I never really thought of myself as a blogger. A writer, maybe. A blogger, no. However, I have been motivated by several 'calls to arms' by the brethren of the church and a certain LDS Harvard scholar, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, whom I was fortunate enough to hear recently at a fireside. Her message that the Latter Day Saints need to start defining themselves instead of letting others define them spoke true to my heart. I think a lot of us would rather let someone run with misinformation about us then correct them and risk an argument. I truly think the time for that has come to end. We got by long enough with that approach, but we have a point of view that is worth being heard and we need to start speaking up. People might think it's weird that we don't drink coffee, but I think that most rational people respect our lifestyle and respect that we are disciplined in what we believe...even if they don't know what we believe. There are so many news stories, magazine articles, and other media out there that loudly spreads myths, un-truths, misinformation, ambiguity, and even lies with hardly any 'other side' of the story to counter them. Rarely is the the Mormon perspective given more than a closing paragraph, if that. We have to turn our quiet, shaky disagreements with these media into a firm, "That's wrong. You're wrong about that. This is what we really believe..." I think until we do that, people will say, "I know a Mormon family. Their really nice," while in the same breath saying, "But, I'd still have major concerns about electing a Mormon as the President of the United States."

I'm not saying that the Saints need to be  combative or confrontational. Quite the opposite. We need to have a spirit of humility, meekness, and understanding, following the example of Savior. However, I don't think anyone would ever describe Jesus Christ as a pushover. He taught his message with meekness and firmness. We must do the same. We need to let people know that we're at the table, which alone will change the conversation. Just letting those around us know that we are members of the church opens doors, if not immediately, then down the road. But we can't stop there! We need to speak up when the issues of God, politics, our weekend activities, our interests, etc come up.  We must begin to define ourselves louder than we have in the past. We have no reason to quiet, so we need to speak up.