Maureen

No surprise here, the church has been doing this everywhere else, but it's a nice change nonetheless. This would have made my marriage a lot easier (I have a lot of non-member family members who were moderately offended they could not attend), so I'm glad the option is now available to have a civil marriage first if need be. 
https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/couples-married-civilly-authorized-for-immediate-temple-marriage

Another (long-standing policy) bites the dust. The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just announced a change that both members and non-members should be super excited about. Civil marriage versus temple marriage The relationship between civil marriage and temple marriage is a bit complicated in different parts of the world. In the United States, for example, a temple "sealing" is recognized as a legal marriage. The long-standing policy in situations like this has been that if a couple chooses to marry civilly (not in the temple) first, they must wait an entire year before being able to be sealed for eternity in a Latter-day Saint temple. In countries where temple sealings are not recognized as legal marriages, couples are permitted to marry civilly, followed by a temple sealing, without the year-long wait. But a new policy change is setting a worldwide standard. Now, whether or not your country recognizes a temple sealing as a legal marriage, couples first married civilly are no longer required to wait for...
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1) The filth is literally growing in the walls.  No amount of cleaning or bleach can sanitize the place.  It is literally impossible.
2) Yes, it is a major health risk for any ward members to be in there, unless you come with full haz-mat suits and training.
3) This place is disastrous for the residents health.  It would be turning your backs on them to have them stay living there (and again you can't fix it).  They need to move AND learn proper habits.  
4) Yes, you should voice your concerns to the RS and other ward leadership.  Good leaders listen.

Generally speaking I agree.  Guys tend to be more likely to let you know what you did wrong, if for no other reason than it justifies a counterattack.  (Not necessarily a physical attack.  Retaliation takes many forms.)  That said, people of both sexes who are highly confrontation averse might ghost you, or an introvert might ghost you for a while even if he's a guy but in general he'll eventually make sure you know what he's mad at you about.
As I look back over friends I've lost, the guys do tend to be the ones that ended in a blowout, the women just disappeared.  But that's just my own experience.
For me,  the biggest thing I had to overcome was to be objective, not only in being able to see where I had done wrong, but also where I hadn't.  Misunderstandings happen, but sometimes people might get mad at you for no reasonable cause.  Being able to tell the difference is crucial, because you can't maintain a genuine friendship by being a doormat.

If you will allow a somewhat irreverent, but amusing (at least I found it amusing), look at the Trinity and its analogies, look up Lutheran Satire's "St. Patrick's bad analogies" video on youtube, where Donall and Conall shoot down several analogies used for the Trinity. Even if it has difficulty explaining what the Trinity is, working through the bad analogies (and the associated heresies) I think helped me better understand what it is not, which at least partially helped me better understand what it is.
Be warned that, if you keep looking through their stuff, you will eventually come across Donall and Conall meeting our missionaries -- just in case you would prefer to avoid that.

As in "If I know I'll have to stop drinking so much of it?" 😜
There are a lot of drinks that use coffee or coffee flavoring.  White Russians and Colorado Bulldogs use kahlua, Sicilianos use cold brew coffee, Irish Coffee, Italian Coffee and several other variants are regular hot coffee spiked with different liquor, etc.
Find yourself some Primitive Baptists to hang out with and they can probably tell you more details.

That's hilarious. Why is long hair evil? Because the one with it has to use more shampoo and conditioner than the one with less? I'm at a loss, I can't think of why long hair has the appearance of evil - explain please.M.

In Trinitarian belief, the personage of The Father and The Holy Spirit are both personages of spirit.  Jesus Christ took on bodily form being the personage who is fully human while being fully divine.  Whether the Father and the Holy Spirit, when beheld with human eyes are going to look human, Trinitarians don't know - they can speculate Yes and not be contradictory to Trinitarian teaching.  But what is clear is that during Jesus Christ's baptism, the Father was beheld as a voice from heaven and the Spirit was beheld as a dove.

As a teenager I really believed backmasking was a thing . . . (for the uninitiated, this was the Christian urban legend that rock bands were imbedding backwards messages in their music calling for the worship of Satan. The theory was--supposedly psychologically based--that because the message was heard backwards we could not filter it, but the words would fall in place in our subconscious).
Now that I read it...wow...yeah...that really is embarrassing.

Most Trinitarians wouldn't say he was a heretic.  Most Trinitarians who have a nebulous understanding of the Trinity might say he was a heretic.  The question isn't that there are 3 individual personages in the Trinity as it is the exact same personages as the LDS Faith.  It is what each of the personages would look like.  But since the LDS actually only have a testified understanding of a body of flesh of bone (because there's no such thing walking around the world that we can point to as - that, that's how that looks like, we simply base our understanding of it from what Joseph Smith saw) and with the Holy Spirit not having flesh and bone, how he would look like would also be just testimony.  So we are in the same boat as the Trinitarians on that account who base their understanding of how the personages would look like from testimonies in scripture.
Where Trinitarians and LDS differ is HOW the 3 personages are One God.  In LDS understanding - what makes them one is not their physical substance - so it's not something we can see.  In Trinitarian understanding what makes them one is their God substance.  But since there is only one entity in the entire existence that has that substance and we can't see that substance unless we actually get to be sanctified for the beatific vision of the One God (and not just a manifestation of a personage of that God), then Trinitarians have no idea what that substance actually is - not even by testimony.  It all hinges on Faith alone.  So, the Trinitarians and the LDS are also in the same boat on that one.
 
The Five Solas is not what makes him a Christian.  The Five Solas is what makes him a Protestant.
 
 
And just FYI:  I'm a Roman Catholic convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who was born to a Trinitarian family but had to go through self-discovery in Catholic Schools to understand the Trinity.
 

Most Trinitarians know that God is three persons but one God. They know Jesus is God. They know the Holy Spirit is God. They know the Father is God. They know the three are distinct, yet they are one. So, when LDS ask questions like, "But was Jesus praying to himself in the Garden?" the answer is, "Of course not!" "Oh, so you agree with us that they are separate?" Confusion arises very quickly at this point. I'll lay this out again:
Muslims/Jews/Jehovah's Witnesses: God is one and Jesus is not God.
Modalists: God is one. Jesus is God. He reveals himself in 3 modes--as Father, Son or Holy Spirit. (Some summarize this as God being 1 in 3).
Trinitarians: God is one. Jesus is God. So is the Father. So is the Spirit. They are distinct, but still they are one all the way down to their essence. How this is so is beyond us, but there it is.
LDS Godhead: God is one. Jesus is God. So is the Father. So is the Spirit. They are separate. What unites them is their purpose. Yet, this unity of purpose is so strong we can be called monotheists.
Modalists have a hard time explaining how the different persons can exist simultaneously and interact if they are all just Jesus.
Trinitarians have a hard time explaining how God can be 3 and 1 at the same time.
LDS have a hard time explaining how 3 beings can exist at the same time--in different bodies--and still be so one that it qualifies as monotheism. The difficulty is compounded by the doctrine of exaltation.
Of course the Muslims, Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses think Trinitarians aren't truly monotheistic either. 

You might have to do "eeny-meeny-miney-mo". 😊
M.

The Calgary Flames are out of the playoffs. They were the highest winning team in the Western Conference.
M.

I just concluded some in-depth research regarding "Declan"; I Googled it and looked at the first result. Apparently, Declan is an anglicized form of the Irish Gaelic name Declán, also spelled Deaglán or Déaglán.
Remember in The Lord of the Rings when we learn about the backstory of Sméagol (pronounced SMEH-uh-gohl, not SMEE-gull; sometimes you just gotta ignore the movies) and his first murder victim, Déagol? I bet Déagol's name today would be Declan. Tolkien was a scholar of Old English and had a love for Gaelic, Old Norse, and other ancient languages descended from or touched by early German, so it's likely that his character naming was heavily influenced by such factors.
(Interesting factoid: The Gaelic languages, though heavily influenced by German, are actually more closely related to Latin and Greek than to German. Who knew?)

You know, how about you do the same.  Condemn all the Far Right Conservatives' attempts to shut down any one's talk other than their own.  This includes those who are even on the Right who they do not agree with.
For example, what you are doing right now.  Instead of allowing freedom of thought or speech, you are DEMANDING that someone say exactly what you want them to say.  And, because they have not said the exact words you want them to say, you are attacking them...pretty viciously at that.
This is doing something almost EXACTLY what you are claiming those on the left do.
Why would you DEMAND someone say something that you specifically are claiming and wanting them to say.
That's not freedom of speech or thought or action. 

Same here. 😊
M.

I am definitely against censorship unless it falls under the category of hate speech. If someone's speech entices violence against others then I do not support that. Though I would not condemn (attack, berate, revile, etc) those who are for censorship.
M.

Do you really need to ask?
 
 

Simply put, it is a stereotype of conservatives...whether you really like it or not...ESPECIALLY a stereotype of Republicans.
That you take offense at it, but not at the stereotypes of others...is kind of interesting...don't you think.  I was an equal opportunity stereotyper there.
Even more so, you then try to take "facts" as you present them (Whether they are actually FACTS or not) to try to say that...hey...you're politics are what are "true" rather than simply what you feel like.
I'm not attacking you, but your post was a prime example.
It even proved the post to a certain degree.  I said equally stereotypical things of both sides of the equation...but rather than seeing the balance you immediately take offense.
It is kind of hilarious to a degree, not that we should be laughing.  However, it does typify in some ways exactly what I predicted...at least from one side.  People will try to lynch you if you don't see their point...and as I said things about BOTH sides...the logical thing would be that everyone would want to lynch me. 
Ironically, not many have done that so I guess that speaks a lot...but it is not surprising that at least one or two would be offended by what was basically an appraisal of BOTH sides of the political argument.
That brought up a good jumping off point which was NOT pointed at you specifically (though perhaps I should have pointed that out), but it brings up something we see here.  People get up in arms about POLITICAL items so massively as if it were their own personal faith and testimony.
Which brings up WHY people get so up in arms on this type of thing.
It's not suppose to be our religion, so why do we treat it as highly as such?

It isn't just you.  
There were two things that helped me come to terms with and learn to live with the many (many, many) doubts I have about the Church, its doctrines, teachings, and with religion in general. 
First, I accepted that I can't just read scripture and apply it to my own life without first understanding the context surrounding the scriptural authors. To apply scripture to myself on a purely textual basis, without context, is bound to lead to screwy results. Thus, I am not a scriptural literalist.
Second, I chose that if I was going to maintain faith in anything, I was going to have to accept that what we have as scripture is (usually) the authors' best attempt to understand their standing and relationship with God.  Despite their best attempts, the authors inevitably have biases and agendas that shape the way they wrote about events.  I don't believe that negates their efforts; it just requires that I read scripture with the understanding that it is flawed. To deal with this, it is my responsibility to study out the scriptural record and its context to the best of my ability; ponder its possible applications with the guidance of the Spirit; and do my best to identify when my own biases and agendas may be influencing or inhibiting my interpretations.
Like you, I feel like a lot of what we believe we have tried to retrofit into the scriptures.  Eternal marriage is a good example of that, where we don't see any real evidence of it in the historical records.  I mostly blame Joseph Smith for this (and also Joseph Fielding Smith), who were both convinced that everything the Church did in modern times had a direct correlate to worship in ancient times.  I've come to disagree with that belief, and don't think it is necessary.  Religion and the practice of religion has morphed over time, and has adapted with societal developments, changes in norms, and the specific needs of adherents in their own times. I have no doubt that the same principles applied, but how they were taught certainly has. (For example, I don't believe for a second that the things we learn in the temple were taught to the ancients using the same ritual--and if the endowment were to be revealed today instead of in the 1830's, I don't think it would look anything like what we know it as now)
I don't have a problem with the practice of religion changing over time.  And I don't feel a need to retrofit everything we believe into past scripture. Doing so is neither practical nor realistic. If you don't feel like it works for you, then stop doing it.

We could amalgamate Third and Hour into Thour and name the members Thourites.
M.

LDStalkers who later became LDSnetters who later became Mormonhubrists who later became ????
Right. so maybe Thirdhoursaurs?

LDStalkers?

Or "toids", depending on which part of New York.