Last week, we talked about the secret language Latter-day Saints are slowly developing. This week, I’d like to continue my status as Bendict Arnold and share a few acronyms that might crop up in Mormon conversations or blogs. Soon, you, too, will be able to communicate with Latter-day Saints.
LDS – The most obvious of acronyms, LDS stands for “Latter-day Saint”, which is, in itself, a condensed version of the church’s true name, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint.” However, if you identify a member of the church as a Latter-day Saint, 99.99% of the people you talk to will tell you they never heard of that church. Therefore, LDS really means “Mormon.” Ask anyone.
“The Y” – Being a convert, I have no idea how an acronym got reduced to one single, solitary letter. And yet, the use of the name “the Y” shows that it has. Only Latter-day Saints could manage that. You see, “the Y” = BYU = Brigham Young University, the LDS college out in Utah. Thanks to recent changes, there are now several BYUs (BYU Idaho, BYU Hawaii [okay, maybe that isn’t a recent change]), but “the Y” is the “big one” everyone knows about.
EFY – Especially For Youth, a program for (big shock) the youth of the church. Typically, it lasts about one week, and contains talks, classes, activities, and, of course, social events (think dances). For some reason I have yet to figure out, many of the EFYs my sister-in-law has attended start on Monday, mid-day, which means someone has to take off work to drop the teen off. They also have to get up obscenely early on a Saturday – particularly when travel is involved – to pick said teen up.
FHE – Family Home Evening. Church leaders in years past suggested that families should gather together once a week for a spiritual lesson and activity. In some way I have yet to determine, me yelling at my kids to sit down and listen to the lesson is supposed to help us grow closer together and bring the spirit into our home. My favorite FHE quote involves me yelling at my six year old, “If you would just sit down and listen to the lesson, we could all feel the Spirit.” (I’m just kidding. Sort of.) FHE also includes the highly anticipated snack, the reason my kids ask for it again and again.
This is just a short list of some of the codes that Latter-day Saints use to communicate with each other. This message will self-destruct in…oh, wait, I forgot how to make it do that.
Related Articles:
The Non-Latter-day Saint Dictionary
Seven Songs You Won’t Find In The Hymnal