Happy Columbus Week. Keeping with that, President Hinckley's son, Clark Hinckley, writes a book about Columbus because he thought it would be fun. Ostensibly, he has no credentials and we have to wonder whether he would get coverage were he not President Hinckley's son.

#PrayerGate is a thing. You see, after President Uchtdorf mentioned the General Women's Meeting being the "start" of General Conference, Elder Bruce A. Carlson closed the Priesthood Session describing it as the "fourth session." The Church has now edited Elder Carlson's prayer to omit any reference to the "fourth" session by muting the word "fourth." Check out the original below and the edited on beneath it (move to about 5:00 in the LDS.org embed).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPM4cf--w-M&feature=youtu.be&t=1h50m50s

So we must ask, was this in any way necessary?

We both see Meet the Mormons and offer our colloquial review. How did you like it? Is Meet the Mormons necessary?

CNN works with the Church on a piece about prescription drug abuse in Utah. It's pretty good and pretty interesting, and it's great to see the Church owning up to a social problem in its ranks and being cooperative about profiling it.

A man appears on Pawn Stars and sells an 1842 edition of the Book of Mormon. This was from the last printing during Joseph Smith's life. It was appraised at $40,000. Now YOU can go to Vegas, witness the lameness that is the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, and attempt to wrest a classic Book of Mormon from Rick's oily fingers.

Apparently, missionaries in the South America Northwest Area are being instructed to not allow baptism of investigators until they have paid some sort of tithe or offering. We have quite a discussion about this. Good intentions but risky implementation? Totally OK? Tell us your thoughts.

In other random news: let's talk about the evolving nature of mission presidents' wives; a mean gay bar during General Conference; the Church quietly lists many of its Australian agricultural properties for sale; the Church approves female chaplains in the military; the Osmonds rocked HARD; and the Church finally pays off the city of Parowan, Utah once it comes to light that the former had been stiffing the latter over a property line dispute.

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Links:

* Women's meeting not part of General Conference?

* Mormons and drug use on CNN

* Pay to baptize?

* Clark Hinckley writes about Columbus being wonderful

* Gay bar at LDSCONF

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