Search Results: memorial
Some were bittersweet requests, like, “Please tell me more about my uncle, father, brother, mission companion, BYU roommate…”
We regret to announce the passing of Howard B. Anderson (May 24,1928 – January 21, 2014). As president of the Los Angeles Stake, Pres. Anderson sponsored in the mid-1990s the “Third Friday Group” which gathered once a month at the Westwood Ward (behind the Los Angeles Temple).
A memorial service for former Affirmation President David Melson will be held on Saturday, October 12, at 2:00 PM at the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign located at 1640 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036. Nearest Metro Stop: Farragut North.
Today, Affirmation serves over 30,000 community members organized into three geographic areas, fifteen regions, and thirty-two chapters in addition to a number of faith-and-experience-based affinity groups.
Paul Mortensen helped me feel at home with myself and to embrace both my Mormon and gay sides. In the beginning, I thought those two aspects of my life were forces pulling me in opposite directions. Paul helped me understand that both identities were important and that they were complementary: I did not have to choose one over the other.
He felt firmly that you could be a Mormon without letting church leaders tell you how to do it or that you were on the wrong path. He was the original guru of understanding and accepting your own identity as a gay Mormon. He always understood the purpose of Affirmation wasn’t to shape anyone’s beliefs but to help them find their own faith- wherever that took them.
If you have ever participated in Affirmation’s communities of safety, love, and hope or felt the support of Affirmation’s network of mentors and peers, you have done so in the path that Paul blazed before you with love and as a visionary.
Over the years, this portion of the conference in memoriam has expanded included anyone that those within the Affirmation community have lost, whether they were lost to HIV/AIDs, suicide, COVID-19, or otherwise. This is an opportunity for our community to stop, pause, say their name, and be collectively empowered by their memory.