NightSG

Then make it a prerequisite for seminary. Besides, it will have them that much farther along by the time they hit mission age. Sister missionaries with black belts could be a handy thing for the Church's image.

Age ranges depend on the dojo. The local one handles anything from about six on up. Can't hurt to start them early so they'll actually have the skills needed to disassemble a problematic YM in the women's room before they need them.

Handy feature the evening before a drug test.

Weren't there any GAs who boxed in their younger days? That could make for a good photo.

Nowhere near ready to teach yet. Just makes more sense for her to learn how to defend herself against an adult male twice her size. (After all, it's generally not other 13 year olds she needs to worry about being abducted by, nor the lone female instructor who's about 4'11".) Check around; lots of good dojos offer a short self defense course for women and good group rates.

Jemima's Witnesses; do you have a moment to talk about pancakes?

Well, of course now you'll get accused of racism if you dress up as anyone of a different race. I'm thinking I probably couldn't get away with an Al Jolson costume, either.

I've gotten to know a few people who moved into my former addresses because I forgot to update my Amazon account.

Clearing the building as soon as it's unlocked isn't a bad idea, but it seems a little awkward to have them checking the women's room once people might be using it. Maybe you just need a YW self defense class. And don't knock good self defense classes; I got partnered with a 13 year old girl who might weigh 85 pounds at a class last week and even as a white belt she could flatten me with the beginner techniques when she got determined. They've got really sharp elbows at that age.

As opposed to ours; nobody knows what's on the agenda, and I can sleep through it just as well from 60 miles away in my own bed without pants.

You should really get the sugar producers to start pushing these charts hard.

Nah. The LDS divorce rate is clearly the fault of high fructose corn syrup: 87% correlation. Oddly, though HFCS also seems to be the main driving force for marriage in Utah: 94% correlation. My theory is that too much HFCS makes people make poor choices of life partners too quickly.

Or President Monson as an adult single visitor, being asked to move out of the comfy seats because "that's X family's row."

Y'know, it's not quite a wookiee suit, but I'm pretty sure I can guess why that guy is and will remain single. Not exactly the best choice of spokesman for any cause...except maybe a good anti-chafing powder. No. If the employees' concern needed to be addressed at a board meeting, they would be invited to choose one spokesman, or provide a written statement which would be given to the board members. In one of those companies, the chairman of the board was also known for wandering around the site dressed more or less like a low level manager, asking anyone he didn't already recognize to introduce themselves and tell him what they thought the company could do better. Then he would tell them his real name and why he was asking. Nice guy, and a very effective leader. No one was introduced as a YSA or SA, nor did any of them include anything like "and in my personal experience as a single man." I can certainly make a pretty well educated guess as to the marital status of all the GAs present. No, you claimed it was understood and provided no evidence to support that claim. If it was understood 8 years ago, then why is the problem continuing to grow, and still being addressed exactly the same way a bishop from 12 years ago remembers when he was dealing with it? No, you've shown that President Uchtdorf didn't run away from a guy in a Spiderman suit. (Well, that and angle cut French cuffs do look better than straight cut ones.) That says nothing about the content of any discussion they may or may not have had. Frankly, if I see a guy obviously finishing up his McCafe, (We'll assume they just used that cup for a milkshake...if he's now channeling J Golden Kimball, things are likely to get weird.) and already in a conversation with someone else, I'm not going to go into any detail beyond just saying hello. 8 years ago. Not only unsuccessfully, but counterproductively for most of a decade now. I call 'em like I see 'em, and when the "solution" has shown negative results over an extended period, then yes, I disagree with it. I'm still not seeing any evidence of useful listening. They took the carefully filtered claims of experts with zero personal experience in the subject matter, in spite of overwhelming availability of people currently living it every day of their lives, and what they're doing still isn't working.

You're right...that many Canadians must have at least 60 souls between them.

Actually, over the years, I've spent some time working directly under the CEOs of a couple of corporations. In both cases, they were well known for occasionally grabbing random employees of any level for an "off the record" lunch discussion, (which made for some amusing surprise visits to remote sites) specifically to make sure they were getting information that didn't go through the "old white guy filter" that the chain of command tends to become. Speaking as a young white guy myself, I preferred to take the Acts 6 approach, (though seven plus myself would have been a crowd in his office, so usually only two at the extremes of the position - but note all those Greek names in verse 5 and tell me the original Apostles didn't feel the need for the affected to have a significant and direct voice) and take the people directly experiencing the issue to the meeting with me so I wouldn't become part of the filter. To my knowledge, they haven't executed anyone yet. That's probably a bit harsh, but it does seem to work for the Clintons. Individuals, maybe. Individuals worthy of having an actual representative at the discussion, obviously not. I seem to recall a Divinely inspired document that had some rather strong words about such a practice elsewhere. Giving a couple of members of the subject population 3-5 minutes to state their feelings on the matter is hardly a college level class. They could have made that time by shortening the formal introductions. Convenient answer, but have you ever asked them to state their full position? You might be surprised how much you didn't understand, and how much better your counsel will be received when you show them a real effort to understand more fully.

I don't think anybody mistook it for a debate on whether arranged marriages would be the next Church policy. That still doesn't negate the fact that second and third hand information is less useful than first hand information. Which has all been run through before...in fact, given that we're several years after that video now, it's showing to be just the same as the semiannual "we'll do better about getting the chapel unlocked and the equipment set up for next General Conference" claims in my ward. All the talk in the world does nothing if the actions don't follow. Again, second hand information, filtered through the personal opinions of the presenters. What hasn't worked is still going on; they could at least come up with some new platitudes every ten years or so. I haven't even been a member for five years yet, but I can find everything that's been said to me on blogs of inactive or fully ex-Mormon singles ranging back well before then. Statistical evidence has the same disadvantages it always does; do you know of any families with 2.4 children? Reducing the entire population to a single average archetype (which, like the four tenths of a child, likely doesn't even exist) ignores the fact that every one of them is an individual, which should be the first and foremost consideration when dealing with people in a delicate circumstance. Obviously the GAs don't have the time to hear from every SA/YSA in the Church, but giving two or three of them from different backgrounds and current situations a ten minute block to share in the meeting would provide both first hand information and a basic idea of how the situation varies between individuals.

Then please explain why they have "subject matter experts" come in at all.

To insist that personal experience isn't critical to understanding is to deny there's any reason for a mortal existence in the first place. Everything else could simply have been provided to us without the need to come here at all.

Then why does even the Church prefer recovering addicts as counselors for the Addiction Recovery Program? Why are women often counseled to talk to the RS President or another member before or in addition to the bishop for most problems of a specifically feminine nature? A lot of the people leaving the Church are going because they don't feel like they're being heard. Telling them "we don't need to hear you" isn't going to help with that. However, I suspect a lot of that empathy comes from closely shared experiences; you mentioned stillbirths, and that is certainly a significant experience that he has been very intimately involved in. Likewise an immediate family member of an addict would be a better ARP counselor than someone who grew up in a pure TBM family with no personal experience whatsoever.

The only one who didn't had some other special tricks up His sleeve.

One per soul?

Honestly, I'd trust omegaseamaster75 and I agreeing on something as proof that it's universal, divine truth before I'd trust revelations that merely confirm what the recipient wanted/expected to hear. Sometimes I think the Spirit is just too busy facepalming at what we've asked it and doesn't get around to sending the stupor of thought in time. We then mistake that for confirmation. ETA: the mental image of a being without a body trying to figure out how to facepalm has now kept me amused for several minutes.

I dunno; out of curiosity I watched most of the one about YSA issues, and I was pretty unimpressed. It seems to me they didn't have a subject matter expert. They had some people who thought they were, but asking a bunch of older married men about current singles issues makes about as much sense as asking them how it feels to be an unwed mother. It wasn't a discussion about whether unicorns like fried chicken; there are hundreds of thousands of people living their subject matter throughout the Church and they didn't solicit input from them. Instead, they brought in more older married men to repeat the party line of "if they serve more, they'll be fixed." I see that as people who just want their preexisting conclusions affirmed, whether they're true or not, and that worries me when those same people are supposed to be receiving revelation about the most important things in this life.

You're supposed to give him the full session link so he has to listen to all of it