Backroads

I wouldn't end the relationship, just put this in the memory bank and know that this is the quality of those individuals. When I lend stuff just like the Poster I am quoting said I don't expect it back, this is why I lend nothing. Think of it like this you now have an out to never loan anyone anything. If they ask why share your experience and you now have a hard and fast rule to not loan. No hard feelings it is just that way.

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.

That's probably exactly what I would do.

Nahhh you won't get in trouble.  Yep I love that series but it's not for everyone.

1) ALMOST good writing.
It just makes me want to choke the editor.
C'mon! How hard is it to say "Tight this part up a bit, show don't tell here, and THEN I'll buy it."
It just kills me when a book could be GREAT with some polish, but instead reads like a first draft.
2) Bad writing.
The only example of which I have at hand is "Encalve".
It could be the poster-child for "show don't tell, write what you know, research, research, research, & check your math".
Show Don't Tell
Characters LITERALLY change their entire outlook on life for NO discernible reason.
1 paragraph = running and in love with their way of life / fought hard to get to where they are
2 paragraph = has decided that the entire way of life is a sham
Sha-what??? WHY??? No reason. Wait. Except, clearly, in the outline... Character needs to reject their way of life.
Face. Palm.
Write what you know
- On multiple occasions author (I actually cringed typing that) has her characters running -without stopping- for HOURS. 8, 10, 12+
All of which is not only impossible (even for marathon runners) but the character has NEVER run long distance before, and the distances are insane. Sprinter speeds. In pitch dark. With no training. Day in & day out. Gaaaaaaah.
Research, research, research.
- The diet she has her characters eating would have killed everyone via malnutrition GENERATIONS ago.
- Subway glass, previously solid, does not punch out like in the movies when superheroes punch glass
- Running without a break, at top speed, for all day, all night, and all the next day (and almost every description of running in the book, period) is impossible for Homo sapiens.
- 10,000 other "No. That's wrong." examples...
Check your math (the part where you add 1+1 and it equals 47).
This is both continuity & premise. Including a bunch of stuff about rape & rape victims, which should be criminally offensive, instead of horrifyingly offensive (premise), as well as # of days or hours doing XYZ coming up wrong (continuity).
Q

I agree with the two posts above. 
 
My brother and sister-in-law spent several years in a sexless marriage.  SiL feels comfortable sharing such things with me (Brother is a man of few words, but was all right with my awareness), so I am privy to some details.
 
Now, there's was some other issues rather than "I don't want to have sex with you", but I think some principles can be shared.
 
They worked on the stuff mentioned above (along with seeing a counselor and what not).

Yeah I can understand that, but there's other things that baffle me that, originally I just thought was an American Mormon thing but the ones here do it too.
They seem to want nothing to do with the community, all the other churches do a huge amount of things (its always advertized in the paper) and the LDS one never does.
You'd think a church that is actively trying to get members would...I donno, let people know they exist? My family has lived here for decades and had no idea they were there, most don't and this isn't a big city, actually its more like a large town.
Kind of hard to hide things, but they do it pretty well.
One would assume they'd be all gung ho about community involvement, not just their own community. That doesn't exactly draw people in when you keep to yourselves. Any bunch of people who keep to themselves and within their own culture, exclusively, everyone on the outside is gonna think they're weird. People think the Amish and Mennonites are weird, and I try not to think Mormons are weird (at times) but when I hear things akin to "don't marry outsiders, better to be alone then with them"
 
you're weird!
I'm weird too, it's not a bad thing, but you can't act surprised when people think that's weird.

I don't think there's a universal answer to this.  You have to learn to have open, frequent discussions with the Lord and evaluate what decisions will bring you the most joy and happiness in life.  We can't always make "ideal" decisions, and in those times, we're left to make the best decisions with what is available to us.

If a junior high student could have written it better. 
 
Too much focus on sex.

When do you discard a book?
For me, I allow one "f" word.
When they start describing a male character's physical attributes in loving detail. Puke.
If a cat is a detective or sends messages
If the main character is very selfish or violent
Too much violence or violence described in detail
I allow one sex scene and that one scene has to be easy to skip over
Anything with ancient Scottish people described as sexy or noble - these are my ancestors, they were smelly barbarians. I''ve done my family history. You can't fool me!
Incest used as a plot device. Very common in Canada.
any Canadian novel with the main character who is a budding author from a small town with mean parents. I've read too many of these.
Gross out descriptions. I do not wish to know about anything which happens or should happen in a bathroom.
Long descriptions of someone's character. Show me what they are like rather than tell me.

This comedian nailed it speaking of the progressive left.
 

For many years now we have been plagued with the absurd idea that best way to ensure tolerance, diversity and mutual respect is to punish anyone who thinks his or her opinions are more correct than anyone else's. This is utter nonsense because:
If I voice my disagreement with the position that all opinions are equally valid, the those who do hold that position are bound by their own philosophy to consider my views as correct as their own. In punishing me they are breaking their own rules. If I don't believe my own opinions are truer than anyone else's, in what sense are they my opinions anyway? Banning me from believing in the superior status in my own opinions is tantamount to banning me from having opinions at all. And that would include holding the opinion that all opinions are equal. Anyone who holds such an opinion cannot hold such an opinion - or any other opinion either. The position implodes. It is nevertheless the received wisdom which is assumed and taught to children. Even when I was a kid I was taught - at as supposedly Christian school! - that it was is wrong to believe that people of other religions were wrong. "We're not right and they're not wrong," they would say. "They are just a different religion from us." I was by no means "top of the class", but even I could see that this was garbage. But any attempt to disagree was met with an angry repetition of the same nonsense statement.

I'm confused.
When I first read what you wrote, I took it to mean that AFTER baptism you'd have to chose to change genders (again) in order to progress.
On re-read... Am I understanding correctly that your mission president says you cannot be baptized?
And even further... FIRST presidency is saying you cannot be baptized?
Purely do to being trans?
Because that would be news, big news, if trans people were not allowed to be baptized into the church.
Q

I happen to know for a fact that there are transgendered people in the Church. Their uniqueness of their situations are handled with the care they deserve by Church leaders, through love and the influence of the Spirit just like everything else. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is for absolutely everyone with a willing heart. If you believe, don't let fear stand in your way. Talk to the missionaries and Church leaders, and, if other members don't accept you as readily as they should, don't ever let that discourage you on this pursuit of His Truth. You're on the right track, I guarantee it.

Sort of runs counter to what Elder Packer says in the Institute manual about "The desire to mate in humankind [being] constant and very strong." My own study suggests that it is certainly not constant across individuals and it varies with time, both short term in response to hormonal fluctuations and life stresses, and long term in response to aging. On average it is likely a decrease in desire and function as you've suggested. However, I see a lot of discussion and research (mostly secular sources) challenging the stereotype of "older" people becoming "asexual". I think there is a lot of room in the church and out for a discussion around what sexuality means for couples and marriages as they age.

It's definitely a view that derives largely from the home.  In fact, I'm annoyed when people blame the Good Girl/Boy Syndrome on the Church. 
 
Most of my sexuality lessons did not come from church.  They came from my parents, school, personal reading, conversations with others, etc. 
 
My view is that parents, having the brunt of the responsibility in teaching this, really do need to consider more than the Church's spot-on-but-assuming-parents-teach-more-details statements on the Law of Chastity.

Soul and Traveler--humility and grace would be wonderful healers.  Sadly, persecution often breeds a chip on the shoulder, and the pride of victimhood.  I pray we do not sucuumb, but rather take hope in the saying, "This too shall pass."  Yes, it is prejudiced and biased to ban traditionalists in law because of alleged bias and prejudiced.  However, they think they are right, so they perceive their biases as self-evident truths.  Humility, humility, where art thou, or humility?

Posted Today, 09:01 AM
I expected that a good many in the LBGT community--even from "moderates,"  would respond, "See?  How does it feel now that YOU are on the receiving end?"  Power does corrupt.  On the bright side, Christians do well under persecution.  We become stronger, and more Christ-like.  We grow.  I'm told that China now has more Christians, in raw numbers, than the United States.  They've been forged by the fires of persecution.  It may be an irony that LBGT payback (is that not what "see how it feels?" amounts to?) revives Christianity.
 
 
I think what most think isn't so much "how does it feel now" as much as will this teach humility that was lacking in the past.  Are the gays going over board, you bet, we need to learn our humility as well, but that being said we were shown that when Christians had the power they were corrupted by it and abused it with pride and little humility.  The did not follow the golden rule they just sought to rule.  The gays are just as guilty now don't get me wrong, but neither side really ever handled it with grace.

At the end of the day, its still humans, gay people are just people and can be as cruel and spiteful as straight people.
They're no better or worse most of the time.
Oh and I don't think most Canadians know we even have Mormons

The problem is that western society is moving from punishing an individual’s actions/behavior to punishing a person for his thoughts or beliefs.
 
We have a history of discriminating against people just for how they looked, and you think its progress to punish someone because of what they think?
 
This group made a covenant agreeing to keep their sexual activity within the bounds of heterosexual marriage and now they are being prevented from practicing law? A covenant to honor heterosexual marriage…sounds awful familiar. How long before Mormons are banned from employment in Canada because they too make this same covenant?
 
When it comes to LDS it’s not par for course and the shoe is on the other foot. Our people had to flee their country because our beliefs and behavior were not tolerated. 
 
There are no new victims here..it’s just the same old ones. My hope is that one day people in these groups with their self-righteous indignations and demand for historical reparations and “victim” rights will look in the mirror and recognize the face of evil. 

I expected that a good many in the LBGT community--even from "moderates,"  would respond, "See?  How does it feel now that YOU are on the receiving end?"  Power does corrupt.  On the bright side, Christians do well under persecution.  We become stronger, and more Christ-like.  We grow.  I'm told that China now has more Christians, in raw numbers, than the United States.  They've been forged by the fires of persecution.  It may be an irony that LBGT payback (is that not what "see how it feels?" amounts to?) revives Christianity.

And THAT is the demon spawn of the unholy union between a banana and a strawberry.

I know I'm capable of a lot. I've already proved that to myself and others. In my twilight years, I just don't want to be bothered with a lot of church obligations. I just wanna go to Sacrament Meeting and feed the missionaries once a month.

We have very few people in our ward that fall away. I live in the suburbs half way between Salt Lake City and Provo, and most of my neighbors are LDS. In my area, if someone does go inactive, they usually still have a belief in the church, but they allow something or some event to keep them from attending meetings. They usually come back. For those members in my ward that have gone through divorces, they have not gone inactive.  In fact, they receive a lot of support from the ward. I'm blessed to live in the area I live in. We are truly a ward family.  We mourn with those that mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice.
 
It's been my experience that those who truly fall away, they were looking for any excuse to leave.

Eat some ice cream and chill.....I am talking about gossiping.....backbiting.....people offending people with their remarks