NightSG

I've seen some fairly tense moments over seating in various churches, but this is the first time I've heard of it going beyond dirty looks and mumbled profanity. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/churchgoer-killed-fight-seat-sunday-service-article-1.2618098

So let me get this straight; Mormons and Pentecostals discussing giving up life for faith? Like any of us have a life to start with.

Do you happen to know what medication was used? Curious since his original symptoms sound just like what the psychiatrist I worked for described as the possible reason for some of the Chantix suicides; any crazy thought just didn't get filtered out, so "I have a sore throat - I bet bleach will kill the germs" instead of being shut down by the subconscious becomes a semi-conscious action. (Essentially, we all subconsciously think of solutions like that, but most of us never even know it because the pointless/suicidal thoughts are filtered before the conscious mind is aware of them. For some reason, a few psychoactive drugs can cause problems with the filter. Since we're not used to having to consciously resist the urge, it starts happening in something akin to a trance state.) Would be interesting to see if anyone has tried whatever your friend was on to counter that side effect.

It's the French stuff. Stupid Europeans had to screw up numbers too.

The suicide is actually the cool part; think of how many things most of us never learn to do because there's a significant chance we won't survive the first failed lesson. If I knew a screwed up human cannonball or bullet catch attempt would just reset the day, I'd have skills people don't even know exist. But yeah, French probably still wouldn't be among them unless I got really bored.

Depending on whether you go by the director's notes or the screenwriter's, it's between 30 and 10,000 years. (He has effectively ten years of intense study worth of skill in French, piano and ice sculpture that we know of by the end, and we don't really know how much time he spent testing the bounds of the time loop. The screenwriter had him reading a page from the local library each day to keep track of time, but he finished it. Think about how long one Bible would take at a page a day, and extrapolate to a small town library.) Even shooting for the middle of that range, I can safely say I don't expect to live 4.982 years.

Wealth and influence is an extremely strong trend. Or do you think Donald Trump has landed three trophy wives on his natural charm?

One stinging stick and a few minutes of trying not to barf compared to spending another two days waiting for the swelling and accompanying ache to go away or the dentist to do the same thing. (Although if the dentist - or that ER doc, for that matter, since that's what I was hoping for when I went in - had done it, I wouldn't have been looking in the mirror at what was flowing out.) Not a hard choice to make.

I have the number of (hold on, let me count) (better double check my count in case I got distracted) one of our current YSAs. She's one that doesn't fit in with the rest of the group, (27 year old non-trad student doesn't fit in with a group where a single 23 year old is considered an old maid, imagine that) and doesn't have a way to get in touch with any of them other than to grab them in the hall on Sunday. She has tried inviting them that way, but none came. Since the whole problem is a lack of local family, it's not like I can call their parents to find them either. As for trying to get our inactive SAs to show up, most of them now know my phone number and that of the one other regularly active SA, and have added those to their list of "don't answer" numbers along with the new bishop's number. They don't answer the phone or door for the missionaries either, (I spent a couple of evenings last year hiding in various peoples' bushes while the missionaries knocked, hoping to trick them into a conversation that way.) so that's off the table too. At least according to my HT companion, forming a SWAT team to forcibly raid their houses is against Church policy. (He won't even consider that for the family on our list that has done the "turn off the lights and hide" thing to us for the last year and a half.)

I don't have access to the YSA list, and as SA rep, I wasn't comfortable bypassing the YSA rep to get a joint activity together. The guy in charge is the source of miracles. Not making impossible situations a Church specialty is wasting a valuable resource. Why would it need to be set up specifically for either group? We all have the same issue; no family (or no local family in the case of the students) to have FHE with. Having it at the Church's building would eliminate the issue of hosts moving, going on vacation or whatever and keeps the location consistent so nobody's ever in the awkward situation of showing up at the wrong place and assuming it's been canceled, but then it runs into the same old problem of getting someone there with the keys if a few times that person notices it's just me and maybe one other. (We have enough trouble getting the building unlocked for GC sessions.)

Yeah...stabbing myself was a much better option. (Sunday morning the swelling was finally down enough to peel my lip back and see where I needed to lance the darn thing. Revolting, but ~90% of the pain was gone within minutes, and the dentist couldn't find any fault with it Tuesday when I could get in. This is why I keep a few types of sterile scalpel blades around and a needle-type bottle of peroxide. Good thing I didn't spot those right after I got back from the ER or I might have carved off a chunk of my face to lance it from the outside.)

A few of us did that for a while. Attendance dropped off when we lost almost all the YSAs over summer break at the university, then the one who was hosting it moved away and it died out for lack of participation. As I understand it, that's what happened with the one that was meeting at the stake center too. This is what I mean by the approach First Methodist too with their singles, and the way Addiction Recovery used to work; even if it was down to just the couple in charge, they played checkers together and kept the doors unlocked in case someone showed up. Please tell that to the Arlington (TX) singles committee. Or at least tell them to stop getting ideas for how to do it out of the Primary manuals. There's a reason we hold our services in chapels instead of strip clubs. Making it harder to feel the Spirit is never going to benefit anyone. I'm not saying that every member needs to take a lesson from Samwise Gamgee ("I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you.") and apply it every time another stumbles, but we do have that little thing about bearing one another's burdens that they may be light. Cutting someone off when they're seeking another's understanding, or accusing them of whining isn't going to lighten their burden at all. The remaining active SAs could meet in a phone booth and still have room to bring an investigator. What we tried was a joint SA/YSA activity, but could never get the YSA rep to really commit to anything.

The closest I got was over the pain of a dental abscess that really felt like my skull was going to split open from the pressure. ER doc gave antibiotics and Norco, (of course things like that always happen on the weekend) but they wouldn't even try to drain it. The first dose wore off that night and I didn't have the coordination to get into my backpack and find the bottle. I saw the gun and thought "that will fix the pain," but luckily couldn't control my hands well enough to load it either. At some point, I must have passed out, because I woke up in the floor a lot more coherent, found the Norco and went to bed. There was no thought whatsoever of what would come after, just that the pain would go away. Now this guy, OTOH, needs some serious help. Three tries with a single shot flare gun. I don't even want to think about how much the first ball of burning magnesium being driven into his flesh must have hurt. Whoever has to gaze into that abyss to help him has my utmost sympathy. http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/police-man-shoots-himself-in-the-head-3-times-with-flare-gun-along-i-295/142951869

How about the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics? (Now there's a way to start up a really comprehensive religion. Plus, when people complain about 2 Nephi being long and boring, we can send the CRC missionaries to talk to them. After a couple weeks of log tables and trig constants, they'll be back, eager to read I Chronicles.)

Wealthy men in prestigious positions, yes. Simple fact of life. Who was the last single President of the US? For that matter, how many Senators are single, compared to, say, truckers of the same age range?

Most wealthy widowers in their 70s remarry. It's not a General Authority thing, it's a human nature thing. Any straight man pursued by enough women is going to get caught eventually. GAs can't exactly get away with the Hugh Hefner lifestyle, so it's either starve while standing in a buffet line or put a ring on one.

Judging from the comments and the long trail of other bloggers linking and quoting the article, she's far from being the only one who finds it objectionable. In fact, the one I found it from was a blogger who was planning to leave the Church after he attempted suicide because all anyone would ever tell him is that he should just have faith he wouldn't be alone on the other side. It's not hard to get that "better off dead" interpretation when you're constantly told "hey, just keep giving of what little you have to serve these people who have all the blessings your heart is begging for, and have faith that when you've suffered enough, you'll be allowed to die and get the things they have." Really? Haven't seen President Monson at any single adult activities. It's coming up on three years now.

Once you've heard it a few hundred times, it might as well be the far more honest "I don't care, so I'm going to parrot the same old line to you so that I can pretend I did something." Getting a form letter from my Senator and knowing full well that my letter was only read far enough to figure out which form to send is one thing. Getting the in-person equivalent from my Priesthood leadership is demeaning. While it usually does have the immediate desired result of getting said troubled single to shut up and go away, it might be worth considering a different approach given the number of inactive single adults, and the rate of increase of that number. Something about doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results comes to mind.

For my ward and stake. If others are in there, I haven't found it. Of my stake presidency's listed emails and phone numbers, two emails have never gotten a response, the third will in a week or two. All three of the phone numbers have always gone to voicemail, even when I was returning a call at the requested time. (That time, I got a call back in a couple of minutes. Any other time, it's usually taken so long for them to return the call that I forgot what I was calling about.)

Not all of us have access to the secret phone book that has their contact info. I barely have a valid email address for my own stake presidency. I've tried contacting missionaries and bishops (the only numbers available on the "find a meetinghouse" site) in another stake to get in touch with their SP, but the calls were never returned.

Yes. It's right up there with burning (Thanks, Senator Birdwell) on my list of ways I hope to not die.

If your perception is that the people are randomly dousing you with whatever liquid is closest to hand, whether that's kerosene or sulfuric acid, then it's not such an unreasonable thing to issue a somewhat exasperated call for them to think a bit before acting. Yeah, try that one around here. The only place "where the potential mates are" is maybe once a month at the chapel. Since the bowling alley closed down, the only "hangouts" within 60 miles are bars. It is interesting that nearly every other faith has some sort of student auxiliary near the university, (even the 5 Jews in town...though that's more just because one of them lives close to the campus) and non-students are generally welcome there when activities are going on. For the Baptist one down the street from me, that's at least 4-5 nights a week until 10PM or later. LDS students are just expected to spend every spare moment in Scripture study, apparently, since even the YSA branch hasn't tried to get a singles Home Evening going, much less anything for the rest of the week. I know at one point, First Methodist had an adult single program (mostly over college age, since the student ministry kept the others busy) that weathered a couple years of having less than a half dozen active participants. Because of that, they've been extremely effective at keeping their singles active; they know that no matter what, even if it's down to just one single and the couple in charge of that week's lessons, there will be somebody there two evenings a week for them. Our tendency to shut down any program that doesn't have 10-15-20-whatever people (Addiction recovery is now only at the stake center, and may not last even there because not everybody can make a 6:00 meeting 60 miles from work every week. Last I heard, even the stake-level singles Home Evening isn't likely to return unless there are orders from On High, because it was only averaging 3-5 people when they shut it down.) just reinforces the perception that anyone who doesn't fit in isn't worthy of the Church's time or resources. Uhh...then what's religion for? Might as well say the same about alcoholism, porn addiction, or any other behavior. I did that, and was told in no uncertain terms that the singles seating was back in the overflow on the metal chairs, not up front in the comfy pews where we might actually hear anything being said from the stand. (And no, the building wasn't full enough to actually need the overflow that day.) If I go back, I'll handle it the same way I do locally, (sit wherever I want to sit and show them that I'm better at giving dirty looks than any of them) but I figured it being the first time that I'd follow their rules and see how it went. "How it went" was so badly that I felt compelled to drive to the next stake immediately afterward and take the Sacrament again in a more welcoming ward where I could feel the Spirit.

Well, the first step would be to ditch the script. If the same answers worked for everybody, psychiatrists would just memorize all those answers and eradicate depression within a month. Singles, just like everyone else are all different. Take the time to at least try to understand the individual before giving advice. First off, I'm pretty sure Stephanie isn't a "he." You might want to have someone with a clearer understanding of such things go over the birds-and-bees talk with your son again and see if that makes relationships a bit easier for him. Second, I'd refer you (and the leaders in question) to another post, aimed at parents, but equally applicable to anyone in a position to guide singles: http://www.the-exponent.com/how-to-be-a-good-parent-to-single-mormon-adults/ (The "kids table" pretty well describes my experience visiting a midsingle magnet ward. Singles to the back of the bus chapel where the good married folk don't have to look at you, and make do with this dusty classroom and no heat for Sunday school.) Might want to listen in on that birds-and-bees thing yourself. Menopause means it's really not valid for a fair number of midsingles and pretty much everybody beyond midsingle age. Exactly. Most of the men are trying. It's the women who want to hang out, sometimes for months, before they'll agree to a date, and then complain that by the time they're ready to date, the guys have given up and started dating nonmembers. If you were on fire in a room without any resources aside from a few dozen other people, would you wait until you had a solution before mentioning that you're on fire, or would you bring up the problem and hope that someone else might already know a solution, or at least that with some open and compassionate discussion, the group might come up with one?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peculiarpeople/2015/09/no-blessing-a-plea-to-lds-leaders-regarding-single-members-in-the-church/

This is interesting to me, as I've known two people who had such a reaction to Chantix. One actually did kill himself, after calmly walking to the bathroom and wrapping every towel they owned around his head to keep the mess contained. The other realized that he had gotten a handgun out, loaded it, and headed for the rock-walled room at the back of the house, entirely on autopilot. He unloaded the gun, put it in the gun safe and tossed the keys out the back door, then called one of his kids to come find them and hide them until he was sure that stuff was out of his system. Neither showed any signs of excessive anxiety, and the seemingly incongruous consideration of others in both cases struck me as odd, too. Later research shows that such consideration is fairly common in planned suicides, (things like doing it in the bathtub or on a concrete floor, or unloading the gun except for one round so it will be safe afterward) which suggests it could be used as an indication of a lack of anxiety. Combination of hepatic and renal failure. After a certain point (a few hours, IIRC) it's no longer survivable, but can take days of agony before death. The best they can do at that point is try to keep the patient unconscious. Both cases I saw were a result of eating an entire large bottle. (150-200 tablets)