Jenamarie

This is what I was getting at. Thank you.

Could you give an example of these "legends" Moksha? I've heard them referred to before, but never heard one specifically mentioned. You could PM me an example if you'd rather. :)

Well I'm knocked off my horse.

I think I came across wrong. I'm not expecting the church to "squash" the Anti's (they couldn't), what I'm saying is they could greatly reduce their effectiveness if information about the controversial stuff the anti's like to throw out there were more readily available. Many ex-members I've met mention feeling "betrayed" and "lied to" about the Church's past. That argument would no longer fly if the information were more out there. Of course people will still leave, but I feel less people will leave because of feelings of having been decieved.

Well, in my personal experience, I've had to dig through lds.org searches to try to find the church's answers to some of the controversial issues presented by Anti's. And some of the "newest" articles I read on some of the topics were decades old. I know that the reason for Joseph Smith's imprisonment leading up to his murder (ordering the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor) was never mentioned in any of the church history lessons I attended growing up.

I'm no education expert. My one suggestion though would be to cover the "contreversial" bits a bit more. That "anti's" would lose a lot of the wind to their sails if members were better armed with the church's side to the story. I think how they're currently handling the Mountain Meadows Massacre is a great example of the kind of "facing our skeletons" I'd like to see the church do more of. Then people won't be so shocked and disoriented when they find out that the church isn't as "great" as they'd always thought it was. It has it's own moles and pock marks and such. It's full of humans, after all.

I agree that WE are responsible for our own education about church history. Could the Church do a better job on what's taught on Sundays? Deffinately. But even if they improved they still couldn't begin to cover *everything*. I recently met someone who lost their Testimony when they "discovered" that Joseph Smith had more wives than just Emma. I scratched my head at this, because I'd known it since I was a child. I even remember a Value poster they had on the wall in my ward's Young Women's room that had a picture of Eliza R. Snow with a paragraph undernieth that said (summerizing here): "Eliza R. Snow, one of Joseph Smith's wives, wrote many faith-building hymns that are included in our hymn books". To ME it was no big deal, it had always been a part of my knowledge of the church. To her it was faith shattering because she felt "lied to" by the church, because somehow she had never heard it mentioned during a Sunday meeting.

Awww, that really bites. Could you afford to send some flowers maybe? Or a Visa giftcard that they can use to help pay for some of their expenses?

No, that wasn't what he was discouraging. I think a lot of people are misinterpreting his statement. You can share what you know *and how you came to that knowledge* in a Testimony. What he's trying to discourage people from doing is using the pulpit as an opportunity to tell your latest news to a captive audience. There is one sister in our ward who spends a lot of time traveling to visit her children around the country, and when she comes back she always gets up to share what she did with her kids and how beautiful their parts of the country were. A travel log. There are others who share stories about a fun family activity they did that weekend, and then say how much they love their families, and end it right there. Nothing pertaining to the gospel was shared at all. Maybe if there had been an event at said family activity that illuminated a gospel principle for that person, then ya, they could share about the activity and share how it brought about that lesson for them, but to solely get up to talk about that event would be inappropriate.

During work hours, and in a workplace setting? It's not appropriate. Period. If I had felt impressed to answer his questions I would have suggested we meet somewhere outside of work to discuss it.

Skal: I have no clue if the nine had been given any warning. I'm going to have to actually see this format "in action" to see how it's actually going to pan out. If it's just last-minute warning, or no warning; Testimonies, or Talks, etc.

No, they meant "testimonies". My husband said the meeting last night went like this: Stake Pres. opened the meeting, announced that he and the presidency would then bare their Testimonies, then called on 9 other people to come up and do the same. At the end of the meeting he announced that this type of format would be happening more often within our wards, and then explained about how it came about (meeting with the Stake Presidents and Area Authority a few weeks ago).

Truegrits: It may be a "pilot program" or something, where they're trying it out in just some areas. I do wonder how long it will last, and how often these types of meetings will be.

It was absolutely inappropriate to ask that kind of question at work. I would have told him (as soon as I'd regathered my witts after being asked such a question in the work place) that I preferred not to talk religion at work, especially with my superiors.

One example of a cute little Testimony that was borne in my ward last month: a newlywed woman got up and shared her experience with being taught how to cook by her Visiting Teacher, and how she suddenly saw it as a metaphore for Gospel living. She felt like she had lived a Spaghetti and Meat Sauce life as a child, good and filling, but since going through the Temple and being married, she wanted to start working her way up to a Lasagna life. Adding more additional "seasonings" (Scripture study, FHE with her husband, etc.) to make her life more satisfying and more of what the Lord knows it can be. It was true, not cookie cutter, and I've deffinately remembered it and started applying it to myself, trying to add more "seasonings" to my life. :)

NormalMormon: No one is saying they have to make "I know xxx is true" statements. Maybe it's the wards you've been in, but I've been in several wards where the Testimonies were TESTIMONIES. Really powerful witnesses of the Spirit that deveated from the "script" but were still within the guidelines of "no travel log, etc." And I haven't seen a parent whisper in a child's ear in over a decade, so I guess in my part of the country that type of "Testimony" has been stamped out. Only kids who can do it solo go up. My main concern with this program is people who have a genuine, paralyzing fear of public speaking being "called up" and deciding not to come to church anymore. It will deffinately need to be handled with a huge amount of sensitivity and guidance of the Spirit.

I think there are lots of interesting and uplifting Testimonies that can be borne following the guidelines laid out by Elder Oaks. We have some members of our congregation who *always* give a travel log, and then thank HF that they live in our town, and how wonderful it is to come back home after being away for so long. And then Senior members who get up to update us on how they're doing. The Spirit just isn't there during those "Testimonies".

I'm not WordFLOOD but I have some ideas. :) My husband and I planning to buy a butane stove to cook with when we have no electricity. It's basically a single gas burner that you can use inside (as opposed to a propane stove or grill you have to take outside) One canister of butane lasts for 16 hours, and the stoves are very compact and easy to store. Caterers use them a lot to keep food warm, or cook small quantities of food on-site. They're very inexpensive too. If you live in a sunnier part of the country there are "solar ovens" that use sun light to cook food, and can also be used to draw moisture from the air for water. They're a little pricey, though, and bulky. As far as keeping our house warm, we thankfully don't live in a very cold part of the country, so wearing our "outdoor" gear inside (hats, jackets, etc.) wouldn't be unfeisable or terribly uncomfortable, and then we'd all sleep in the same bed at night, in the smallest room in the house, with the door closed. We have lots of extra blankets that we could use. For personal hygiene we have a huge Costco-sized box of baby wipes. We can use that to clean our bodies, and reserve water for cleaning our hair.

Our Stake Priesthood meeting was tonight, and my husband came home with some news about a "new program" the church is implimenting, at least in our area. Our Stake Pres. "signed on" to the program, along with other Stake Presidents in our reigion at their last quarterly meeting. He did admit to being one of the last hold outs though. The reason is: the new program is "agenda-less meetings". Basically, the Bishops are being asked to have meetings more often where there are no assigned speakers, just people called up at random to bare Testimonies. What was meant exactly by "more often" wasn't clearly spelled out, but WOW!! I've been in meetings like this where it was on a whim, because none of the actual assigned speakers showed up, or they took up so little time that there was 30 or more minutes left to fill in Sacrament meeting, but to have it as the actual meeting plan is going to be something new! Time to dig out my xanax!

Really? I had no clue! That's awesome. :)

What's stopping YOU from donating to those causes? (and I'm pointing the finger at myself too, I know there's more I could be doing to improve my community) Tithing is for the funding of the church: chapels, temples, funding the auxillaries, paying electric and sewer bills, publishing teaching aids, etc. Fast Offerings are for assisting the poor. I would say your wife wasn't wise to use her CC to pay tithing. It's 10% of our "increase", not "available balance".

So I guess some of us here are Terry Pratchett fans. What's your favorite book written by him? My answer is Mort, Small Gods, and Good Omens.

Mmmm turtles. You know there's good eating on one of those.

The earth is flat and rests upon the shoulders of four elephants, who are standing on the back of A'Tuin, the Great Turtle.

Holy cow, I just spit out my donut I was laughing so hard. ETA: And now I feel guilty about it.