The church loves to roll in it's pioneer heritage and to be honest, they did do a good job building something out of nothing and haw some nice old buildings to be proud of. The thing is they will always cling to this because they sure as heck haven't accomplished what Brigham Young did in modern times. Other than building a bunch of unwanted economy temples and redeveloping downtown Salt Lake, I can't thing of anything else big they have done. It sure as heck isn't as inspiring as a Manti or Salt Lake temple.

What's ironic is they want the old pioneer image but they want to push Brigham Young into the shadows along with his discourses. It's all about pulling a handcart now and making the members feel guilty that they aren't sacrificing more.

In any extended family tree there are heroes and there are villians; those who braved multiple hardships and those who wimped out; those we are happy to claim as relatives and those we are not.

The LDS church acts as if the Mormon handcart pioneers are the world's only heroes.

They are not.

Initially, I enjoyed learning about the Mormon pioneers. What I did not enjoy was hearing about them over and over and over and over.

This is just one of the ways in which the LDS church fails to be relevant to today's world.

I got my Mormon family newsletter today. It's like the Christmas letters, but four times a year. One of my aunts was talking about how almost her entire family have become "treckers" and how it "changes your life," blah, blah, blah.

Yes, putting yourself in a position where you are physically, mentally, and socially deprived is a GREAT idea.