[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Saints collectively lose their mind over President Nelson's encouragement that we "eat your vitamin pills" and "get some rest" in reference to ongoing changes as the Restoration continues. It's madness!

President Nelson's wife, Wendy, describes him as "unleashed" with regard to his work as a prophet. Is that weird? Is it awesome? Prophets, unleashed!

Will you miss the counseling meeting in Relief Society and elders quorum? Will it be weird to get up and go home after Sunday school?

Tragic news out of Utah, as the mayor of North Ogden, who was in Afghanistan with the Utah National Guard, was killed over the weekend. Brent Taylor was LDS, naturally. An Afghan soldier that he had been training turned on him and killed him. An Afghan army pilot also wrote a letter to Brother Taylor's wife.

In other fun political news, Utah House of Representatives candidate Todd Zenger uses the Title of Liberty found in Alma 46 to make his case. It's probably better not to use the Book of Mormon for political gain. Then Utah's governor got into the action. Bad politicians!

So, uh, a "relationship expert" on Dr. Philquoted Joseph Smith. Just read some King Follet and call it a day.

Family Search has released some awesome new features that show you which ordinances are ready within your family tree. Check out the video below. It does all the work for you!

Donny and Marie Osmond are ending their 11-year run at the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas. Go!

Care to learn what working for Chip and Joanna Gaines taught two Latter-day Saint women? Well, OK. Read this. Also, listen to Tiffany talk about it.

Let's talk about hilarious misheard hymns. They are so funny.

Happy Halloween! To celebrate, let us remember this wonderful couple that RIPed Home Teaching and three-hour church.

Also in Halloween news, a brilliant BYU communications student showed up to a party in blackface. Now he's facing discipline. Is that OK? Is he a fool? He's done ridiculous things.

There's a great new Church website about dealing with and thwarting abuse. Check it out.

There are no more less actives! Stop calling them that! Everyone is returning!

Famed church pageants are going away! What's up with this? What's up with austerity?

Is your ward full of anti-Santa people?

The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is horrible, and the Church has spoken out against antisemitism.

Mormon Helping Hands are putting their hands all over Florida!

A great ward in Chicago is closing down because of altering demographics. Sad.

The University of Utah has a great new Century of Black Mormons digital exhibit. Check it out!

It's our 400th show! How did we get here? We joke a lot, but in all seriousness, big thanks and hugs to everyone who has helped us get to this point. There's no show without you, TWiM Nation. We're happy to be a part of it.

So join Geoff and Al as they reminisce about nearly nine years of podcasting. (Al thought it was longer.) What has This Week in Mormons meant to you? We'd love to hear about it.

There is, of course, some news. "According" to a "researcher" who is an expert in finding the average between three values, the current First Presidency is now the oldest, ever! Way to set the curve, President Nelson!

Jana Riess does her best to praise Latter-day Saint singles, but the article is weird and mostly praises those who get married later in life. Look, folks that are having a hard time with not yet being married, we get it. It sucks. It can make it hard to stay in the Church. It can make you question everything. But hang in there.

Does a mission define you as a Latter-day Saint? Do we prop up returned missionaries at the expense of those who opt not to serve?

Here's a great story about how Mitt Romney's kids told him to watch the sitcom New Girl, but instead, he and Anne sat down and watched HBO's Girls and had a VERY different experience.

Open house tickets for the Rome Italy Temple are now available, so get thee to the Spanish Steps!

 

all the rage, and with the Sisters being in Idaho, Tiffany is anxiously awaiting a digital mission call for her oldest daughter in the coming weeks.

Did you know that President Nelson wrote one of the hymns sung by the TabCATS during General Conference? It's true! The closing song of the conference, "Our Prayer to Thee" has lyrics penned by none other than our favorite prophet/surgeon. You wouldn't know it because it's not like President Oaks said, "And the choir will sing, 'Our Prayer to Thee,' which incidentally was written by our beloved prophet.'" This isn't Krushchev's USSR, folks.

Amazing Race hosted early losers and capra enthusiasts in Arizona Ozzie Osborne at their goat yoga studio. Let us all remember that goat meet is underappreciated in the United States and you should all eat more of it. Horse meat is next.

Learn all about young Latter-day Saint kids competing in fierce, Utah-based dance competitions!

LDS Living continues to push all ridiculous stereotypes of genders by reporting on an elders quorum that decorated for a ward party using shop tools, nuts, bolts, and washers. Great job, men! Just step up and use Pinterest next time!

Because a ton of women assumed that President Nelson's proposed social media fast needed to happen immediately in the wake of General Conference, the promotional folks behind Jane and Emma (read our review) resorted to old school methods to get the word out, including opening phone banks. It worked. The film is expanding! Take that, Salt Lake Tribune!

Speaking of fasting, are women prone to judging? Will fasting become a barometer of righteousness? Should women publicize their decision to fast? But seriously, Tiffany's daughter would rather wait to open her mission call and not break her fast than just use social media as a tool and let people enjoy the opening of her call.

LDS Living also has all the hot ideas to decorate your vehicle for trunk or treat. Yippee.

Join Al and Geoff for a wild ride through General Conference, including brilliant breakdowns of the "home-centric" church, including a shorter block of time at the church building.

Also, what's in a name? Everything! Are we Mormons? Not sure. Is this the "Mormon Church"? Definitely not. Do we take part in Mormonism? Maybe? We're still figuring all of this out.

So let's work through General Conference. Let's talk about faith. Let's talk about conversion. Let's talk about how to keep newer members integrated into the gospel and how to help returning members feel at home there. We can do so much more, and General Conference helps us get there.

Also, we got some new temples, which is awesome!

It's time to get ready for General Conference, and after April's doozy of a weekend, expectations are high to be blown away once more. But will we? Will two-hour church actually be a thing? Will American still have their civil wedding done in the temple along with their sealing? Will testimony meeting go out the window? Will women ever pray again during conference sessions? Geoff and the TWiM Sisters break it all down.

Arianne notes the different approaches taken by Utah's two daily newspapers on millennials. The Deseret News ran a positive article on millennials being the future of the Church, needing to be heard and understood, and showing all that they are capable of. The Salt Lake Tribune chose to show how many millennials are kinda in and kinda out of the Church, opting for their own "way" of doing things. Either way, Millennials are clearly lazy and entitled. Obviously.

"Less active" is no longer a thing. We are supposed to call these people "returning members." Didn't know that, did you?

Tiffany has a ball with the story about a man who accidentally shot his pistol at church in Provo, frightening his whole ward. Turns out, the man was Tiffany's home teacher once upon a time.

The Studio C cast is off on a new adventure, and we wish them well.

President M. Russell Ballard's wife, Barbara, passed away this week at age 86.

Hey, we're back! Thanks for waiting for us.

What a time! The TWiM Sisters are back up in this hizzy with recaps on all the great stuff you love.

However, of course, there's news. FamilySearch, the LDS Church-owned genealogy website, made some waves when it announced it will include same-sex couples in its database, the result of a multi-year effort.

Tired of lame hymns? Eager to hear new hymns? Composer of your own hymns? The Church has announced a program to create a new, unified global hymnbook that will also include user submissions. So get in there any make your own hymn!

After the Trump administration set out to separate undocumented parents, many of whom are asylum seekers, from their children, the Church spoke out against the move, reminding us the families come first.

Plenty of Mormon kids leave BYU and are shocked that the working world involves attendance at happy hours, grabbing coffee with potential mentors, and engaging in all sorts of appearances of evil. Alas, such is not a sin. In fact, it's a crucial part of professional growth, and a great article at By Common Consent has some fun with the whole thing.

Church photography has changed a lot. No more are Church photographers staging sacrament meetings. Instead, there's an effort to take candid photos of real people engaged in real life, and it's awesome.

Hey, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had a gay conductor, if only for one night.

New Apostles Gerrit W. Gong and Ulisses Soares are keeping it real.

The Church has also implemented new standards for interviewing youth. It's a process of refinement.

Lastly, LDS Living has the Mormon myths you never knew you needed to know about, but now must make a part of your life.

The Sisters are back! Arianne had a baby boy and will regale you with tales of the wonderment of children. She is super grateful that the Church has severed ties with Boy Scouts.

Speaking of, the Sisters have their thoughts and predictions on what will replace the current youth programs. Will there be overlap across genders? Will they meet separately? Tiffany 101 has the call.

In a big story, some doof created a fake Mormon Newsroom site that contained an alleged "apology" from President Nelson about the pre-1978 priesthood ban. All of this was in the runup to the "Be One" broadcast celebrating the 40th anniversary of Official Declaration 2.

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Do the ways Mormon women care for each other following the birth of a child reflect sexist policies in that men are not included? Why can't men bring meals? Why do we assume women are the ones to cook and share? The perpetrator claims he was not trying to hurt anyone and merely wanted to "start a discussion."

BYU's Marriott School has appointed its first female dean, Brigitte C. Madrian. Madrian was previously serving at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The New York Times shares a piece about what Islamophobic politicians (yes, they exist in spades) can learn from Mormons, because Mormons are awesome to Muslims all the time!

Remember in early May when we learned of DNA being used to find the Golden State Killer? Now we've learned that the DNA came from the largely LDS community of Rexburg. Outstanding!

Per this episode's title, President Russell M. Nelson has encouraged youth (and all of us?) to take a seven-day social media fast in an effort to remove ourselves from the false sense of identity that social media foments.

So, the Church apparently has $32 billion in stocks. What does this mean to you? If anything, it means we can hire freaking custodians for our church buildings. Come on!

Oh, and the Church randomly called a new Seventy as if they got the tally wrong during General Conference.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter playing will they/won't they for a few years, the delicate dance is ending with the Church severing its ties with Boy Scouts. What does this mean for the future of youth programs in the Church? How do you feel about sunsetting Scouting?

Plenty of drama in Mesa, Arizona as the Church moves to demolish homes within the Temple Historic District to make way for a revamped temple compound, including a new visitors center. Preservationists have accused the Church of acting in bad faith. Either way, the Church actually owns most of the homes, so demolished they shall be.

Al has plenty to say about Ministering. Plenty.

Isn't it fun that meetinghouses now restrict access to social media networks on the building's wifi? Except Facebook. Why is Facebook exempt?

Provo and Salt Lake City are the worst places to live in the US if you're single! This cold partially be because there are no bars.

On his World Tour, President Nelson shared a great story about how the announced temple in Bengaluru, India came to be. Check it out. Also on the tour, the prophet denounced dowries and encouraged those experiencing poverty to pay tithing as a "way out."

Volunteers (i.e. missionaries) in Turkey have been temporarily reassigned due to political unrest in the country. Will they return? Who knows! (God does.)

The Houston Texas Temple is back! It's back, kids!

The Church has reminded us to take care of the earth. This is for you, Scott Pruitt.

Remember that survey on missionary safety? The results have been announced! And changes are being implemented!

Also, these excellent videos:

The Sisters hop on to talk about Mother's Day and all it entails, and Arianne plans on welcoming a new baby this coming weekend! Remember when she said she was itchy? Turns out that's a more serious thing than we anticipated.

Why do people flip out when you tell them you don't have a name yet picked out for your coming baby? What's up with that? And Arianne has a full rundown of awful Mormon Corridor names while Tiffany encourages her to embrace her inner professional wrestler.

There are still stories to discuss, however.

For example, are Mormon mommy bloggers creating a false perception of reality? Deseret News wonders whether the blogs are hurting more than they are helping.

That said, here are some mommy bloggers you should know!

By Common Consent is a venerable Mormon blog, and the Sisters have fallen in love with author Jessie Jensen.

How well do Mormon women cover the unique pressures they face navigating LDS culture, professional ambition, and family responsibilities?

Oh yeah, and there was that one time the Church found out about a philandering mission president in Puerto Rico named Philander, and the actions they took, which involved releasing and excommunicating him.