john doe

Let me address the PM thing. Only the Head Moderators and Heather can read PMs. Senior Moderators do not have that capability. Speaking solely for myself, I really am not interested in the private lives of the members of the site. I rarely just go through PMs and read them willy-nilly. My time is more valuable than that. About the only times I read them is when there is a red flag raised by someone that perhaps we should look at a certain person's messages. This is generally when someone comes in and tries subverting the purposes of the site by sending messages to people they deem vulnerable and works to undermine their testimony of the gospel, the LDS Church, and its leaders. We openly embrace the truthfulness of the LDS Church, and we do not tolerate people actively working to destroy others' testimonies of it. I really don't care enough about the details in the lives of site members to bother reading or holding in my memory the things you say to each other. The only reason we read PMs at all is to check for possible rules violations, which everyone agreed to when they signed up. Frankly, I don't get paid enough to keep your personal chitchat in my head. The women on this site especially should understand that men don't remember things they don't care about, and I really don't care about 99.9% of the things said in PMs. Truth be told, I generally don't read every post on every thread on the forums either, unless it catches my eye or interest, or someone says we should take a look at it for some reason. Now, Prison Chaplain is one of our moderators, and while he is clearly not LDS, he has always been highly respectful and made great efforts to understand our point of view, different from his though they may be. If only all of our non-LDS posters were as open-minded and non-judgemental in their questions concerning our faith. He does an excellent job providing the moderating staff a perspective from the non-LDS point of view of the site, At the same time I think he supports most of our actions that we take against those whom the mod staff feels do not have good intentions here.

This is the introduction section of the site. If you wish to engage in discussion, please post in the appropriate section.

Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much... Okay, are you really ready for 'the talk'? Maybe this is a topic for the Open Forum.

Let's try to keep this conversation civil. This topic generally turns ugly quickly, but I believe that if people maintain cool heads and not take potshots at each other we can have a good discussion. The mods will be keeping a close eye on this thread for those who can't play nice with others.

Since we're not mind readers here, you would have to ask him what he meant by it. I could speculate that just about every religion has different views of the nature of God, and that our definition of who and what God is differs from denomination to denomination. Baptists don't fully agree with Catholics, who don't fully agree with LDS, who don't fully agree with Jews, who don't fully agree with Muslims, who don't agree with Buddhists, who don't agree with Hindus on who or what God(s) is/are.

What is the expected number of people breaking the rules? I wasn't aware that there is a standard for the internet as a whole or that you were privy to that number on this site. I would be interested in seeing how you come up with your numbers. You also obviously have no idea why those people were banned. Do you honestly believe that they were banned for welcoming someone to the board? If you think we would ban someone for merely welcoming another person to the site, how do you account for the fact that at least twice now you have stepped in the direction of violating rule #6, and yet we haven't taken action against you? Perhaps we're not so ban-happy as you seem to like to paint us. This sidetrack is completely off-topic, and I apologize to the OP for ranting on their intro thread. JuanP, if this is really a serious concern you have I suggest you follow the site rules and contact a moderator by PM to help resolve your issues. If you can't find the site rules, I suggest you try looking at the top of this page for a link.

Yeah, what's up with these people who can't figure out how to obey the site rules?

Some news outlets are now reporting that the older child had been telling Susan's parents that "Mommy was in the trunk" on the night they went 'camping'.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but plastic and cosmetic surgery isn't used for "wholly carnal reasons". But I do admire your sweeping generalizations of Utah and Salt Lake City. It plays well in the hearts and minds of the Saints who are biased against Utah LDS.

His dad was in Washington at the time she disappeared in Utah.

Sure, give her a wheelchair and send her out on a shrimping boat with Forrest. That would be a hoot!

I'm not sure where you got the idea that the prophets discourage meeting or dating people online. In fact, it seems to me that there are a number of websites out there dedicated to LDS introductions, meetings, and dating. I'm curious about where you read or heard that advice.

I would be careful about telling someone to do something different from what their ordained priesthood leader has already told them. You are not their judge in Israel, the Branch President is. The Branch President is the one authorized to receive revelation and guidance concerning this member and his status, not you. I'm not privy to any specific policy or practice changes, but it seems to me that since they changed temple recommends from being valid for one year to two, they have also tightened up on some requirements that in the past may have been more relaxed. In this case, the member has admittedly not been paying his tithing regularly. In fact, he admits that he was not a full tithe payer for the year that ended just last month. The Branch President evidently wants to see this brother demonstrate his commitment to paying his tithing before issuing a recommend. I believe the standard counsel given is for a person to demonstrate their worthiness and commitment by paying regularly for six months to a year depending on circumstances. This is not about punishing a person for not paying tithing, it is about maintaining the integrity and standards set for worthiness to the temple. They want to make sure the member is committed to remaining worthy of a temple recommend for the next two years.

Depends on the state and their definition of what is a prepared food and what is an ingredient.

Salt Lake area dealers run about $100/hour. Luxury lines will go higher than that.

It used to vary depending on the mission, but then church decided to standardize costs so that the missionary pays a set amount each month and the church pays for the costs of the mission. The last number I heard was $400/month, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has hit $450. The missionary is encouraged to pay for as much of the mission as possible. If he/she falls short, the family is then asked to help as much as they can, and the bishop can also ask members of the ward to help out if possible. I estimate that it will probably cost around $12k to send my son on a mission in 4 years. And it will be a financial burden on us, but we feel the effort and costs are totally worth it. As for school, we hope he gets scholarships and summer jobs to pay for the bulk of it. If not, then I guess we'll get student loans.

Well, in the name of cleanliness, I suggest you give away everything in your possession made by a corporation.

Unfortunately, you're lucky to get a refund on his labor. I think the old man did as well as he could considering his situation. He probably has the scan tool he used to pull the code as his only diagnostic tool. Most likely the tool doesn't tell him any more than that. Many people are under the misunderstanding that when a computer turns the light on, you just pull a code, and it tells you exactly which part is the problem. All a code does is tell you what circuit or system that it is detecting a problem with. Most of the time, probably 80% of the time, the indicated sensor is in fact the problem. But there are also many times where a code is indicating a problem and it is up to the technician to track down the system and determine where the fault lies. This is where a piece of equipment more sophisticated than a basic scanner some into play. Good scanners cost from $1000 to upwards of $5000, and that's only to diagnose one line of cars. Plus you have to update them at least once a year, sometimes more often. Imagine spending that kind of money for each brand of car out there. Most independent shops can't afford to spend that much money, but the better shops will spend the money to buy a universal scanner that will show a lot more than the basic scanner, but not as much as the ones the dealer has. And they still don't tell the technician what exactly the failed part is. They give him a direction to go to find the problem. And in situations such as yours, even if the guy had the right tools, he likely would not have been able to find the problem without spending a lot of time and your money chasing it down. Technical books are out of date the minute they are printed. The only way your mechanic knew what was wrong was he either had a friend at a dealership who told him where to look, or he pays for a subscription to a service that gives updates daily on new things that come up for different cars. It's unsurprising that the old guy doesn't spend the money on that stuff, he probably doesn't work on enough cars to justify the expense of those subscriptions, and dealers are generally too busy to give out free information to strangers over the phone who aren't will to pay them for it. You only paid $80 for this old guy's time, which is cheap in the auto repair world. You likely weren't even charged for diagnostic time since he really didn't do any. Now, if you had gone to a larger, more established shop in a chain or a dealer, you would probably have been treated differently. Larger shops have access to the better gadgets, information, and scanners that help make the diagnosis right, but even then they can't guarantee they will hit on the right problem the first time. They would likely have charged you more in labor fees as well, because their diagnosis is more precise. Also, you have to remember the reason why your shop knew that when they see the one code, to replace an entirely different part. The main reason is that someone else, probably someone at a dealer, had an issue similar to yours, where they changed the indicated part and it didn't fix the problem. So when it came back, they did a lot more digging into exactly what was causing the issue. The manufacturer probably got engineers involved, and they determined that the problem was not in the indicated part, but in another sensor that tells the computer what's going on. Then they wrote a bulletin and sent it out telling their dealers that if this particular code is indicated, the real problem is something else seemingly unrelated to the untrained. Then the aftermarket crowd got wind of it, and your trusted mechanic got all their efforts delivered to his desktop for a fee. All of that time and effort costs someone, and it's not cheap. Long story short, yeah it happens that way sometimes, and it's best to chalk it up as an expensive learning experience. Dealers will charge you more, but you can rest assured that they are also the most up-to-date and best trained people to work on your car. And if they make a mistake, they will usually have more latitude in fixing the problem and making it right with you. Old guys (and even young guys) in small shops usually don't have the operating margins or repair volume to give you much if they make a mistake. About all they can do is say "Oops".

Go one more, and great-grandma is 60. Can you imagine being a great-grandparent and not being old enough for Social Security?

Shazam?

Sad, it used to be mainly an LDS/large family thing, but now it's 30 year-old mothers whose 15 year-old daughter is getting pregnant.

If you are not the agent ward, the decisions are not yours to make. You may make suggestions on what to put in the library, but it's generally reserved for official church publications. There is a list of minimum materials that must be in the library. If you don't have that list, I may have one that I could scan for you. You can add things to the list, but you run the risk of a future librarian tossing them out if they are not on the official list. You should seek the approval of your bishop and/or stake Sunday School presidency if you wish to add materials that are not officially distributed by the church. Some items on VHS are not available on DVD and should not be discarded. If you wanted to copy them to DVD that would probably be okay but you still should keep the VHS unless it is unusable.

Well if it makes you feel any better, I don't wear makeup anymore, and the only jewelry I wear is a watch when I'm not at work. No tanning either, as my pasty-white skin will attest to.

Whoa. Here I thought extremist Liberals saw themselves as peaceniks. But you have advocated starting wars with two nations now that seem to want to have some sort of good relations with us. Now I'm starting to see you guys reveals yourselves as warmongers, declaring war on everyone you can. Maybe it's time to remind ourselves what letter was beside the name of the President at the time we decided to get fully engulfed in Viet Nam.

Or you could just be jumping on this wagon to make a point that has since been shown to be your imagination. I do admire your attempt in trying not to make it seem as though you're deriding a certain political candidate, even though that news came out just a day or so before your rant. Instead you turned it into a rant that anyone who has money in the Caymans is funding terrorists. Try not to believe everything Mr. Cole says, most of it is just recycled garbage.