mikbone

Anyone else feel that the sex was over the top this year? We couldn't watch the halftime show. And we stayed up to watch the Elementary show after the superbowl because we both like Sherlock Holmes, and the commercials looked ok. Big mistake! The opening scene was out of control. Really, how much sex does sherlock holmes need??? A good story should stand on its own merit. We don't watch CBS, NBC, or ABC anymore. Just fox news and the science channels.

Really? If I get the impression that my instructors are recommending to me that I do something stupid. I do not do it. I don't deify them openly, but I do speak my mind and concerns. If I am wrong in my assumptions, I like to learn the error in my thinking. With prayer, the spirit, the light of Christ and council with our brethren, we should never feel that we are doing something wrong or stupid. I certainly have not.

Since I'm the OP I'm gonna answer this. But I have grown weary of this thread... We are not required to follow our leaders over a cliff. You and I both know that incorrect decisions have been made in the past by local authorities. And even many general authorities were excommunicated in the early LDS church history. Your above argument leaves no room for anyone to come to their leaders with legitimate concerns. I am the the first councilor in the EQ, not the first follower. Why do you suppose that they chose the word councilor? When I spoke in private about my concerns of monthly PPIs with my EQP and discussed the pertinent portion of the Handbook, he expressed great relief because he felt that he had been failing at his calling because he was not able to perform these frequent interviews and he realized that they had not achieved the desired effect of increasing HT numbers. We discussed ways that we could work smarter not harder and are making some news plans for the quorum. My original desire for this thread was to see if anyone on this site was doing monthly PPIs, if they were effective. And where this idea originated from. How many PPIs have you had as a member from your quorum leader over the years as an average? Cuz the number of PPIs that I have had during my 25+ years is exactly one.

I'm gonna quote the exact phrase one more time for those who have difficulty with the interpretation of english. "Where possible, they visit or interview quorum or group members at least once a year." Notice how the phrase begins. Where possible - The writers of the handbook recognize that it is not possible to to even have yearly meetings with some of the quorum members. Next, you may notice that the option is given to either visit or interview each member. This wording was put there for a reason. Perhaps some of the quorum members will benefit more from a visit than an interview. Perhaps we should be using the spirit to guide us. Finally the format of the visit or interview are not dictated. It is interesting that you can find power point presentations online of how to correctly perform these PPI's. Finally, at least once a year. The majority of people whom read this phrase will interpret the meaning to be annually. But in some circumstances you may be guided to have more frequent follow-up. In my opinion this phrase does not justify monthly PPIs. Monthly or Daily PPIs to me actually seem like a program that Lucifer would have employed to make sure that we would be following his regulations. D&C 29: 34-35 - We are agents unto ourselves.

Repent, stop feeling sorry for yourself, buy a lock for your door, and communicate with your wife. Doing what is right doesn't take a genius. It takes committment and self control.

Say howdy? Can an unrepentant thief and addict make it to the celestial kingdom?

Guess I gotta comment, cuz I am the poster of the 'other thread'. And I'm gonna one up you. I don't believe in unconditional love. I chose to marry my wife in the temple because I dated her and I knew what I was getting. I knew that she was a hard working upstanding LDS elect lady who wanted to be a stay at home mom and raise up our children in righteousness. If she were to start smoking, drinking, and sleeping around, we would have to get a divorce. Sometimes I slip up and am not at my best and she whips me into shape. At times when she is having difficulty, I do what I can to help her get her mind straight and gut it out. We don't accept our faults blindly. We try to fix the things that are wrong. But accept the things we can't change. The Lord is not going to let the meth addict thief into the celestial kingdom. Why not? Because there are regulations that we have to meet if we are to be judged eligible to inherit eternal life.

Yes for the win. Clears up the misconception from: I copied the above from http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/49/49-3/JETS_49-3_549-568_Huggins.pdf

Lesson #5 ftw!

I'll try to be more specific. The Handbook states 7.3.2 "Where possible, they visit or interview quorum or group members at least once a year." The term Personal Priesthood Interview is not in the handbook nor the scriptures. You can find it in the Ensign yes and all over the Internet. I remember when I was a missionary and was instructed to give discussions from memory word for word. The missionaries no longer are required to do this, their discussions are much more free flowing allowing circumstances and the spirit to dictate how they teach. If you have been having monthly PPIs since the 1970s that would be approximately 500 PPIs. I highly doubt that you have had near 500 PPIs... If you have had that many, you have my condolences. When my EQ president informed me that we are required to do monthly PPIs with each and every member of our Elders quorum I felt a great unease, for the following reasons. 1) Time requirement for interviews would be excessive and burdensome on the presidency, members and secretary setting the appointments. 2) It felt like I was to micromanage the Elders in our quorum. With directed questions about their life, Goal setting, and accountability. 3) Repetitive nature of these interviews would no doubt make the interviews less significant than annual interviews or visits. 4) I had never had monthly PPIs previously as a member of my prior quorums in Texas, Utah (BYU), or California. 5) I am already having plenty of contact with the EQ members with church events, home teaching, home teaching reports, weekly priesthood meetings, etc. 6) The requirement of these monthly PPIs is not reasonable, and in my opinion will lead to failure. Especially in a ward whose home teaching numbers were in the teens. 7) When I asked my EQP if the PPIs were having any positive effect on the HT numbers he said that they were not. 7) The Handbook does not recommend monthy PPIs. This monthly PPI recommendation struck me as a business model of a boss micromanaging and checking up on his employees. Much like the 360 degree evaluations where I used to have to evaluate my Attending Surgeons, nurses, etc, during my residency. All the residents would sit down for an hour at the end of each month and circle numbers. Some residents would vent on their evaluations whereas I would never leave any comments. Those 360 evaluations did not have any effect on our business model other than wasting an hour of my life every month until we decided as a group to stop the process after a 6 month trial. I recommended to my EQP that we do PPIs on a annual basis and that with the time that we save we could actually work on Home teaching. I asked my EQP to give me the names of some elders who were not doing their HT and that I would start taking them out Home teaching to teach their families. This gives me the opportunity to pray with the Elders. Show them what a home teaching visit consists of, and meet some of the ward members in their homes. It allows personal visits with the elders, and bolsters our HT numbers. I have a testimony of Home Teaching not monthly PPIs. I felt inspired to question the motivation and plan of my EQP.

yes Exodus, thanks. So, if anyone other than the Lord, or the Prophet's father, or whomever ordained the Prophet were to mention that what Moses was doing was not right they would have been apostate?

Genesis 18: 13-18 Was Jethro apostate in the above scripture?

Did you read the entire link, including George Albert Smith's reply to the article in question? I'm pretty sure that the original author implied that we should follow our leaders blindly. It's even worse that the title of the article is following the Prophet. The he makes the blanket statement for all church leaders at the crux of the arguement. I agree with George Albert Smith. We should get our own confirmation that we are following God's will. I have never in my life had to question the council of a prophet or anything presented in a general conference. But I have served under Bishops and stake presidents whom were later excommunicated. As well as an inactive mission president...

Monthly PPIs? Every 2 years I get an interview from my bishop and stake president for a temple recommend. it works for me. Youu ever done 360 evaluations? Couple years ago a hospital administrator had everyone in the hospital evaluating everyone. I'm not sure it accomplished anything other than giving the administrator a whole bunch of reading material.

LoL, there is quite a lot of difference between a physician and a Orthopaedic surgeon. I think of myself as a carpenter with sterile instruments. I almost failed my psych rotation because I though that most of it was garbage. I don't like to get into intimate issues with my patients. Thats what a primary care physician if for. :)

I think we are interpreting this classic article differently. The thinking has been done article that I am referring to is, When the Prophet Speaks, Is the Thinking Done? « FAIR You appear to read it as if the author was implying that when a church leader speaks, He has performed his due diligence, studied it out in his mind, prayed about it, and received devine inspiration. Thus the leader's thinking is done. I interpret the authors meaning as a bit more sinister. Such as, when a church leader speaks, those members whom are in the audience have no need to think about the directive. It is the word of God. The thinking is done move on and obey blindly.

I believe that I do. In your above statement you seem to champion the, "When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done." Ideology. I have read enough of your posts here on LDS.net to know that you don't really think this way... Do you think that I am apostate for using the light of Christ and questioning the decisions of my leaders when I have a legitimate feeling of unease? Is it wrong to search the scriptures and Handbook and ask for a meeting on a certain topic that our leaders have presented?

Thank you. And yes I am well. I do respect personal revelation as well as revelation from my local leaders. But this single issue of Monthly PPIs with all quorum members seemed over the top. It is an incredible time consumer between setting up the visits and performing them. It struck me as micro-management. And it can only lead to failure in my opinion. Especially in a quorum whose HT numbers are usually in the teens... As I already related when I addressed my concerns with my EQP, he was in agreement with my assessment and relieved that I was able to point out the Handbook reference which implies that elder quorum visits or interviews should be yearly. I did not go into details concerning where his understanding of the monthly PPI concept originated and frankly I don't really want to get into the details. It came from somewhere, no doubt. Perhaps from the '75 Ensign article previously cited. Or from another local leader... "The greatest fear I have is that the people of this Church will accept what we say as the will of the Lord without first praying about it and getting the witness within their own hearts that what we say is the word of the Lord." Brigham Young We plan on doing our yearly interviews. And with the extra time on our hands we have implemented a program of setting appointments for less active home teachers and actually going home teaching with them.

No worries.

Yes and thank you. I am aware of HT reporting. I have been in various elders quourms over the years and have received sporadic reporting phone calls. I assume that I have also been involved in these 'quarterly' or 'regularly' meetings usually where upon I am asked in a hallway how my families are doing, and my report is most often 'good'. I wish I had an old handbook to consult...

I disagree. I implemented the Handbook in an appropriate manner. I had a concern, knew that the material was not within the standard works. Then I went to the Handbook Handbook 2 Administering the Church Introduction When I was a missionary in southern Chile back in '89, I had to explain to the local bishop that there was no such thing as the 'Holy Bowl' from which the extra sacrament bread was to be discarded into and that no female of the church was permitted to touch. The handbook speaks for itself. I feel strongly that monthly or even quarterly PPIs for the Elders Quorum are not the expressed will of the document.

I actually went along with the program for a few weeks, until I felt the impression that what we were doing was wrong. I went to the handbook. Did my research and then discussed my concerns with my EQP. He expressed great relief. He also felt that the monthly program was particularly burdensome. And despite his efforts, the HT numbers had hovered within the 10-20% range. The reason I made this post was to get a feeling of what if any other EQ members have experienced with the PPIs and if they were doing them on a monthly, or yearly basis.

I'll quote the statement again for clarity. "Where posssible, they visit or interview quorum or group members at least once a year" Monthly does qualify. But then again, so does daily... hourly...

I did find a power point presentation on these EQ PPIs - Personal Priesthood Interviews And I also saw a youtube video of a EQ president stating that he used the monthly PPI as an effective way to increase his quorum's home teachings numbers. My fear is that someone with a professional administration job is trying to apply what he knows from business to his EQ calling and recommending the same to others.

Thank you. My wife graduated from J. Ruben Clark law school so I have been instructed long ago on the boolean internet search. When I found the term PPI within the Ensign, it generally was not associated with the elders quorum. But with father's interviews - https://www.lds.org/ensign/1977/12/really-getting-somewhere-with-fathers-interviews?lang=eng Or with a stake president or Bishop - LDS.org - Ensign Article - The Vision of the Aaronic Priesthood Or a post mortal interview with the Savior - Counseling Together in Marriage - Ensign June 2012 - ensign I did find the article Keeping Pace - Ensign June 1975 - ensign that does actually comment about home teaching and PPIs. This is the closest that I have come to find the concept that my local EQ perhaps is referring to. But the article has no author listed.