carlimac

I don't miss the inversion either and have to keep reminding myself that Utah isn't perfect like I remember it from my childhood. I honestly don't have any memory of an inversion till I was in my 20s. My dream is to live in the mountains above the gray/brown line.

Oops, sorry.

Have you ever lived outside of Utah? If so, how does your church experience compare with when you lived outside? Do you ever feel "oppressed" by living among so many members? Do you have non-member friends who you choose to socialize with? Is your testimony different than when you lived away from Utah? Background: I grew up in Utah as did my parents and grandparents. I have lived away for nearly 20 years now and the longing to get back "home" only intensifies the longer I'm away. But many people who have lived in my different wards over the past decades will sometimes disparage Utah and say things like, " Whew- we escaped!" or "I'm out of Utah and never going back." I only had positive experiences growing up. I had some good non-member friends as well as a tight social group that has stayed together since highschool. 11 of the 13 friends as well as more than half my graduating class ( guessing) have stayed in the Salt Lake/Bountiful area. I had a firm testimony (most of the time.) Most of my family still lives there and they are puzzled about our living away all this time. ( Believe me it wasn't my choice.) What has changed over the past 20 years to make people dislike living there? We're about 3 1/2 years from an empty nest and may have the chance to retire in Utah. Should we be looking elsewhere?

Not in your stake. Due to all the things I've posted about our SP I prefer not to name the stake.

I live in MD, too but prob 40 miles away. Where do you live? Just wondering if you're in my stake.

I miss the snow! Not much in Maryland. We're supposed to get an inch or two tomorrow morning. It will be gone by 5:00 PM. If anyone in the school district office suspects there might be a flake or two they close the schools, requiring the kids to give up their spring break days or extending the school year till near the end of June. Yesterday, rather than having President's Day off ( we're 40 miles from the Nations Capitol mind you) they had to go to school to make up a snow day where the roads had hardly gotten wet. I'm not exaggerating. A 6 " snowstorm is a huge, enormous deal and the stores sell out of bread and TP the day before.

Bye bye early morning seminary!! Civil marriage before temple sealing- no longer need to wait a year Bishops relieved of leading Priest quorum and other jobs to lighten his load. I don't know how this would be enforced but somehow reduce the amount of minuscule things he has to oversee. After sitting in a meeting with the bishopric, YW and YM leaders last Sunday I came out with my head swirling on the minutia we get caught up in and how inefficient it is to have so much resting in the bishop's lap. For example- we have some great, spiritual and efficient camp leaders for the YW but apparently they can't move forward until the bishop approves the camp theme. It has to be presented and prayed over by him. Yearly interviews for youth changed to every two years - Our bishop is so seriously swamped with interviews since changes were made. He's months behind. The recent changes added 27 youth to the number he had to interview, let alone ward deaths and adult issues he has to deal with. It's nuts!! And while we're at it, Bishops can use a stamp with his signature rather than hand signing every single form that lands on his desk. Stake presidents to keep their fingers out of the ward and missionary pot. ( Ours just mandated that missionaries can only eat with members if there is a non- member or recently baptized or re-activated member there. Isn't that supposed to be up to the mission president?) Sacrament only once/month to make it more meaningful and anticipated rather than so routine and automatic. Ditto for a spiritually meaningful Mutual. Kids can get together to play basketball or cook or paint their nails once a week if they want. ( Again, our stake president mandates that EVERY Mutual activity be spiritual.) Just my thoughts

Yes!! And we can stand up and shout Praise the Lord when we feel it!!

This is what I said: "And yet this seems to be the pat answer from the LGBT community- It's cruel to try to change what someone is, what they have always been from birth." Draw an arrow from the word "this" to the phrase past the dash (which probably should have been in quotation marks.) In other words, the battle cry from LGBTs is that "it's cruel to change what they have always been from birth." I personally don't believe any baby is born gay. Their belief, not mine. Does that make sense now? I wasn't contradicting myself at all.

I'm not sure I like your comparison. Cosmetic changes are external/surface and can be changed at will on a daily basis without much moral implication. Plus, changing one's hair color doesn't really change their hair color. It will always grow back it's natural color ( unless a person's physiology is altered somehow. Chemotherapy often changes the color and texture of hair that grows back after being lost. Sexual identity obviously isn't like nail polish or make-up at all. I believe it's a mental/emotional/and even spiritual thing. I very much believe people are born with their gender that was decided at the moment of conception and along with that, their potential to pair and reproduce with the opposite gender. I cannot believe at all that babies are born gay or straight. That is nonsense. But humans are born with certain tendencies in areas such as emotional sensitivity, athletic, musical, analytical abilities, etc. Those tendencies are molded, expanded, inhibited, colored, stretched, hidden...whatever, by our environment. Mostly by our life circumstances- who we live with, where we live, what we're exposed to, how we are taught and nurtured and treated as we grow and develop. It's environment, circumstance and life experiences having an effect on tendencies (which ARE genetic) that determine whether one will end up with same gender attraction or not. This is my theory and the one that makes the most sense to me. It does matter how one was born because those parts of us are much harder to change once they have been established and rooted in someone's mind. Not at all like using nail polish remover to change one's nail polish color. Transgenderism is mostly like cosmetic changes although you start messing with hormones and it very much changes your temperament and perhaps even the way you think and behave. edit: It didn't look to me like it was posting. Can a mod just delete the two previous posts. Thx.

Does anyone know what the latest research is on " Born that way" ? I thought there were no conclusions. No scientific evidence. And yet this seems to be the pat answer from the LGBT community- It's cruel to try to change what someone is, what they have always been from birth. Did I miss a big announcement somewhere along the way?

I liked it! Shorter is always gooder. Our bishop started the meeting by taking 10 minutes to explain the schedule since the chapel was packed and several "seldom comers" were there. Only problem was he forgot about the opening prayer and song. After his explanation he launched right into the sacrament. But someone tugged on his pant leg and reminded him to start the meeting officially with a song and prayer. It probably didn't help to have our stake president and one of his counselors on the stand. He really was pretty nervous about it all. It will take a few weeks to work the bugs out and let people adjust. I feel like it would be good to extend the Sacrament meeting time at least 10 min on Fast Sunday. Everyone was talking fast and worried they were going to mess up the schedule. And then Sunday school felt a little too long. My biggest worry about the landslide of changes is that It's throwing the ward leaders into a tizzy. Our bishop is swamped and the YW women leader I'm working with seems a lot more uptight than she used to be. Our RS president is rolling her eyes like, "What now??" Our highly energetic prophet just may need to slow down an itty bit. Our ward is still trying to get it's collective mind around ministering.

I wish my son looked at it that way. He is currently a returned missionary, BYU grad, agnostic medical student who is fully on board with evolution only and refers to anything spiritual as "supernatural" -sending it into the realm of fiction. Sigh! At this point I think it's going to take an event or situation where he hits rock bottom and can't depend on science and has to depend on God to make it through. Or a really cute girl with a testimony who can convince him. But at this point he isn't interacting with any LDS girls at all. And he's been pretty darn successful in academia so far and works really hard to be successful. So...science reigns supreme for him.

I'm sorry. I guess I haven't followed that closely over the years. It must be frustrating.

It's healthier than promiscuity but it's still not healthy. No homosexual marriage is healthy unless it's sexless and they are just pals or companions. Even still, that doesn't sound like a healthy individual to me biologically speaking. One of the reasons there may not be as much outrage about unhealthy hetero pairings is that it's not always obvious- as homosexual relationships are inherently. But when there is known domestic violence, there is plenty of outrage. But unfortunately there is still not much the public can do about unhealthy pairings of any variety- when it involves adults anyway. Child abuse? tons of outrage!! And definite action that can be taken.

I realize that and many do keep the L of C. But if that law weren't in place, they probably would be having sex with a same gender person. What I'm saying is that if there isn't a "sexual desire" there but only an interest ( as in wanting a friendship or close relationship) in the same gender, I wouldn't really call it homosexuality.

What do you mean by living as a homosexual in healthy ways? Do you mean by not having sex? by abstaining and learning to be happy without? Or is there some secret, quiet way of living a homosexual lifestyle that is healthy? If it's not for sex, I can't imagine that a person is really homosexual. Perhaps they just identify more intensely with their own gender. Maybe they like things that are culturally assigned more frequently to the opposite gender. But it's the sex in "homosexual" that puts them truly in that category. Unless it doesn't. I have a friend who's sister is married to another woman. but she insists she's not homosexual but came out of a very bad marriage to a man and got extremely close to a woman in the recovery period and ended up married to her. She is not actually attracted to women. (Yikes!! That is so messed up.) I think women are beautiful- more than men. I talk and associate more closely with women. I'm not extremely feminine in my dress and behavior. I prefer jeans, t-shirts and button downs. I have a hard time talking to men. 99% of my close friends are women. I identify with women. I hate to cook. But I am not homosexual in any way. I have no desire to marry or be intimate with a woman. So what is it really that puts a person in the category of homosexual if sexual interest isn't the driving and defining force? What are "the other more important ones"?

Did you really mean "live my life"? Or was that a typo. If not, why are you powerless?

Maybe because men weren't physically designed to have sex with each other. Neither are women with women. The puzzle pieces don't fit. If they were meant to have sex with each other there would have been some God -given or ( evolutional if you're more inclined that way) accommodation made in the human body to have that happen in a way that is physiologically natural. Since there isn't, the sex act is done in ways that are not natural and are in fact harmful to the body. True that men and women also have sex sometimes in ways that weren't meant to happen. And the dangers are the same.

My daughter grew up with one of the original Studio C group. That girl isn't breaking with church standards although she is very supportive of Stacey Harkey.

NO actually you thought you were so crafty and in true Vort form wanted to make someone feel like an idiot. does that make you feel so much better about yourself? So you twisted it to make me look like a fool and you didn't address my concern at all.

You missed the point.

Ok it's still not perfect. Here's one situation in our ward: We have one girl with a fall birthday in one of the MIA Maid classes. This week I was driving her somewhere in my car with my daughter who is in her school age class ( freshmen in high school) and she was bemoaning the fact that she has to move up to Laurels a whole six months before her friends (there are 7 others) from school and that she hates her SS class because no one she's friends with is in it. So with these changes, she will have to become a laurel a whole year before her friends instead of just 6 months. She is going to be furious. I still think organizing by school year the way they used to was the best. And for some reason, receiving the priesthood at 11 just doesn't feel right to me. what if their birthday is Dec. 31st and they are immature. that's like a 10 yr old holding the priesthood. 😟

Making some off the wall decisions that don't sit well with either party. Troops at the border? Seriously? I can't remember what else but it was just this niggling thoughts along the way that his mental health doesn't seem really strong.

I really don't know.