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Why is it that every other religion treats the sanctuary of their church as a sacred place for silent reflection and worship? But we treat ours as a social hall to catch up on how each others lives are going? Honestly, I want to come to church and be spiritually recharged, not listen to noisy chit-chat. If people want to catch up they should do it in the foyer.

MBA here. The employee in question is a lawsuit waiting to happen. It's cheaper to fire an employee with a documented history of racist behavior than to handle the lawsuits caused by their actions. You'd actually be doing corporate a favor.

I wish I could feel "I'm perfect just the way I am". Instead, I tend to realize every day that I have flaws. Some of them quite ponderous. But I lean on the Lord to eventually help me overcome them. I guess some people think that homosexuality isn't something to be "overcome". They just accept it as part of being "perfect".

Wow. Just wow. I honestly would give a complaint to not only the store manager, but at corporate as well. And I would provide names--this is seriously unacceptable. They should not be in any type of customer service job if they can't serve everyone with respect--they can think what they want, but they shouldn't treat someone like that while at their job. I wouldn't want them to be doxed but they either need to be reprimanded or fired.

She speaks for about 6 minutes or so. Interesting stuff.

Anyone who follows Andy Ngo's twitter feed sees daily accounts of Asians being harmed by African Americans.

I found this forum a couple weeks ago and have posted a few times. I like this community and figure I'll stick around and check in every so often. I am in my late 30's, married with three kids. I've been a missionary, financial clerk, ward clerk, YM's adviser and councilor, den leader, primary and Sunday School teacher in church. Recently excommunicated, but working hard to repent, change, and be re-admitted into the Church. I am trying to develop more healthy connections with more people instead of isolating myself. I figure an anonymous forum would be a good place to reach out. My wife and I aren't comfortable yet with most real-life people knowing of our situation. She's changed the setting for our family on the directory to private so most people can't see us.

I find that vast vast majority of other churches don’t treat their worship place as quiet reflection. Rather a place for joyful/loud worship, fellowship, and loud singing (frequently in the form of a rock conference).

In most reports of anti-Asian violence that I’ve seen lately, the race of the attacker has been fastidiously omitted. I can take a guess, based on the fact that the pseudonym you offered for her is not exactly a traditional Anglo-Saxon name, but . . . yeah.

Said every bishop ever in existence... I would also argue that the majority of other religions treat their service areas as social halls unless it has the appearance of a holy place (ie magnificent pillars reaching to the ceiling, stone walls, massive statue of Christ on the cross, pane glass murals etc.) From what I have seen, it has less to do with what we call it and more to do with what it looks like. Admittedly, sacrament halls don’t appear all that holy. I would also add that having children makes it hard to have that “ideal” atmosphere. lastly, I would ask how much do others affect your experience? Could your frustration be more damaging to your experience than bro jones talking about yesterday’s bbq? Notwithstanding... we should treat it as a holy place.

when i see something signatureless to me that is a clue. i believe dreams can be living dreams from Him… but they are not be jumbled or vague .

the usa is also a disaster, not just israel. capitals of Babylon.

You could well be correct....... this is a rather important question that may not be the easiest question that somebody can answer even if they did have a near death experience.

Holy crap people, it's ok to notify an employer about the behavior of one of their employees. No need to think in terms of doxxing, canceling, or getting someone fired. And it's ok not to get caught up in lucifer's lies and traps about how it's sometimes important to keep the truth a secret, because tattling makes us tattle-tales. He sows that one into us early on, but it's still a lie. Another lie is that when a person does something horrible, the consequences aren't the fault of that person, but the person who makes the behavior known. Whether the employee's consequences are getting fired, reprimanded, re-assigned to a non-customer facing role, enrolled in training, punished, or ignored - the consequences are because of the employee's behavior. Not Carb for telling. Now Carb's internal scan of his motivations for acting, is important. Yes, you can blow the lid off of stuff for the right reasons, and the wrong reasons. But there are absolutely right reasons to blow the lid off this thing. Jeez. It's feeling like 3rd grade recess in here.

Ok, here goes: In general, or when we're trying to preach the gospel? No. Do we do it at times? Yes. When people are trying to make folks feel welcome, when we are trying to nurture a spark of interest in the church or in the gospel, yes. I presume prison missionaries spend quite a bit of time taking a 'mealy-mouthed approach' that emphasizes God's love and willingness to forgive, and almost zero time preaching against specific sins. I know personally of several, and I assume it's a widely-spread phenomenon, for parents of wayward children to take this approach, at times. But in general, when teaching and preaching the Gospel of Christ, no, we don't do that. And if we take a step back from the six-minute portion of one of the videos, of one of the church's conferences, I don't see general trends of avoiding the truth. You can find it in our Gospel Principles manual, in the repentance chapter: Not everyone watches a 2021 BYU women's conference YouTube video, but the normal process is every member at some point, goes through the GP classes. I see standing firm sprinkled through the results of a search of the church's website on the word "homosexuality". But no, you're right, it's totally absent this 6 minute interaction we're discussing in this thread. Ok, but again, that wasn't the stated point of the interview. Again, the stated point was "how should we think and act when we've got one in front of us, trying to make friends". Again: For 6 minutes, nobody is condemning same-sex behavior as sin. Our response should be to cleanse ourselves of any unwillingness to love our neighbor, or awkwardness in doing so, and our response should be to share the Gospel. And, if the 2021 BYU women's conference is any standard to go by, it's ok to spend 6 minutes getting to know someone without yelling about what is and isn't sin. If we took our total response to all things queer, and condensed it into that 6 minutes, then it would make no sense at all. It might make some sense depending on circumstances laid out in Elder Oaks' talk Judge not and Judging. Depending on the situation, we are either commanded to keep our mouths shut, or commanded to open it. It probably goes over very well in the church's addiction recovery meetings. Or in discussions between incarcerated people and prison missionaries. Or anywhere someone is moving from a position of denial, to a position of accepting the truth about themselves. And again, I take a few guesses here on why it was useful in forwarding the work of the Lord here. I think that's all the questions you posed, let me know if I missed any.

If I do that, then I'm no better than all those who engage in cancel culture. I refuse to be that vindictive. Over the past several years I've made it clear that my position on racism in America is that today's kids have no clue what racism actually is. We've been so coddled by PC culture come cancel culture, that we mock the suffering and progress of these past decades. I refuse to forget the progress. Take a wild guess. Who has been randomly attacking Asians in every report we've heard of in the past month? And the other lady at the membership desk was the same.

e v e, the problem is that you shoot the arrow first, then go draw your target around it. You decide beforehand that "God's spirit is feminine" (whatever that means), then you go looking for anything that might seem to confirm that thesis—in your case, the coincidence that the Hebrew word for "spirit" is linguistically feminine. I realize how exceedingly common this tactic is in the world at large, in religious communities specifically, and even among the Latter-day Saints. It's an efficient way to make your theory sound impressive to the ignorant, but it's a very, very inefficient and fatally flawed method to try to understand actual truth.

LOL. I matched most closely with Orthodox Quakers. I can't imagine that is accurate. I don't know what quakers believe.

Is the program a general christian themed series? I have been watching Michael Landon's Highway to Heaven series the last few weeks. Its lovely and very kind the christian point of view in the series. But then I liked little house on the prairie too.

I agree, Carb. Corporate needs to hear about this. What you describe is nothing short of appalling.

I'm not understanding the flow of reasoning above. Based on what you write, it appears to me that you have: 1. A person struggling with an addiction or propensity that he himself (or she herself) admits is a destructive thing. 2. A tendency for the person to define himself (herself) as his (her) addiction, e.g. "I am an alcoholic", "I am a homosexual", "I am someone who likes to eat copious quantities of food", or whatever. 3. An affirmation by the person that he (she) is "perfect just the way he/she is". But by #2, the person defines himself/herself as some certain thing (alcoholic, homosexual, overeater, pilferer of jelly doughnuts, whatever). And by #1, the person implicitly rejects that thing and considers it destructive or otherwise unworthy. Ergo, #3 cannot be true. What am I missing here?

Some thoughts on the matter... I suppose that I also instinctively fall in line with @Vort’s way of thinking on this matter. However, as I thought about how the church leaders view these matters, it led me to thinking about it in terms of how alcoholism is discussed and viewed. The world tends to associate healing from our base level desires by identifying oneself as the problems and addictions we face. For instance, it is not uncommon to hear someone say they are an “alcoholic” and haven’t had a drink in X number of years. Likewise, it is not uncommon to hear evangelicals refer to themselves as “sinners” when preaching. I suppose then that, due to the commonplace discussions of LGBTQ in the world currently, we should not be surprised to find such self-identifiers within the church as well. In my view, as we know that the Lord has the power to change our hearts and we become His sons and daughters as we strive to be like Him, we should also identify as such. We covenant to take His name upon us as new creatures. I believe THAT is how we should not only identify ourselves but also how we should view ourselves and others. That being said, I suppose it is wrong of me to judge those who self-identify as their problems. Their addictions and issues might plague them to the point to where they truly believe they ARE that trial. Hopefully they are able to allow God to change their natures and eventually be healed.

the light is described as an IT. no signature…

I have wondered the same for much of my life. As Colirio quoted: In addition, consider this Joseph Smith quotation given in a BYU Education Week talk that was recently cited by a list member: The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “the Lord in his wisdom had implanted the fear of death in every person that [we] might cling to life and thus accomplish the designs of [our] creator” (quoted by Wilford Woodruff in Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, ed. A. Karl Larson and Katherine Miles Larson [Logan: Utah State University Press, 1980], 1:465–66). In March 1995, then-Elder Nelson published a book, The Gateway We Call Death, that also cited this Joseph Smith quotation. In this book, Elder Nelson also recounted a well-known talk given by Heber C. Kimball, speaking at the death of Jedediah M. Grant: "[Jedediah] saw the righteous gathered together in the spirit world, and there were no wicked spirits among them. He saw his wife; she was the first person that came to him. He saw many that he knew, but did not have conversation with any except his wife Caroline. She came to him, and he said that she looked beautiful and had their little child, that died on the Plains, in her arms, and said, 'Mr. Grant, here is little Margaret; you know that the wolves ate her up, but it did not hurt her; here she is all right.'" To me, it is heartbreaking to think of having to endure such a trial, which I suppose makes the reunion and relief of the atonement of Jesus Christ all the sweeter. But we are beings of feeling; as Father Lehi taught, "Men are, that they might have joy." If we are left bereft, even if only for a relatively short time, it is appropriate that we allow that feeling of mourning to penetrate our souls and soften us. That's about the best I can do to explain my feelings on the matter. We are literally commanded to live in such love that we mourn the passing of those we love. It feels right and proper, even necessary, to mourn the deaths of loved ones. As you pointed out, Jesus himself wept at the death of Lazarus, though he certainly knew and understood better than anyone the true nature of life and death. My thoughts, for whatever they're worth.

Going to compile / rearrange a bunch of different posts here: That's good! A lot of folks fall into the trap of thinking a foreign mission is "cooler" or "better" than going somewhere like Boise Idaho. It's not. But we humans do like bling. - How long a person stays in an area varies hugely from mission to mission and missionary to missionary. A year is on the long side, but not remotely unheard of. -I would not assume that his not getting transfer is due to meds and/or just due to meds. There's likely a ton different in play. 100% normal. We culturally... I feel fail at points at accurately portraying missions. Yes, it is a noble service, and great opportunity for spiritual growth. It's also HARD. physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, etc. There's a ton of pressure (rightful and wrongful), lots of rejection, you're out of your element, etc. Truthfully the hardness is true about any young adult experience. It's also REALLY hard being a mom with the first chick flying out of the nest! And I also feel that we as a society really suck at prepping moms for that too. Starting at 18: mom's are completely out of any loop. Except for how much the young adult wishes to share. You need to trust them, and that's TERRIFYING at points. Some tips for helping teenagers be prepare to be better functioning young adults: - Know how to do your own laundry. Like literally, so many young adults don't know how to properly wash their clothes. And likewise just basic "how to tend to yourself and your house" skills. - Develop goal keeping, and owning your choices (both good and bad). Young adults need to be able to make decisions, hopefully foresee consequences, and accept them. Yes, that means when the consequence is a big mess, they need to clean it up. Other folks stepping in to rescue them doesn't promote maturity, rather encourages de-evolution into adult-sized toddlers. Having them know of to develop goal and think things through are essential skills. - Maintain an open communication bridge and promote love.

I'd like to share an experience about "commercial racism". DESCRIPTION: We know about violent racism. We also know about stereotypes. We know about ethnic jokes. And we know about those individuals who, well... bless their hearts... just don't know how racist they sound when they say or do certain things. COMMERCIAL RACISM is what I'm calling those things that people do in commerce/business/employment, etc based on race. While I've experienced this before, there was always some shame in it. They always hid it in such a way that there was a small (sometimes tiny) level of plausible deniability. Yesterday, I came across blatant, open, admitted commercial racism. I have a Sam's Club membership. As such I have a credit card that provides a lot of cash back. Every April/May I cash in (that's the cycle I'm in). I went to the club to get a few things. I went to a checkout line that had the "open" sign on. I began to unload when the checkout lady (let's call her Shayna) said that she was closed. She was just standing there doing nothing. Just waiting for... something. Then as I moved away another woman came with her cart and began to unload. Shayna began to help her unload and started checking her stuff. I waited in another line and checked my stuff out there. I asked about cashback. They said that I could cash out at the membership desk. Once all loaded up in the car, I went to the membership desk and asked for my cashback. The lady there said that she couldn't do it at the membership desk. I told her what the checkout lady said. She told me that I'd been misinformed. I needed to go back to the checkout area and speak to someone in a green vest (one of the supervisors). I found that Shayna had a green vest. So, I began waiting at her line. When she was all out of customers, I asked her about he cashback. She said that she was not going to help me. Then she proceeded to wave someone else forward to unload. I asked her why she told me she was closed earlier. She said, "I don't want to serve you people. You're the reason we've got COVID." "I'm actually Korean, not Chinese." (in some half-effort to appeal to her). "Same difference." She then began to ignore me and got the next person to unload. Just then I noticed that another green vest came by. I spoke with him. He said that it is taken care of at the membership desk. I rebutted. He took me there personally. The lady then looked at me with some disgust and went through the motions. I got all my money. She didn't need any instruction from the green vest. She knew exactly how to do it. After it was all done, she walked briskly away from me and began a conversation with another worker until I left. As I was far away, I noticed she came right back her station again. No customer. Just the lack of "me".

thank you prisonchaplain for this. I don't know i I gave you a proper thanks originally. Michael is not Jesus, but is the 144k sons... I can expand up on that if you were interested. So the 144k themselves are Michael. They are sons and daughters but the sons being the legal representatives are the ones mentioned in rev. The 144k are the originals of eden restored, who will return with Christ to this earth after it went dark to save many millions more believers who had to suffer trib.

well yes actually... I miss the days I thought you were a girl.