Continuing my series of church history questions

Question #4- So I read somewhere that during the Korean War(1951), there was a shortage of Young Men to go on missions, so the seventies were asked to fill the gap, and married men were then called to serve full-time missions. How did that work out? For How long did this go on? How long were these missions? How does this correlate with around the same time the first missionary lessons/discussions were published for standard use throughout the church (1952)?

Continuing my series:

Question #3- How did we get to where The Aaronic Priesthood is the Young Men’s program of the church? When did 12 become the starting age for the priesthood? (For example, why not make it 11 since scouts starts at 11?) I see in the 1950′s the ages to be ordained teacher’s and priests moved from 15 and 17 to 14 and 16. Why the change?

So I’ve decided to continue a series of questions regarding church history that I can’t seem to get google to answer for me. I’ll be asking one a sunday until I get lazy and forget (maybe next Sunday.)

Question #2 is this- What did the church do for converts before Gospel Essentials class? I see in 1958 a “new program for convert integration was adopted” (per the church almanac), but have no idea what it was or how it fits in with our current convert integration efforts.

So I’ve decided to start a series of questions regarding church history that I can’t seem to get google to answer for me. I’ll be asking one a sunday until I get lazy and forget (maybe next Sunday.)

So Question #1- Per the 2010 Church Almanac, the church started home teaching in 1964, replacing ward teaching. What was the difference between home teaching and ward teaching. And since we (the church) always site the story of Joseph Smith’s home teacher being nervous, and Joseph coaching him, how does that all work out, since home teaching didn’t start until over 100 years later?

Bonus- When did visiting teaching start?

From the fake scripture file:

1 Among “active” Mormons there are three levels or degrees of Eagerness;
2 And in order to obtain the highest and most time consuming jobs in the church, an active Mormon must enter into this degree of activity [meaning fully "Eager" and not "Less Eager" or "InEager"];
3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.
4 He may enter into the other less demanding callings, but that is the end of his institutional progress; he cannot have a promotion.

I feel a new cross-stitched wall hanging coming on…

Well, I had a few more things I could have done with the data, but time got the best of me. Rather than leave this undone though, here is the data.

Survey Data

Please feel free to use the data,do some analysis and post a link here to your findings.

Continued from here.

For the full series click here.

So I was a little surprised by this set, though in hind sight, it makes perfect sense.
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Alright I know posting on something like this is a cheap way to drive traffic and comments, but a recent conversation Kristen and I had with an LDS friend inspired me to post on the elephant (or two) in the room. What is the deal with so many Mormon women getting plastic surgery which normally includes but is not limited to adding big fake boobs? (Which they of course cover ever so modestly thereafter…)

I wish we had some data on this subject. What I don’t know is if Mormon women are more likely or less likely than their socio-economic counterparts to join in the plastic surgery trend. My guess is that income and region are far greater predictors of plastic surgery participation than religion. If that is true the question is: Should we be surprised about that? (more…)

Continued from here.

For those of you who are new, click here for the entire series.

Seeing as the more free of commentary on my charts I am, the less crazy the comments on the post are, I am going “commentary lite” on this one. (more…)

Continued from here.

For those who are new, click here for all parts.

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet.
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Continued from here.

Well, we’ve talked about engagement before, so I don’t want to spend too much time on it, especially as there have not been that many dramatic changes in the results, even though the questions I used this time are a little different.
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Continued from here
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As a way of introducing the data set and setting out from the onset the natural imperfections inherent in doing data analysis via a web based tool, I thought I would begin with a brief explanation of the intent of the survey and some preliminary charts showing the demographics provided for those who took the survey.
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There was an interesting segment on 60 Minutes last week titled “Jihadists And ‘The Narrative’”. You can watch it here:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

“The Narrative” is the all too pervasive worldview among radical Muslims that says the United States is secretly bent on destroying Islam. Near the end of the segment it became clear that The Narrative relies heavily on conspiracy theories for its support. In this case the radical Muslims are convinced that the CIA was the driving factor behind the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States. The logic is that the CIA put Al Qaeda up to the attacks so America would have an excuse to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and to proceed with its secret agenda to destroy Islam. (more…)

I am going to do another Survey soon, but as I have no peers with which to review my question set, I thought I’d pass them by any readers out there for thoughts on the phrasing of the statements.

Each statement will be answers with a Likert scale ranking from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

Statements will be as follows:

There is no contradiction between the theory of evolution and my religious beliefs
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