Martin67

The volt has received the highest satisfaction ratings from its owners two years in a row. I started researching them when I met a colleague who had one and raved about it.

Home solar systems in Nevada have become cost effective when you factor in federal tax credit. Electricity for running your ac is your main power usage in the desert. We plan on our next vehicle being a volt, in addition to having a home solAr system installed. Our car will then produce no emissions and we won't have to spend money on gas. As this new technology gets developed, it becomes more cost effective for mass consumption. The production costs of the volt have come down enough that the next generation vehicle will be 10,000 cheaper and actually start making a profit for chevy.

I am invested in the topic Backroads, because my daughters are being brought up in the church because my wife is LDS. It is the aspect of your faith that bothers me the most, so its a topic of great interest to me. I know from first hand experience how important it is for Mormon women to be sealed to their families in the temple and have a celestial marriage. You can review my personal threads to see how this has affected me personally. None of this can be achieved unless you are paying your 10% tithing. Dravin, I don't understand the point you're trying to make. I am not aware of any other church that requires a certain level of financial commitment in order to achieve the highest level of spiritual awards, but I am by no means a theologian so I have no idea whether or not this is true. I guess I should clarify, for this particular outsider, this appears to be extortion, and I think it is wrong. Everyone has the choice to follow whatever spiritual path they decide, along with the rules that particular religion prescribes for them. But the choices aren't so simple when you have been brought up in a culture where the foundation of your existence revolves around your church. Many people do not agree with or follow every teaching that their religion requires, but for Mormon's not following this principle the consequences are huge. I don't see any good reasons why the church shouldn't disclose where the members money is going.

Just a guy I think you are spot on with your observations. I think the church doesn't release the financial records because they think it will just result in more complaints. And while I agree that even full disclosure would not satisfy everyone, I do think it would satisfy a lot of people, and I think it's also the right thing to do. The

It's relevant because to outsiders it looks like extortion. Pay your money or you don't get full spiritual benefits. The point I was trying to make, is if the church is making tithing so linked to spirituality, then it has a greater obligation to be transparent about what it is doing with the tithing money. If there is nothing to hide, why not put the information out there? And no, I am not suggesting there is anything unsavory about what the church does with its finances. I just think that it would raise some uncomfortable questions when people see the extent of the church's financial holdings. I think that most members have no idea as to the extent of these holdings. I also think most members would not have a problem with how the money is spent, so why not release the information?

No one is disputing that the church spends lots of money doing things that are not commercially related(i.e. building and maintaining temples and local churches, 3 universities, etc). My biggest question, and one of my biggest issues with the Mormon church, is why is all of their financial information not publicly available? I don't know of any other religion that requires it members to pay its tithing in order to receive the full complement of religious endowments. You are not allowed into the temple, and are therefore unable to do things such as being sealed to your family, unless you have paid your 10%. I think that the church should put out yearly financial statements just like a publicly traded company, that gives specific details on all of its expenditures. It seems like a reasonable request from an organization that expects its members to contribute 10% of their income regardless of the personal financial situation. What possible harm could there be from the church being transparent on their finances? I suspect that it is not done because the church leadership feels that it would be a public relations boondoggle, opening up a can of worms and just causing more questions to be asked. Although the church is not required to release this information, I can see no valid reason for it not to do so.

We have never said we intend to make our daughter go to college, but it was always considered an expectation that both our daughters would complete college. We have told them that when they finish high school they either need to be full time students or they need to move out and support themselves.

I agree with praetorian bow that it is wrong to reject someone for an ideal, because this is exactly what happened to me. My wife cheated on me with a mormon because she felt he could give her a celestial marriage and I could not. While things are currently on the mend, she could have ruined the lives of her entire family for that "ideal". Call it an ideal, or doctrine, or whatever, but none of us really knows what happens when we die. I liked the way the bishop put it best. He said we don't really know what happens when we die, but he believes in a merciful god, and that things would basically get sorted out in the afterlife.

When you try and apply absolutes to human interactions, then you have to remove logic and common sense from your deliberations. By your line of reasoning, people that are married to drug addicts, serial adulterers, physical abusers, and criminals should just "stick it out, and make it work". Your advice reminds me of a story a coworker told me of when she was younger. She was a new bride when her husband physically abused her for the first time and she ran home to her mother's house seeking shelter. The mother kicked her out, said that she had married the guy and it was her job to make it work. Needless to say the obvious transpired, and her husband kept beating her until she finally left him. She divorced him not only because she "could", but because it was the right thing to do. I guess she wouldn't have that option in the Phillippines, don't think you'd find many Americans who would have thought that was the best option for her.

Thanks for the reply just a guy, I agree with much of what you've said. We've decided that if my daughter wants to go on a mission we will support her, as long as she saves up for half of the cost. We can adjust this amount if necessary, but I think it is important that she helps contribute a significant amount. If it is important to her she will put the work in to get there. We will see how things go over the next few years, but as things stand now I think my daughter can benefit greatly from some of the life lessons she would learn on a mission.

I do not agree. One of our most important jobs as parents is to prepare our children for living independently in the REAL world. Because many times they don't have the experience to know better, we sometimes have to give them a dose of reality. While we can certainly teach them to aspire for more than the norm, sometimes things don't work out in ways that are ideal. Trying to prepare them for that is not being pessimistic, it's being realistic. I do think in today's society people don't have realistic expectations of marriage, and they far too often give up on their marriages too easily. They are not willing to put the work in required to make a relationship successful. However in some cases people are better off not being together. I'm sure these forums are rife with examples of such.

You have neatly summarized most of my fears badwolf. As school has started to get more difficult, my daughter has complained that it was too hard. Around the same time she also said maybe she would just be a stay at home mom and not worry about college. She has also said she could just marry a nice mormon boy going to med school who would take care of her. When I told her she didn't want to be dependent on somebody like that, what if he divorced you, she told me that was not a worry because Mormon's have such a low divorce rate. Now before all the stay at home mom's get upset, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. What I don't want is for my daughter to be dependent on someone else. If the marriage goes bad, she should be able to support herself. I don't want her to ever end up being "trapped" in a bad relationship because she is financially dependent on someone.

People can still talk about what they gained from their experience. It just means their perspective might be a little different.

Thank you for the response Badwolf. I think the picture you paint of going to college and starting a family simultaneously is excessively rosey. I was in graduate school when we had our daughter, and it was both of us working full time and me going to school full time, certainly not the situation you had. It can be done, but it is NOT the optimal situation. It also digresses from what I was looking for when I started this thread. I know that going on a mission doesn't necessarily preclude my daughter from also finishing college. What I am hoping to learn is how going on a mission benefitted or did not benefit those who went on them (women). I think that this is the largest LDS forum on the internet (it was the first choice that came up when I did a web search), so I am betting that there are lots of sister missionaries with tales to tell of their experience being missionaries. Thanks in advance for your responses.

Thank you for the responses Dravin and Still_small_voice. My wife feels that my daughter doesn't really know what she wants to do with her life (career), and that the mission would allow her to meet different people from different backgrounds, which would help her figure things out. I feel like college would accomplish this same thing. She also feels that she would get to see families struggling financially, and this would help my daughter to understand the value an education can have in providing financial stability. This is something that I agree with my wife on. We are an upper middle class family, and most of my daughter's peers are even more affluent. While my daughter is by no means spoiled, I feel like she has no concept of having to do without because your family can't afford it. I feel like this experience helped shaped me into the person I am. I knew that if I wanted something, including an education, I was going to have to work for it myself. Along these lines I feel like if she wants to go on a mission, she can work to pay for it herself. If she feels so strongly that it is a worthwhile goal, she should do what it takes to accomplish it. I am wondering how those of you who went on missions paid for it?