Sunday21

Living life without knowing God exists: lonely, can lead to desperation even suicide Knowing God exists: love unconditionally from God make better decisions eg who to marry, how to date, rank importance of things in your life Knowledge of God and his commandments help avoid many troubles: alcoholism, broken families Gospel knowledge prompts you to spend more time with and be kind to your children: Better childhood dramatically better life

@Fether Seriously good!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Homer What about the IIliad and the Odessey? Lots of ink spilled over the historical accuracy of these.

I have just been hearing a long list of democratic complaints about democratic leaders and associates. The Clintons destroyed health care for the poor, favoured the wealthy When Michelle Obama was an administrator working with the U of Chicago, she would not allow the poor to have a single break. Not a nickel.

@prisonchaplain I am envious ! 😇

@Midwest LDS Thank you this makes sense.

I wonder what % of members voted for Mr T? When I joined the church, I would often encounter pockets of people in the corridors between classes, one of the most interesting aspects of attending church, ...kinda like this forum! ....sometimes these discussions would be mutual declarations of ‘If the prophet asked, I would instantly sell everything I owned and push a handcart to Utah’. Well guess what? the prophet asked, and - in a particularly Canadian roundabout way!!!! That Nelson is as Canadian as a beaver tail (fried pastry)🇨🇦 and ....yeah. How many people listened and obeyed? You might think that the prophet’s request might in someway colour member’s views of Mr T’s politics. Now the prophet might well have been referring to both of the leading candidates. I don’t know enough about US politics to tell. But I was surprised that more US members did not vote for a 3rd party candidate. If the Republicans are off the rails and the Democrats are distasteful, how about a 3rd party? Ok, you can’t go out and start your own party but you could vote for 3rd party candidates.

@mirkwood !!!!!!!! Scared me something awful! How about a content warning on page one!!

Great to hear from you! We are behind you! Make that call!

My experiences with rude, uncaring, hostile and sometimes just weird older members as a youth has caused me to feel that members, all members have a responsibility not to be: rude, spiteful, hostile, or cold to others and especially children and youth. We send out flotillas of missionaries and some individuals undo that good work. If you want to be nasty to someone buy a punching bag. We have taken on the Name of Christ. At the very least, this requires us to be civil to everyone but especially chilldren and youth. No wonder we lose so many young people! Look at the way we treat them! If your first impulse when you see someone younger than yourself is to be nasty, put in a paper Bag! We need the young people! Who will be bishop in 20 years if we drive them away?

You guys are blessed. My bishops were uncaring, sometimes openly hostile, sometimes rude or cruel. At the very least they were dismissive of the issues experienced by large groups of members. Why were these people appointed? They were the best administrators available. But in the world, the most efficient administrator is often controlling, dismissive of other’s issues, and elitist. I have a real bee in my bonnet about this. I had two bishops when I was a teenager: one was openly hostile to teenage converts and fairly upfront that teenage converts were a nuisance and...dangerous to the morales of ‘born in the convenan’ teens. The other was similar but in addition felt women were inferior and unintelligent and that teenagers should be seen not heard and were more trouble than they were worth. The ward in general was hostile to convert teens. Of about 25 teens baptized over a 2 year span, I was the only survivor. No flaming wonder. There were things going on in the background of course. Years latter I went to an lds counselor, he told me that he was counselling quite a few women who had been sexually abused by male leaders in my area when they were teenagers. One of those ‘rings’ you sometimes here about. My guess is that young women and teens were making allegations which decades later turned out to be true but at the time were considered to be lies. Anyhoo, members at the time were actively hostile to teen converts. Policies at the time with respect to callings were not helpful to retention of young converts. For example, young converts were paired as helpers to older members in callings. Sounds great doesn’t But what happens when you pair a young person with an immature and spiteful older member? Not a good result. Also if you have very few members spread over large distances, young people need to travel long distances to meet up. Having a calling supervised by a hostile superior becomes an obstacle. And guess what? We are pursuing a policy of exploiting teenage labour to fill callings yet again. I pointed out some of the issues for teenagers in low density areas at a Sunday School conference but was ridiculed.

Need some words: The dread of being interrupted when performing an urgent task or a task that requires concentration. That itchy anxious feeling you have when entering a building and hoping to avoid certain people Boy! I really want to avoid people right now!

Welcome! Good work!

@Jane_Doe Pure Genius!

Thank you everyone! A neighbor of mine invited me into her house after seeing me on the street ( I need to be more Safety conscious. If I lived in Detroit, I would be dead by now) .I really feel that God intervened here. I didn’t know her and she did not know me. It turned out that she was a cancer survivor and desperately needed a job. I teach about job interviews. Anyhoo..we talked about not disclosing the cancer and how to paper over the empty spots on the resume. These issues of what you should/should not tell come up very frequently especially with young people

I teach as part of my job. A student asked to speak to me privately but only had a few minutes before she had to run off. We found a quiet spot in a hallway. The student is from Germany. I live in Canada. The question: I am dyslexic. Should I tell a prospective employer? She had no specific employer in mind. Just as a general policy, she wanted to know. My answer: No. Try to cope. Pay for your own assistive devices eg software that reads to you. Hide the problem. Now, I honestly believe this to be the right answer. I have worked in a wide variety of jobs: Government, social services, private sector. I strongly believe, that: 1) in the absence of some sort of personal relationship eg you are hiring someone that you have worked with before. 2) in the absence of a special government program eg you have a quota for the disabled. Go hire one. In the absence of the above, managers hire people to make their life easier. They do not hire someone who is a challenge. Even if told to hire a disabled person, managers will look for a disabled person that they have a special relationship with, not someone off the street. I honestly feel that I gave the right answer but...the student was horrified. Almost in tears. I get so used to telling people the blunt truth in other parts of my job that...I just said it. I have a nonlds sister who hates this about me. If someone asks me a question...I tell them. I don’t give unsolicited advice but if you ask me....I will tell you. i am uncomfortably aware that the textbook answer is: Be honest, Be up front with employer. But if you always do this, you will starve. Fine if your parents have connections but if you are on your own... Actually I would love to write a paper entitled: Don’t believe the textbook when it says.....Maybe I will write a letter to the newspaper when I am really old. I had the ‘Student Success Centre’ person (SSC) in charge of helping students get jobs, present to my class. I pointed out to the class that my students who present themselves to SSC as rude or depressed tend to have a problem finding jobs. The SSC said, in a round about way, If you are depressed, Let us know. Her response is good in a sense that if the Uni has programs to refer depressed students to....but If you do speak up, the SSC people will not use their connections to find you a job. Anyway, my poor student is very stressed and sad. She has been working hard with the department that helps disabled students... In about a week, I could send her an email suggesting that on return to Germany, she try to get into a co-op program in Germany so that she can forge a relationship with a future employer or try to get a minute to talk to her in class...always very difficult. The end of class is like a rugby scrum!

This happened to my mother. This is Canada, We got a LOT of help from the police. The police worked with the bank. The police gave my mother a lot of counseling and help. She lost no money.

@Anddenex Thank you!

Terrly Givens is an lds author that you might like. He is into lds history and from some of his interviews he like the more colourful stories.

Great idea for a post!

@SpiritDragon Yes that is sad! Sounds like UNsupervised injection to me!

Drugs? I had no idea! Well I imagine that drugs are rampant in non lds circles now that you mention it. Long dark nights. Really, I feel for Manitoba. Here is this province desperate to grow...or even just hold steady, there are factories that need employees, but not enough people. I can’t believe that someone doesn’t know someone who needs a new start in MAN. Actually when I lived in Brandon Man, trying to grow the ward was our joint obsession. We were the #1 baptizing Ward in the mission. I met the Mission President’s wife in the ward one day. She was clearly sizing us up and thinking ‘These people don’t look like much. How do they do it?’ We had lots of activities and we were shameless about getting people in the building. We did a ton of cheap activities and ...we baptized a lot of people. Of course, one small town with a university and a college so our converts went elsewhere.

Dude! You is already Maple Leafed! All you need to do is get in the car and step on the gas. I am trying to enticed nonCanucks to come on up and join us. However, I can promise you that if you were to move to any ward outside of Winnipeg, that they would be so pleased to see you, you would not believe it...although I am sure that Winnipeg would also be happy to have you.

I attended a Gospel Principles class. The teacher told us that if we knew that a sister had had an argument with her husband that we should jiggle her arm when she was about to take the sacrament and tell her not to take the sacrament. The class told her that we did not agree. No one but the teacher thought this was a good idea.

Indeed! Well I will be coming to talk to you! Get your scrub brush and cleaning supplies ready!