paracaidista508

Tell that to bro David beck. He went on a speaking tour to scout leaders about 5 yrs ago....or maybe more. Was banging on the pulpit on a sat afternoon telling us we suck as scout leaders cuz not enough boys were getting their eagles. And because of that they also would be less likely to go on a mission. I never bought into to it esp since there are so many merit badge factories and fake eagles in the church anyway. Strange correlation to cheat on merit badges and the eagle and somehow you are more likely to serve a mission....hmmm wierd

Just thought of this, but for as long as I can recall, the young men were compelled to get their Eagle badge. Why??? Oh because that made their odds of going on a mission much higher. How true that is can be debated, but what do we do now that the church is dumping the BSA??? No more Eagle scouts or pretty soon we wont have any. Does that mean no one will now go on a mission?

I would say there are many in this boat. I chose to go into the military rather than go on a mission and I took incoming fire from all directions for about 6 months before I left for Boot Camp. The only mistake I made was to tell anyone I had joined. I should have just waited till about 2 weeks prior to leaving for boot and I'm sure my life would have been much more peaceful. Parents treated me OK although one spent considerable time dangling college tuition, new car, tuition and car etc in front of me if I went on a mission, but it didn't work. I think they honestly thought I was going to hell for not going on a mission. Also was told no self-respecting LDS girl would marry a non-RM. I was like well dad didn't go on a mission, why did you marry him? Well there was a war going on- that was different. Ok- whatever. I don't believe that the mission is what keeps people active or whatever. I think it is more because of how they are raised, having a solid family life at home and just general good examples at home. If the mission is what keeps YM from leaving the church before they are 40 ish, what then is the reason a ton of our General Authorities both past and present have stayed around? I mean heck tons of them served in a war and didn't go on a mission, but somehow they end up in the church senior leadership?? How does that happen? If anyone has served in a war ( I mean in real combat, not paper pushing or wrench turning) they will see some pretty horrific things that will shake your faith in mankind and possibly your Maker to put it lightly. If there was ever a recipe for making someone either not believe in God or believe more strongly than ever before it is service in combat. A couple examples of people who didn't go on missions and turned out ok: Lets look at Pres Monson for example: Bday - 8-21-1927, end of WW2 Sept 2 1945 (remember these dates) Joined the Navy during WW2. His contract released him from the military 6 mos after the end of WW2. I have not found a date when he joined the Navy, but his discharge would have him at 18.5 yrs old. Think about that- 18.5 yrs old and he had already been in the military and back again. He got married in 1948. So for three years he went to school and did whatever. No mission and yet he ended up being the Pres of the Church. One would have thought that being 18.5 yrs old and no war going on it would have been the time to go on a mission, but it wasn't. How about Russell Nielsen? Born 1924, graduated college in 1945 at age 21. How he didn't end up in the war is a mystery to me, but he was 21 when it ended and he ended up finishing med school. Served in Korean war. Here is another one- no inclination to go on a mission when he easily could have gone, yet he ends up as the Pres of the Church also. I'm not citing these two in order to disrespect them, I bring this up because the lack of serving a mission is no indicator of what someone may do in the future. Both of them could have served missions but they both chose not to-----for whatever reason. No one went on missions then. You see back then, no one cared and if you went to the war you were set for life. If you didn't end up in the war and still didn't go on a mission, well no one cared about that either. Now if you go the war (which we do have one going on BTW) you are a turd. The military is a bad place to be and the only reason any LDS person should be there is AFTER they serve a full time mission. The only option is a mission and then you get treated like a hero when you get back---well for a couple days at least and then everyone reverts back to not caring. I think if we just treated those who didn't go on a mission with a bit more civility instead of awarding them 2nd class citizen status in the church we would have a much better retention rate. Just my 2 cents

This dreamer thing is a bunch of b.s.. the. Majority contribute nothing to society, are members of gangs or are flat out just common criminals. The balance, well they are fine, but need to get in line. I got a dreamer attempt to murder me a decade ago. He got away but I openly hope he died a miserable death somewhere at the hands of his fellow drug dealing dreamers. Documented gang member,married, had little kids and all...Just living the dream. I grew up in a heavy illegal alien populated area. On occasion some go forth and do good. Most just export their money to Mexico and just exist here. Our local Spanish branches are full of illegals, but most are probably good people, but here illegally nonetheless. I just do nt know why we provide cover for them.

Take the desire away from you...yea right. Other spouse wants to end sex in marriage they can count on an ended marriage. We were not put on earth to be celibate in marriage. Forget that.

SPAM is clearly a wow violation. Also one needs to see a shrink if they like that stuff. I used to have SPAM hash and potatoes growing up. Yuck

Yep, all while the church is encouraging the young women to write the young men on their missions. If he were an LDS girl, she would be encouraged to write a missionary, but since he is a guy and not LDS- he needs to mind his own business. I get it. Wait till we tell him that if and after he joins the church and if he then has to go on a mission himself before he is worthy of her attention. Source: https://www.lds.org/manual/the-latter-day-saint-woman-basic-manual-for-women-part-a/women-in-the-church/lesson-19-preparing-and-encouraging-missionaries?lang=eng What kinds of letters should young women write to missionaries? Young women should share spiritual experiences with the missionaries, as well as tell them cheerful news of friends and home" http://ldsywideasandactivities.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-write-to-full-time-missionaries

This is a unique topic. Only input I'll give ya. Back in my days of being a cop I was prob 25/26 or so, married and working the beat. Went to a homicide one day and in the apartment was this young lady (maybe 35) laying naked on the floor with a bullet in the face. Completely naked and quite clearly a sun worshipper. She had also had some other surgery done if you know what I mean. I had run into her a few times as she was an ER nurse at the hospital I used to bring DUIs to. She was a good looker except you could tell she was always catching the rays. I actually thought she was about 50. All I can say is after seeing that complete picture I am sure that you will not like what she will end up looking like. That is self inflicted skin damage. After some time her hide will tan right up and it will look ugly.

This is a unique topic. Only input I'll give ya. Back in my days of being a cop I was prob 25/26 or so, married and working the beat. Went to a homicide one day and in the apartment was this young lady (maybe 35) laying naked on the floor with a bullet in the face. Completely naked and quite clearly a sun worshipper. She had also had some other surgery done if you know what I mean. I had run into her a few times as she was an ER nurse at the hospital I used to bring DUIs to. She was a good looker except you could tell she was always catching the rays. I actually thought she was about 50. All I can say is after seeing that complete picture I am sure that you will not like what she will end up looking like. That is self inflicted skin damage. After some time her hide will tan right up and it will look ugly.

Kami, Basically what many here are saying (my interpretation)is since you are not already LDS, then you have no business contacting her. That was not said, but it is implied. LDS young men and women write missionaries all the time, maintain relationships via letters/email and etc... No rules against it. Happens all the time. In fact, many LDS return missionaries end up going back to wherever their mission was and marry some girl. How they can just go back to some foreign country (my friend went back to Brazil and came back married a week later) and return with a bride tells me writing and having a relationship (via written correspondence) is not out of bounds. Sure mission presidents. mothers and some on this forum are against it, but whatever. I have not seen any female return missionaries do that, but I'm sure it happens. The rules (whatever they are) apply to her, not you. I don't know where you are from, (country). I also do not know where she is from. If she is from the US and you from elsewhere you will likely never see her again once she gets home. Possibly she already has a boyfriend / fiance (prob not since most girls on missions took off because they are not married yet in my opinion). As for you writing her after she leaves... who is going to give you her address? The mission president surely wont. Ex companion likely wont either so you will have to try and find her. Good luck with that. Here is my advice: Don't let anyone tell you who you can and cannot talk to or write. While she is on a mission she cannot date. Just because she is LDS and you are not does not mean she would not want to date you later. No one knows anything about either one of you. Tell you what, write her a note saying you would like to write her once she gets home or transfers and ask for her home address or email. Just leave it at that. She will know you are interested in her. Guys don't ever do that just because they want to be friends and girls know that. If she gives you her contact info then there is a slight chance. If not - well then I would move on. If it gets awkward afterwards, then different missionaries can teach you if you are still interested. Ward missionaries can teach you also. Good luck and don't let people tell you you cant/ shouldn't contact her...that's baloney. Just be mature and don't say/write anything inappropriate. Just ask her if you can write her..thats it

https://youtu.be/N4vf8N6GpdM

I didn't say you need to ignore prophetic counsel in order to have sufficient ....etc... I presented this as an option and it does work. A few million lost their homes during the mortgage crisis as you know. I'm sure there were many who were paying their mortgages early so they could escape the debt earlier. Great concept, but if you lose your job and don't make the payment, the bank wont care how much you have paid down. In fact, the more equity you had the less likely they would work with you. If you can show me how the equity in your home is more valuable than being in your account while in the middle of an extended crisis AND you wont lose your home then I would conceded that the early payoff is a much wiser choice. Additionally, someone with a paid off home who doesn't pay their taxes anymore can have it seized and sold off in a state tax lien auction. Paid off or not, it can still be lost. My situation- I'm not paying one red cent early. I will follow my mortgage contract to a t with one exception (early pay my mortgage ...possibly). Since I have an incurable illness and a significantly reduced life expectancy the fact I use Edelman's ( and have used it for a long time) concept has come to be a major benefit. I started all this waaay before I was diagnosed and it just worked out good just like good ole Ric Edelman says: 1- long mortgage, 2- I have a permanent pension that lasts as long as I live and also for my wife. At the death of the last person the pension goes away. 3- We have maxed out our 457 / 401K / IRAs for about 13 yrs now. Stayed in the market during the three crashes since 1999 and have been buying it on sale all the way up to about two years ago. Now it is just token purchases as my income is much less than when I was working. 4- Have a good size taxable brokerage account which at this time throws off almost a house payment every month in dividends. They are all blue chips with some very lucrative sin stocks to boot. I have had this account for over 20 yrs. All dividends have been reinvested to this date. When I reach the point where I cant pay the taxes on them, I'll take some as income. 5- Long term life policy which ends long after my expected life expectancy which is less than 10 yrs. Policy face amount is over 2x the amount we have mortgaged. 6- If my wife passes before me, her policy covers 100% of the mortgage amount, plus a six figure sum for whatever...rest home maybe. 7- We don't have debt on cars, credit cards or anything else other than the home That being said, the life policies will pay off the home in the event of either one of our deaths. Since life insurance benefits are tax free, the money will be tax free to the mortgage and is in effect "cheaper money." Much better than paying 15% income tax on it just before putting it in my mortgage to save 3.5% interest as I would be doing by prepaying right now. I have enough in savings, investments, taxable account income streams and pension to easily cover all of our expenses even with about a 50% market downturn. My investments alone will cover 10-15 years of all expenses if my pension disappears and we don't work. I structured it this way so that we would have income during tough times instead of having to do a reverse mortgage and/or a viatical settlement in order to cover expenses. Also that will keep the elders and priests from having to mow our lawns for the next 25 yrs or so. We can take care of it ourselves. I think the prophetic advise in respects to debt is to keep people in general out of debt. Frankly most couldn't tell you what good, bad or advantageous debt is much less how to leverage it. It is much easier to address the issue so the least common denominator can understand the concept. Once you start waxing on about different strategies people check out. Bottom line is people need to know what they are doing. If they choose to be ignorant and not learn ways to make money then they need to just flat out pay everything off an not leverage their situation to their advantage. Problem is with many people is they don't save anything anyway. They can pay off their house and then spend as opposed to invest/save and in the end they are living only on soc sec and saving coke cans to make ends meet. Both paying off and leveraging work- and both situations require discipline. I'm curious in your situation- how old were you when your mortgage was paid off and how long ago was that? I'm not even 50 yet. Most people who are that well off after paying off a home early in my experience have six figure incomes and have compounded for a while. I was in that situation, but now am just compounding my investments as my income is a third of what it was before I got sick. As for ignoring prophetic advise- they have no problem cashing my tithing check paid for with my dirty money so I think we are ok.

I'm curious what makes lds people automatically more business worthy than others. Problem is the affinity thing makes it easier to prey on others of the same religion. I think it is noteworthy there was a letter from the churches presidency read over the pulpit years ago addressing this. I don't trust mormons more than anyone else. In fact I can name a contractor who is a prominent member in my area who is well known by members and local code enforcement officers as a big time shortcutter and he does bad work...on purpose to save money for the customer and increase his margin. Everyone knows this but since he is lds he still gets their business. There are meny others, he just happens to be open about it and people still chance it with him. Freaking stupid. They end up fined and having good to pay someone else to go back and fix the wreck. There are non lds who are dishonest too,but to assume since they are lds they are honest is naive. https://www.lds.org/church/news/affinity-fraud-called-a-destructive-crime-at-conference?lang=eng

Do you mind listing which of the 11 reasons is a lie? Obviously I'm an idiot so I need it in black and white please. I have followed a theory close to his and yes I have a long mortgage, but have also amassed enough in 401K and 457 money to pay cash for the home (after taxes and early withdrawal penalty) if things get that bad. Even with a 50 % market downturn I could make my house payment for at least 30 years. People end up with a home by paying early but miss out on market returns by investing in a dead asset. Disaster comes and they still don't have enough only to fund their daily living expenses even without the house payment. https://www.moneyunder30.com/why-your-house-is-not-an-investment

No matter what happens, we will be sitting it out anyway. Not the US...lds

Yea I saw it. Here I was with popcorn ready for some big change like gays allowed to have the priesthood or something (lol) and find out it was just back patting for volunteers. They did a good job btw, but if it was such a big deal why not broadcast to the whole church???

Well when the repub party openly supports, advocates and promotes abortion (baby murder) then perhaps I will. In the meantime, they don't even compare.

are these the clowns were talking about here?

Democrats and Hollywood. Oh that's one in the same

Well it was a "nothingburger" relatively speaking. Was announced last week and no one knew what the purpose of the broadcast was and we were not told. Come to find out friends and family in other stakes were given the same info. They had no idea what it was about. Anyway we were all thinking there was gonna be some grand announcement. There wasn't. It was a broadcast specifically to the "North American - Southwest Area" Weird how this was communicated to the people in the pews. Should have slept in.