Leaderboard

Figured we needed a positive thread. My son freakin loves his mission. When he got called to Farmington NM I sighed. I hate NM. Got like 3 speeding tickets going thru a 30 mile stretch (NE corner of the state) back and forth from Texas and BYU during undergrad. Total speed trap 65 MPH on Texas side and 55 in MN - and no one lives along the road, its totally abandoned other than dirt, weeds, scrub trees and cops dispensing citations! Anyway, he has been in the Zuni Pueblo for 3-4 months and absolutely loves it. Lots of service (mostly chopping firewood). Confiscating alcohol from the members and the occasional dime bad of cocaine. Had to explain that we don’t take possession of illegal substances. And teaching the gospel. His letters are great. And his attitude is spot on. The ward Sunday attendance has gone from < 10 to over 40. Once again the Lord knows best.

We meet our exchange student in about two hours. He is the fourth one we have hosted, for two weeks, from China. It’s an amazing experience!

I overpaid taxes. Refund coming!

Yall are welcome to post great news too!

Interesting. Though I'm always leery when people place dates.

The ink I reviewed today (Aurora Black) is black, so I don't have to color-correct the images, just fix the white balance and I'm done (much faster)! Hooray! (Sometimes color correction is a bear!)

I totally agree. Pauline Kael, the film critic for The New Yorker, once said, “I don’t know how Nixon won. I don’t know a single person who voted for him.” She wasn’t kidding. Nixon carried 49 states.

In general, the more narrow someone's existence is, the harder it can be for them to imagine any other way of life. For example, a few years ago there was a to-do on Twitter because someone with a degree of prominence claimed that they could never see themselves living anywhere other than their major coastal city... because they legitimately believed that bodegas only existed inside of that city. They legitimately refused to believe it when people said that bodegas and larger convenience stores existed across much of the United States, and that if this was their only objection to traveling then it wasn't much of an objection. Technology, travel, and population patterns are, metaphorically speaking, shrinking the world in the sense that people have more opportunities to interact with others outside of their own group. This is something we all need to take advantage of as we prepare the Earth for the Second Coming.

This sums up reality quite nicely.

Have you ever seen someone who is really really good play Defender? The little ship moves so quickly around the screen back and forth! It’s actually quite impressive. I’m awful at that game.

Do you hear yourself? "Even if the election actually was stolen, it's a losing issue for Republicans, so they should quit bringing it up." Are we as a nation truly so cynical and jaded that we would accept such a thing? "The issue of our fundamental freedoms doesn't poll well, so let's change the message." I am sure there was widespread fraud in the election, as there probably has been for at least twenty years, likely longer. I am absolutely sure that absentee and mail-in ballots are insecure, and have little doubt that's why the Democrats push for them so hard. I do not know if such fraud actually changed the election outcome. I choose to believe it did not, because if it did, we're screwed. But to say that we shouldn't talk about the issue because it doesn't poll well is breathtaking, and not in a good way.

A reasonable summary of my feelings.

My dad said this was his feelings as we each moved out. He thought the dinner conversations had finally gotten more interesting.

We had a good six hour D&D session last night. Players are currently in a massive caver in the Underdark with a strange corrupted forest. They spent most the night fighting strange trolls and strange plants.

I might have gone a little overboard after reading Ready Player One. The arcade simulator plays like 500 games (from X-arcade). I had my twin bro help me customize it. It’s been in the garage for the last 6 mo due to the current home remodel. Robotron is my favorite.

I believe (or at least I want to believe) that many begin with good, honest intentions of following God. When they find that their position gives them power and the ability to satiate carnal appetites, they veer off the way, step by step, until they are intentionally deceiving and manipulating people for sex, money, luxury, and fame. This is priestcraft, among the greatest of perversions, and is not completely unknown in LDS circles. I do believe it's uncommon for Latter-day Saints to stray to that extent, but I have been acquainted with several who appeared to take entirely too much pleasure—dare I say pride?—in their own fame (or notoriety).

Welcome, @Maytoday! Only one website matters, the Church's official one. Whatever you find elsewhere may or may not be correct or consistent with what the Church teaches. The 13 Articles of Faith might be a good place to start with what we believe - they were written by Joseph Smith, through whom the Church of Jesus Christ was restored. As @Grunt said, the Book of Mormon is another good starting point (and, there's an app for that ). What's to argue? We believe what we believe. We believe it because it is revealed by God through prophets and apostles. Whether you understand it or see reason or logic in it won't matter - we believe what we believe. People have been trying since the 1800s to "argue" us out of our beliefs - doesn't work. So what is there to argue about? If you don't understand what we're saying, OK, we'll try to explain it in different terms. If you don't believe the things we believe, that's your right and choice, but there's still nothing to argue about. How exactly is a religious document "proven true"? How do you prove that Jesus Christ is the son of God? How do you prove that he atoned for our sins and was resurrected? How do you prove that God is real? You can find our beliefs in our scriptures. Every April and October, the leaders of our Church expound on what you find in said scriptures - helping us to apply these things in our lives - in a meeting we call "General Conference". But you're not going to find us citing a creed or whatever. If you want to take a deep dive into early Church history, you could try the Joseph Smith Papers website. Other than all that, it might be best if you just start with whatever simple question you might have, and we'll have a go at answering. I will say that in my experience, this Third Hour forum is the one place on the internet where you will find faithful members of the Church who support the leaders of the Church (as opposed to many other forums where you'll find a mixture of that, wolves in sheep's clothing, people who want to destroy the Church, and heaven knows who else). Finally, perhaps @prisonchaplain can give you some tips on engaging with latter-day saints. (Should he have time and notice this.)

At my best, I could turn the machine over pretty regularly. (Of course, playing that much often made me want to turn the machine over in a more literal way.)

If that's the case, then how can you think that Trump vs. Biden 2024 is "the same thing" as Trump vs. Biden 2020? (I didn't see that TFP had already made the same observation immediately after your post. If I had seen that, I would not have made the comment. Another lesson to me about how I should read the whole thread before responding. But it's not my fault that I don't learn. If the list gods wanted me to learn, they wouldn't keep giving me the same ineffectual lesson. They must be insane.)

You sure about that? 😬