why havent the brethern come out against plastic surgery?

here are some thoughts about plastic surgery by Jeff Holland ...here is the link to his talk found in the Liahona,
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=0c996169b62fe010VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1

i am so tired of this becoming normalized...am i crazy to think that this is extreme and terribly unnecissary? but more and more common.? i think plastic surgery is wrong. in our faith, the body is a temple. tattoos, piercings, etc. are wrong and have been blatently spoken about by our prophets. mutilating our body, adding things to our body, putting our life on the operating table for cosmetic/vanity purposes is completely wrong. i feel like i am the only woman that feels this way. everyone has physical concerns and things that they want to change, but plastic surgery seems too extreme, dangerous, and completely against the "our bodies are a temple" DOCTRINE.

here is an interesting part Holland's address that concerns this issue...

"In this same vein may I address an even more sensitive subject. I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not! But as one adviser to teenage girls said: “You can’t live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]” 8 And in the kingdom of God, the real you is “more precious than rubies.” 9 Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women. And if you are obsessing over being a size 2, you won’t be very surprised when your daughter or the Mia Maid in your class does the same and makes herself physically ill trying to accomplish it. We should all be as fit as we can be—that’s good Word of Wisdom doctrine. That means eating right and exercising and helping our bodies function at their optimum strength. We could probably all do better in that regard. But I speak here of optimum health; there is no universal optimum size.
Frankly, the world has been brutal with you in this regard. You are bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and advertisements with the message that looks are everything! The pitch is, “If your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular.” That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, to say nothing of later womanhood. In too many cases too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional (to say nothing of superficial) standard. As one Hollywood actress is reported to have said recently: “We’ve become obsessed with beauty and the fountain of youth. … I’m really saddened by the way women mutilate [themselves] in search of that. I see women [including young women] … pulling this up and tucking that back. It’s like a slippery slope. [You can’t get off of it.] … It’s really insane … what society is doing to women.” 10
In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance—tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled—those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children. At some point the problem becomes what the Book of Mormon called “vain imaginations.” 11 And in secular society both vanity and imagination run wild. One would truly need a great and spacious makeup kit to compete with beauty as portrayed in media all around us. Yet at the end of the day there would still be those “in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers” as Lehi saw, 12 because however much one tries in the world of glamour and fashion, it will never be glamorous enough."

gh4

me and michael saw this commercial on t.v. the other night, and it really bothered me. is anyone else disturbed by this? i get that they are trying to mimick the famouse tom scene in risky business, but the awkwardness and complete embarrassment is overpowering. what were these athletes thinking?

Mom in NYC

So Ron watched the kids for us and Mom and I went into NYC for a girl's night. My plan was to stop by the Wicked box office and put our names in the lottery. The internet and Ryan told me our names needed to be in by 5:00 for a 5:30 drawing. However, when we got there at about 4:50, the box office guy told Mom that the lottery was actually from 5:30 to 6:00. Mom was somewhat disgruntled about this and about the man's attitude and lack of customer service skills. We walked around Times Square until 5:30 then went back to the theatre to put our names in the drawing. There weren't that many people there--maybe because it was really cold tonight. I really think we had a decent chance of getting tickets. But when Mom found out she would have to wait a half hour for the drawing, she didn't want to have anything to do with it. She was already disgusted that the lottery was at a different time than they had advertised it. So we left and missed out on our chances of seeing Wicked for $25 a ticket. That's OK--whatever Mom wanted was fine with me. I just thought it was pretty funny.

From the theater we walked to Serependity for dinner. I thought it wouldn't be that far, but we ended up walking for 30 minutes. A major miscalculation on my part--Woops! By the time we got to the restaurant, Mom and I were exhausted. Of course she shows no signs of her recent intense cardio workout and looks perfectly beautiful and serene in this picture taken as she was eating her dessert:



We thought this picture in the women's restroom right next to the toilet was funny:

Does Grandma Boyer put her framed pictures of 19th century men in the bathroom as well? An interesting decorating idea.

We finished at the restaurant at 7:45--too late to catch a show--so we went to the Times Square Toys R Us (By the way, we took a taxi back to Times Square in lieu of walking this time). It sounds lame but it was really fun! Mom really liked the life-sized T-Rex that roared:

She liked Spider Man:

And she liked the full-size ferris wheel, especially the My Little Pony cart:

We had a great night! Thanks Ron for watching the kids! Thanks Mom for hanging out with me!

a few comments that some of you might not have known, but maybe you do...

1. Evan got his LIFE badge and now just needs to figure out an eagle project...if anyone might have ideas????

2. Evan's GPA is a 3.5 this quarter, right evan?

3. i overreacted today (big suprise) abt. the dentist, mom, sorry i called you and happy birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. i just wasnt sure what to do...so thanks and everything is just fine!

4. michael (my husband) was looking at some photos we took last week and saw this one of me and said that he thought i looked like jen and that he had never thought that before....what do you think about that? do we look alike?

Christmas is Coming.......Prepare!

The holidays are upon us. Riley and I took the liberty of drawing names for everyone this year so we can be thinking of what to get people. The names in red are the people you are buying presents for.

1. Jen - Jon

2. Ron - Amy

3. Janelle - Jen

4. Michael - Riley

5. Mike - Michael H.

6. Ryan - Evan

7. Melanie - Janelle

8. Jon - Ryan

9. Amy - Mike

10. Riley - Melanie

11. Evan - Ron

Here is our 'murder' party. It was really fun! ours was in 1936. Michael was a lawyer/golfer, i was an "actress". Neither of us was the killer, but we were both shady characters. It was fun. I most enjoyed my mink...i did feel glamorous when i had it one. I bought it at value village and I was a little nervous that someone might have died in it. But I loved it anyway. The game was like 4 hours long...amy how long did yours go? we all kept getting up and getting food and stuff, so we didnt play just straight thru. But, it was fun!

this picture of me is funny b/c i am trying to be all fabulous in my dirty bathroom...

Here are some pictures of Amy's race in Fort Collins, CO. She did awesome, of course and it was great to see her. we also met Lopez Lamont, the American Flag Bearer at the Bejiing Olympics Opening Ceremony and survivor of the Rwandan genocide.