It’s been a while since I have posted. Busy, busy bee I am between my day job and preparing for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I am serving on a committee to host the choir and a group of community leaders.

Most of the area’s 15,000  Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormons) can’t remember a time when the Tabernacle Choir has performed here. It’s been 51 years after all.

In subsequent posts I’ll share my involvement and behind-the-scenes activities, any I experience, as well as little known trivia facts about the choir.

Here is one: National Geographic’s “USA101″ recently named the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as one of America’s top icons.

Mostly, I hope many of you will experience the concert for yourself.  We have heard them on TV at the Olympics and presidential inaugurations or weekly on the radio, but it is an amazing experience to hear the choir in person.

And the choir in recent years has embraced new styles of music with its own unique…

Seven-year-old Joseph Hofheins reacts to eating matzah with horseradish during the bitter herbs part of the Passover ceremony, which also included music and dancing. (Stuart Johnson, Deseret News)

Latter-day Saints (Mormon or LDS) have long felt a kinship with Jewish brothers and sisters. It’s becoming popular in recent years for Latter-day Saints (LDS) to take their feelings of kinship to a more active level. Some are participating in a Seder in addition to the traditional Easter services and remembrance observed this time of year.

I remember a few years ago a women’s activity at our local unit of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to make Seder plates. We spent the evening decorating the plates and learning the traditions of the Seder. I really enjoyed the activity. It gave me a great appreciation for the common heritage Christians and Jews share.

Latter-day Saints in areas of Utah are developing large activities for this special time of year. The following news-story is from Deseret…

It was reported today in the Boston Globe that LDS (Mormon) women, many moms among them, are making their mark in young adult literature – click here.

I found my husband Dan, an LDS bishop, reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I’ve never known him to be interested in young adult fiction, let alone vampires. He only scanned the Harry Potter series to know what his kids were reading. But the Twilight series captured his interest probably because many in his flock are reading it.

Dan took me to see the Twilight movie. I have to say it is probably the first time in our twenty-two year marriage he invited me to see a chick-flick!

It doesn’t surprise me that LDS mom Stephenie Meyer would write a wholesome vampire story. Well, maybe not the wholesome part, but vampires?… they seem scary. So yes, I am surprised about that. But Stephanie’s vampires are so nice that I am ashamed I had held such negative misconceptions of them.

OK, whoa, back to reality.…