joy of Christ to all.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tahlequah is located on Southridge Road, their meetings begin each Sunday at 10 AM, all are welcome. They would like to wish you a Christmas filled with family, joy, love and thoughts of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Merry Christmas!"

In addition to this, the Tahlequah Ward has invited the public to join with them for a special Sunday program:

"The Tahlequah Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would like to invite you to a Christmas music service on December 15 at 10:00 AM.  Please join us as we feel the spirit of this Christmas season & celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We are located at 110 Southridge Road, services begin at 10 AM with Sunday School at 11:15 AM & Priesthood, Relief Society and Youth classes at 12:10 PM"

The efforts of the Tahlequah Ward have made a difference in their community. If you would like to organize events, service or similar invitations for your Ward/Community, contact the Stake Public Affairs.

Tabernacle Choir Wins Emmy

“We want to take our music to everyone in the world who has access to a medium such as the Internet. We believe our music speaks to all of their hearts, whether they speak English or not. Our music will speak to their hearts, and then they can be touched by the Spirit, and that can then lead to a happier life, more joy, fulfillment, resolution of problems.”Choir president Ron Jarrett

LINK:  Deseret News Article Mormon-Tabernacle-Choir wins first Emmy in 26 years

First Presidency Announces New General Women’s Meeting

Beginning in 2014, a general women’s meeting will be held the Saturday before each general conference for all women, young women, and girls age eight and older.

http://www.lds.org/church/news/first-presidency-announces-new-general-womens-meeting?lang=eng

Stake Family Activity

Brother Battles of the Prairie Grove Ward announced "this will be an annual event for our stake". We sure hope so Brother Battles. 

Huntsville Senior Center

On going service? that is the "norm" for the Huntsville Branch. They got the idea to decorate the local Senior Center in a "Holiday" spirit. It was very well received and appreciated. But who was affected more? It may be hard to tell because the enthusiasm just keeps going. Every holiday or special occasion off they go again-to the Senior Center to decorate. It cannot be estimated how much joy these sisters bring into the lives of the Seniors who live there and those who work there as well.

"County Fair" Theme

"Game Season" Theme

Marshallese Temple Trip

The Springdale 3rd Branch enjoyed their first ever Marshallese Temple Session in the Marshallese language!

Words cannot express the joy felt by members of all ages who joined together to renew covenants, worship, and fellowship.

 The Temple brings us together, as families, as friends, and as a Branch. We love the Lord and His Church.

Huntsville Branch is At-It-Again!

Mormon Helping Hands Reach Out to County Library

Members from the Huntsville Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently spent a Saturday morning sprucing up the Madison County Library.  Because of a shortage of funds, the landscaping had been neglected.  The Mormon Helping Hands group trimmed shrubs, cleaned out beds, and edged the sidewalk and parking lot.  Librarian Billie Whorton expressed her gratitude to the group for helping to keep such an outstanding facility looking its best.

Family History Tips

Following every clue leads to success! Leave no stone un-turned, as they say!


http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865588228/Following-every-clue-leads-to-genealogy-success.html?s_cid=Email-4

Genealogy: 9 tips to focusing family history research

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865587247/Genealogy-9-tips-to-focusing-family-history-research.html?s_cid=Email-4

Mormon Apostle Speaks on Joseph Smith at Illinois Law Event

Apostle Dallin H. Oaks of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said this week that Church founder Joseph Smith’s most lasting contribution to the world is the insight he received in his capacity as a prophet — including revelations about the importance of the United States Constitution.

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormon-apostle-illinois-law

FamilySearch Wiki Reaches an Important Milestone

FamilySearch has reached a significant milestone. Last week, the 75,000th article was published in the Research Wiki. The Wiki is like having a worldwide encyclopedia of genealogy knowledge at your fingertips. This is really big news!

https://familysearch.org/blog/en/familysearch-wiki-reaches-important-milestone-2/

FamilySearch hits 1 million photos submitted

Article:   FamilySearch-hits-1-million-photos-submitted

500 helpers needed!

Love looking at photos? Want a useful way to spend half an hour each week on Sunday evenings or for Family Home Evenings? This is an interesting way to serve.

help-tag-member-submitted-photos

Flooding the Earth- With the Internet

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586392/The-LDS-faith-and-the-Internet-Flooding-the-Earth-from-the-comfort-of-home.html

Brother Stephen Kamilos-Bishop

September 1st, the Fayetteville Young Single Adult Ward (Fayetteville YSA), sustained a new Bishopric.

Bishop Stephen E. Kamilos of the Fayetteville 2nd Ward

Counselors

David S. Burns of the Fayetteville 1st Ward

Charles K. McJunkin of the Harber Ward

Brother Burns and Brother McJunkin have both served previously as councelors in a Bishopric. Bishop Kamilos has served twice before as Bishop for the Fayetteville 1st Ward and Fayetteville 2nd Ward.

"We are here as leaders to strive to make a positive difference in the lives of the Single Adults we serve. We love them."

The Fayetteville YSA Ward meet every Sunday at 11:00am at the LDS Institute Building 

On the corner of Arkansas Ave. and Reagan St. Fayetteville.

LDS FamilySearch + Ancestry.com = 1 billion new historical records online

Link : Family History Article
Link: Washington Post Article

Stake Family Activity

Saturday September 21st, 4-8pm

Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park

Springdale Stake and their friends, family, neighbors.

Featured Performer: GEORGE DYER AND FAMILY of Branson

Bring blankets, lawn chairs, and cups.

Refreshments served/ No dinner provided

Feel free to bring a picnic or food 

Popcorn, cotton candy, snow cones, root beer, and water provided

Brother Dyer is currently performing in Branson at the Duttons Theatre. He is a world reknown Tenor and has performed around the world.

Please feel free to invite your friends, family and neighbors.

Stake Family Activity

Don't forget the Stake Family Activity on September 21st. 

Check with the Stake "Calendar" or your unit leaders for more information.

Chicago Tribune: Re-enacting Joseph Smith's court hearings, and a look into Mormons' tolerance

Click on the Link for full article--

http://www.ldsliving.com/story/73555-chicago-tribune-re-enacting-joseph-smiths-court-hearings-and-a-look-into-mormons-tolerance

Book of Mormon Musical

Here is a very flattering article just posted in the Chicago Tribune regarding the way in which the Church and it's members has maintained a tolerant and respectful attitude since it's inception.  You may want to share this in your councils and with your priesthood leaders and mission presidents.  

Mormonism, Illinois have surprising history

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has, when you think about it, been a remarkably good sport when it comes to "The Book of Mormon."

As that money-spinning, massively irreverent musical lampooning the Mormon religion and many of its sacred tenets enters its final weeks in Chicago, there have been no LDS pickets outside the Bank of America Theatre, no attempts to organize a boycott, no statements of condemnation nor claims of religious persecution. History shows that other religions satirized by the creators of "South Park" have not always been so generous. But the LDS church even took out an advertisement in the Playbill for the Chicago production. "You've seen the show," the text reads, accompanying a photograph of a hip and attractive young woman, "now read the book."

Several theories are out there as to why the church has taken such a tolerant stance. Perchance its calculation was political: "The Book of Mormon" first opened in New York during Mitt Romney's campaign for the presidency, when the church was keeping a low, supportive profile. Perchance its elders decided, probably correctly, that there was no upside to a protest beyond fanning fevered flames. Maybe the church can genuinely take a joke.

Or perhaps the Mormon respect for freedom of expression is rooted more deeply than most outsiders realize.

Maybe one way to explain what happened with "The Book of Mormon" in 21st century America is to think about what happened with LDS founder Joseph Smith in and around Nauvoo, Ill., during the 1840s.

Indeed, just as "The Book of Mormon" exits Illinois this fall and migrates west, an interesting new Mormon-themed show will start up in the Land of Lincoln. The timing is coincidental, and therefore all the more fascinating.

For those with only a passing interest in Mormon history, the general view is that Illinois did not work out well for Joseph Smith or the Latter Day Saint movement: Smith was, after all, killed on June 27, 1844 by an angry mob that had stormed the jail in Carthage, where Smith was being held. (The LDS church now owns that site.) Although men were tried for his murder, the state of Illinois convicted none of them. Persecution of Smith's followers continued. By 1846, Brigham Young had led the Mormons off to the Salt Lake Valley, with Illinois in the rear-view mirror.

But events this fall will look back at a matter involving Smith, Mormons and Illinois that took place not in 1844, but in 1842 and 1843, when neighboring Missouri twice tried to have Smith extradited from Illinois after somebody fired a shot at Missouri Gov. Lilburn Boggs, and it the authorities reported that the shooter had a connection to Smith. Smith, who understandably did not anticipate fair treatment in Missouri, was arrested in Illinois by officers from Missouri but released after seeking a writ of habeas corpus (a legal action requiring law enforcement officers to show up in court and justify their act of detention).

Later this month, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission (both are in Springfield) plan to re-enact Smith's case (there were three Smith habeas corpus hearings) and explore a couple of centuries' worth of the application of habeas corpus, from Lincoln's suspension of the right during the Civil War to the much more recent issues at Guantanamo Bay. Gery Chico, a former candidate for mayor, is the moderator. Following the events in Springfield, there will be a follow-up in October at the University of Chicago's Logan Center in Hyde Park, and there also will be various events in Nauvoo, the town where Smith and his followers settled after entering Illinois. More information is at the dramatically titled website josephsmithcaptured.com.

The stated intent of all these programs is to explore whether or not the court is supposed to be "a safeguard for community values," and whether or not people with polarizing beliefs, lifestyles or value systems can, or should, get a fair trial.

These days, the mostly conservative LDS church generally lines up on the side of "safeguarding community values," of course, though that is an inherently loaded term.

But back in the Illinois of the 1840s, the Mormons were on the opposite side of that equation: After Smith's death, Illinois Gov. Thomas Ford said that he was all for driving the Mormons out of Illinois, on the grounds that their beliefs and actions were too different to have survived in the state. As the events this fall will surely show, Smith and his followers were turning to the courts in Illinois for much-needed protection of their freedoms. They found some satisfaction in the Land of Lincoln. Briefly.

It's a long way from real-life Nauvoo to the fictional South Park, Colo., I suppose. But history here might go some way toward explaining the tolerance that many non-Mormons who have looked into their Playbill at the Bank of America Theatre over the past year have found surprising.

As with any reach into history, it's all terribly complicated.

I asked John Lupton, the executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission, whether he thought that Illinois had been admirably respectful of the rights of Smith and the Mormons, and he pointed out that Smith and his followers represented a big voting bloc (15,000-20,000 people was a lot of new voters, then and now) when they came across from Missouri into sparsely populated Illinois, so political expediency was surely a factor.

Some things about Illinois don't change.

Lupton also noted that Smith's successes came on narrow legal grounds rather than on the merits of his particular situation, as Smith surely must have wished. Still, Lupton said without hesitation, "Missouri was an awful place for the Mormons."

By comparison, Illinois—well, official Illinois—was much more hospitable. Indeed, representatives of the LDS church are taking part in the re-enactments this fall, and historians from Utah have been contributing material and ideas to the inquiry.

There's another interesting parallel, too. Arguably, one of Smith's mistakes, or over-reachings, in Nauvoo happened in 1844 when he ordered the destruction of a printing press that had been used to publish publications critical of his teachings and practices. That caused great offense and deepened Smith's troubles.

That misguided attempt to muzzle criticism surely did not justify what happened to Smith in the end at Carthage, an event that must count among one of the darkest moments in this state's history, when a violent mob undid writs and protections for a minority, a violation of civil rights that other Illinois mobs would echo in the century that followed.

But in the little matter of "The Book of Mormon," those who hold Smith a martyr have taken a much smarter approach to criticism within a free country.

cjones5@tribune.com

Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib

New Visiting Teaching Topics Begin in October

Beginning in October 2013 the Relief Society Visiting Teaching Messages will focus on the divine mission of Jesus Christ and His many roles and attributes.

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/09/news-of-the-church/new-visiting-teaching-topics-begin-in-october?lang=eng

New Bible Video: Jesus Talks of 'Other Sheep'

Follow the "Bible Video" link below to watch a new video on the life of Christ- "Other Sheep". this would be a great video to share with friends and family, co-workers etc.

Bible Video

SHARE- it's easy

Navigating the LDS Church's mobile apps

Link- The Church-Mobile Apps Article

Sharing the Gospel has never been easier. At LDS.org, you can view and use so many features for yourself and tips on how to share with others. Sharing is as easy as talking. There are new apps available all the time for use. Also, we have a "FaceBook" page, Blog, and YouTube Channel available to the Springdale stake. we hope to bring more ideas and tools for you, your family, friends-to share!
FaceBook Page- Springdale Stake
If you have ideas, stories, articles to share, email us at springdalestakepublicaffairs@gmail.com