Nelson’s headstone gets assist from temple renovation
(Michael Stack | Special to The Tribune) This notation appears on the monument that will mark church President Russell M. Nelson s grave in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. May 10, 2021.
It has become a common practice for a husband or wife to erect a headstone for the couple after only one has died waiting to list the death date for the surviving spouse to be engraved later.
Still, mourners strolling through the northwest quadrant of the historic Salt Lake City Cemetery might be startled to see a tall granite shaft emblazoned with the name Russell M. Nelson and the words “Seventeenth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
‘Mormon Land’: Longtime left-leaning Unitarian pastor reflects on his 34-year ministry in a red state LDS Zion
The Rev. Tom Goldsmith, who will deliver his farewell sermon Sunday, recalls his fight over the Main Street Plaza, his church providing sanctuary to a Honduran immigrant, and congregant Tim DeChristopher’s monkey-wrenching of a federal auction.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Rev. Tom Goldsmith shares a laugh Tuesday, May 11, 2021, during his final staff meeting outside on the lawn at the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City. Goldsmith is retiring after 34 years at the head of the Unitarian Church.
X-ing out the MX
Forty years ago Wednesday, the church helped shoot down controversial plans to base a nuclear missile system in Utah’s West Desert.
In a detailed, descriptive and impassioned 700-word statement issued May 5, 1981, the governing First Presidency decried the arms buildup, the destabilizing nature of the proposed MX deployment, and the impact the weapons plan could have on the environment, the economy and all of humanity.
“By way of general observation, we repeat our warnings against the terrifying arms race in which the nations of the earth are presently engaged,” then-church President Spencer W. Kimball and his counselors wrote. “We deplore in particular the building of vast arsenals of nuclear weaponry.”