Kawazu

If the Second Coming is to happen in March, does that mean I don’t have to worry about replacing my septic tank?

What a relief! I thought Antifa was doxing me or something! (Seattlelites, you gotta love us)

This is how it worked out with my friend. Apparently, I accidentally misstated his fundamental position. He did not say Pope Francis was the antichrist but instead a false prophet, which is to me at least a few rungs down in intensity from the literal antichrist. He read the thread and wanted me to stress that he is always looking to Christ.
 
We talked about some of the Bible verses he uses to say the rapture might be predicted, if not the actual second coming, itself.
We talked about some of the reasons he says Pope Francis is a false prophet and even though I expressed my skepticism of what he was laying down, I listened to where he was coming from.
He said he would dial it back a bit about the apocalypse alerts. I told him he could send me a countdown timer via a web applet that read 17 days, 2 hours, 24 minutes and I would know what was for. He told me he had been giving me a lot of rapture updates because he feels like the time is sooo close and he is soooo excited.
He wanted to know if a bunch of Mormons were going to show up at his house. I told him to, "Open [his] curtain. See the man on the bicycle? He's one of ours." Because we do manage to have fun, the end of the day.
So I guess the conversation was a success? Thanks, everyone!
 

This is how it worked out with my friend. Apparently, I accidentally misstated his fundamental position. He did not say Pope Francis was the antichrist but instead a false prophet, which is to me at least a few rungs down in intensity from the literal antichrist. He read the thread and wanted me to stress that he is always looking to Christ.
 
We talked about some of the Bible verses he uses to say the rapture might be predicted, if not the actual second coming, itself.
We talked about some of the reasons he says Pope Francis is a false prophet and even though I expressed my skepticism of what he was laying down, I listened to where he was coming from.
He said he would dial it back a bit about the apocalypse alerts. I told him he could send me a countdown timer via a web applet that read 17 days, 2 hours, 24 minutes and I would know what was for. He told me he had been giving me a lot of rapture updates because he feels like the time is sooo close and he is soooo excited.
He wanted to know if a bunch of Mormons were going to show up at his house. I told him to, "Open [his] curtain. See the man on the bicycle? He's one of ours." Because we do manage to have fun, the end of the day.
So I guess the conversation was a success? Thanks, everyone!
 

I have not been on here in something like eight years. It is strangely reassuring to see that many of you familiar faces are active and present.

I have not been on here in something like eight years. It is strangely reassuring to see that many of you familiar faces are active and present.

Oh, I'm just stopping in for my once a decade lookee loo. There was a period of time after the site updated a long time ago where I would have to click login multiple times to login successfully and there was this persistent, annoying banner that would not go away. I'm glad that's gone whatever it was. It's good to see your gingerbread face!

I don't see these silly sleep-over games much different from going into a supposed haunted house to see if one can witness a ghost. While, sure, there's people hoping to see an evil entity, I would bet that most people do these things out of amusement and entertainment - I did as a kid. 

Balancing two pencil on top of each other seems like an unstable construction designed to allow the topmost pencil to spin around, randomly. Definitely a silly kids game.

I think every missionary asks this question decades down the road.  You can't help but ask the question.  When you think how much wisdom and experience you accumulate in life AFTER living another 30 years, you naturally look back and wonder how much more effective you could have been.
 
I can liken it to my experiences as a musician.  I sometimes go back and listen to old recordings of myself from 20 or 30 years ago.  I played guitar as a soloist and occasionally with bands.  I have a recording of a radio show I appeared on in 1987.  My technique was very powerful--even better than it is today--but I was lacking a depth of musicality that I possess now.  I cringe to hear parts of that recording now, because I can hear the flaws, not so much on a technical level, but of interpretation and finesse.  
 
I regard my mission like that sometimes.  If I could go back, knowing what I know now, I would have done some things very differently.  Yet the Lord accepted my offering because it was my best effort at the time.  I'm satisfied with it because he is.
 
It's sad when people we brought into the gospel don't make it.  I've had several close friends whom I baptized outside of my mission who eventually fell away.  Living the gospel is hard and it involves making hard choices sometimes.  Some of them chose education and career over serving the Lord.  Others succumbed to loneliness because they didn't find a mate and married outside the Church.  One of them had his wife--a lifelong member--cheat on him and then divorce him and it broke his heart.
 
In the end, each situation was a test that asked believer "Lovest thou me more than these?" (John 21:15)  They faced having to follow Jesus despite the pain that continued faith would cost them.  The choices they made took them away from the pain and away from the Lord.  They could have continued to carry the cross, but they lost hope and despaired.  
 
To me, it is significant that I've heard old men, particularly general authorities, express the hope that they would remain faithful until the very end.  You'd think that they'd feel really confident in their abilities by that time in their lives.  Instead, the reality of God's chastening has made them humble and reliant upon the Lord because they are acquainted with the pain and trouble that can come from God's chastening hand.  
 
I look back on my mission and I see it as the beginning of that process.  I went out into the field as a new convert of 20 months.  I was so inexperienced!  Yet it is the trials of my mission that gave me the first lessons in enduring faithfully that have kept me going for over three decades.  For that alone, it was worth it.  I hope for the strength to maintain that faith through whatever comes.

Did we just concede here that nudists are living some kind of "higher law"??? :)

Because it is comfortable and in yoga for example posture and poses should be exact, wearing baggy sweat pants does not allow for an instructor to critique or help.

Nothing says "party" like communists and nudists.

Sure, but that philosophy allows you to not end the relationship.  
 
Here's my way of lending things:  Can I afford to lend this?  If I lend it and never get it back, is it worth losing this relationship?  Am I willing to not be resentful or angry if this person(s) never gives/pays it back?
 
If I can answer those questions, then I can choose to either lend it or not based on my answers.  And if I never get it back, I've already decided to not lose the relationship over it, so I don't have to worry about it.

I have learned in life that in general when you lend someone something to just let it go and to not expect it back.  Ask for it back, but don't expect it back.  I generally don't lend something unless I can afford to replace it.

Maybe it's just me, but aren't we all adults here?  The site is open to ages 14+, but even the teenagers here know what "it" is that we're talking about.  Is there a reason we can't just say "sex?"

Happiness = Reality - Expectations. I try to keep my expectations low. For example, I'm pleased I don't have the Ebola virus right now.

I dunno, demanding a reason sounds like the confrontation you're interested in avoiding may have already been brought to you.  But you can test that out and say "Sorry, we have other plans".   If there's still a problem, then someone is itching for a confrontation, and you might as well take the opportunity to set expectations that could last the next long time.  (In other words, either schmooze and placate, or let her know you're not feeling close, and not really in the market for feeling closer any time soon.)

Happiness = Reality - Expectations. I try to keep my expectations low. For example, I'm pleased I don't have the Ebola virus right now.