Add a hyphen, and use a lower-case "d." Please!

Change isn't my favorite. Even when I know it's for the best, I prefer the familiar. I love knowing what to expect and for things to go according to plan.

So imagine my dismay when three weeks ago, our stake boundaries were reorganized, our ward was obliterated, and I was transplanted into an entirely new ward. Then, one week later, at General Conference, our prophet announced a significant change to our Sunday meeting schedule; beginning in January, our block of meetings will be just two hours, rather than three. Wait, what? All these changes all at once? Has everyone forgotten that my baby is in Paraguay, and I'm already trying to deal with that, which means I no longer have a kid in high school, and he's not even just a state or two away at college; he's 5,720.042 miles away! And still, they throw all these other changes at me.

Then, if that isn't enough, there's this other troubling issue. Another focus of President Nelson recently is to get people to use the full and correct name of our church, rather than abbreviations such as the "LDS Church" or nicknames such as the "Mormon Church." Truth be told, at first this seemed pretty insignificant to me, but then I listened to President Nelson explain his thoughts on the issue when he addressed the membership in Conference, and it helped me understand a little better. Then I remembered the murderous thoughts that filter through my brain whenever I hear someone nickname one of my own precious kids. (Just watch me turn violent if anyone dares call Shulamith "Shula" or Isaiah "Izzy.")

So maybe Christ would prefer his church be called after his name, the name he told us to call it (3 Nephi 27). Yes, it's a mouthful, but I'm beginning to understand.

As a result of this directive, members everywhere are making small but significant changes here and there to replace the abbreviations and nicknames with the correct name of our church. The problem is, many of them don't know how to spell it. Calm yourself, Terrianne. Breathe. Yes, I'm trying. Really I am, but everywhere I look, I see the name of our church misspelled.

Can we be clear. The official name of our church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Note the hyphen between "Latter" and "day." Note the lowercase "d." Whew! We've got this.

If we omit the hyphen or capitalize the "D," we refer to (respectively) two tiny splinter groups who broke off years ago and are no longer in any way associated with our church.

So we really don't want to do that.

When we proclaim as Presdent Uchtdorf did, "There is room for you in this church," let's be sure we are welcoming people into our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.