I read a great post today asking the question (and analyzing) if drinking caffinated sodas as a Mormon was allowed, and I wanted to get reader feedback and their take on it.  What is your guys take on it?  Are you a Mormon that drinks caffinated sodas?  I use to, but sadly I did not stop because I felt I was breaking the Word of Wisdom, but rather because it gave me horrible headaches and I was addicted to it.  I sleep better at night because of it, and I am losing weight too.  These are obvious benefits, but I have many friends that are Mormons that drink caffinated sodas with zero effects (obvious to me or them anyway).

So I ask again - What is your take on the official policy, and do you drink caffinated sodas?  Do you have any negative effects from doing so?  I would love to hear and get this question answered finally.  Thanks guys!

Many of you may have recently received an email which I have pasted in part below. The question is: Is this legitimate or not? Read the email and then read the results of our investigation as to its legitimacy.

BEGINNING OF EMAIL

President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Speaking at the Forest Bend Ward, Salt Lake City UT
Sunday, October 12, 2008

“Even though I regularly have the opportunity to attend Fast and Testimony meeting, I don’t usually stand to speak. But today, I feel moved upon by the Spirit to share a message…

END OF EMAIL

One of our employees called the Church public affairs department to check on the legitimacy of this email. He was told that the Church is getting calls from all over the world inquiring as to the legitimacy of this email. Our employee was told:

“Elder Packer was at the meeting, he was inspired to stand and speak and did so. He did give a talk, but that the notes that are being sent around on the Internet are an attending member’s interpretation of the talk Elder Packer gave and that the notes should not be considered an official church notice or statement of any kind.”

This talk has been posted in its entirety on several “family blogs.” Initially, we had posted all of the email, but upon further consideration decided not to continue the furtherance of a non official church notice.

Another General Conference has come and gone, and once again we were bombarded (in a good way ) with the mantra to “stay out of unnecessary debt.” With each General Conference you can pretty much count on being counseled on staying away from three latter-day vices:

Avoiding debt
Avoiding pornography
Avoiding addictive substances

When discussing the avoidance of debt, our leaders generally suggest that debt is really “ok” in only 3 or 4 circumstances:

1. A mortgage for a modest home
2. Loan for a practical car or cars
3. Loans received for the pursuit of higher education
4. Emergencies, i.e. health related, etc.

Outside of the aforementioned areas, LDS people are strongly encouraged to live below their means and stay out of the grasp of debilitating money problems. Many people live by these words and are better off for it. However, I believe that there are many other well-intentioned individuals who cannot seem to avoid gathering debt, although they are truly trying.

One of the reasons many of us have such a hard time with this concept is we almost never receive any formal training in money management. High School curriculum is all but void of budgeting skills, colleges and universities rarely address the subject, which means you really have to be a self learner when it comes to finding and effectively using budget planning tools.

Fortunately, there are many types of household budgeting software out there. I have found that I am a real fan of the envelope budgeting system. In days of yesteryear, families would actually put a number of envelopes on the wall and label each for a different expense, i.e. mortgage, groceries, tithing, etc. Today, you can set up virtual envelopes and assign a budget to each of these spending areas. The software links up with your bank account so that every expenditure is automatically tracked via the envelopes. This makes it very easy to see where you are overspending on a daily basis. I find that this daily spot-checking allows my family to make spending adjustments before we completely blow the budget.

I will probably post on this subject again next April, after a friendly reminder from our Church leaders!

Have you ever read any of the circulating stories detailing situations where an over-zealous blogging woman accidentally erases the family blog. Of course, her first reaction is to call on her husband for some electronic heroics. Hence the title of this blog… if I imagine my family in this situation… I can just hear my wife screaming save my blog!

I’d assume most bloggers are fairly unaware that one of the risks of keeping the family journal via blog is that it could accidentally be erased. Or worse, the free hosting service you use becomes interrupted or canceled.

Last night I pointed these facts out to my blogging addicted wife and she quickly replied, “How can I archive my blog?” To appease the little lady, I did some research and found out about a few solutions. One of the more interesting options, probably because it is local, is the launch of a new product/service called Bloggled. Bloggled is a free service that allows families to easily archive their blog. Better yet, the archiving is automatic with each new post.

So, to my dear wife, and all other blog crazy readers go take a look at www.bloggled.com.