PolarVortex

Dennis the Menace

Dr. No

I'm sure that would be delightful in-flight entertainment for transatlantic and transpacific flights... Remember that scene from Rain Man where they fight about airplane crashes, and it's mentioned that only Qantas has a perfect safety record? Many airlines showed this movie in flight, but they cut that scene. (Qantas, however, kept it.)

If you're looking for something like a "Do Not Call" list for baptisms, this article may have some information for you. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/mormon_explainer_1/2012/02/mormons_baptize_wiesenthals_is_there_a_way_to_stop_baptism_by_proxy_.html

I wonder if "I Wonder as I Wander" ends on the wrong note. I've sung it a lot and every time it seems wrong to me.

If the Paris killers had murdered French Muslims instead of non-Muslims, I think it would have gotten the same coverage in the news. And I hear sporadic reports of Christians being murdered and persecuted in large numbers in the Middle East, but it's not front-page news where I live.

Well, it's not too late. When was a kid, my pals and I didn't have many options to get in touch with our inner geeks. We could watch reruns of Mr. Wizard on TV, or browse the latest copy of Edmund Scientific catalogs, or go to a local scientific supply store and gawk at the Erlenmeyer flasks and Van de Graaf generators. But the best way was to read a series of children's books based on a character named Danny Dunn. Danny and his mother lived with a Professor Bullfinch who was always tinkering with scientific things: time travel, anti-gravity contraptions, smallifying machines, universal glue, and (my favorite) a computer that would do Danny's homework for him. It was a wonderful series. Mr. Dunn is a worthy addition to your little pantheon of alphabetical characters. He's even greater than Sir Wilfrid.

Anyone remember Danny Dunn?

The winners in life don't wait for things to happen to them. Create whatever change you need... it doesn't create itself. I am still considered "less active" and I know for a fact that my ward knows about me. A while back I emailed Salt Lake to confirm that I was still a member (I was) and I only included my name, date of birth, and baptism year and location. My email address contained no clue about my current address, which was thousands of miles away from my baptism location, and my email didn't mention my current address. The Church records department immediately shot back an email confirming my membership status and complete information about my local ward, including the bishop's name and telephone number. I do not know how they got this information. Curiously, nobody from the ward has made even the slightest attempt to contact me, even though my email to Salt Lake made it clear that I wished to become active again. Yes, I know, I'm the one responsible here, and I'm owning this and moving forward. And in my experience, HT has always been a wispy, wobbly thing. Immediately after I converted, a man in my ward called me and asked if he could come over to get to know me better. I had no context for this and didn't understant HT, and the whole thing seemed very creepy to me. Out of ignorance, I politely declined, and I never heard back from him or anyone else. Later I learned he was in fact my assigned HT, and I felt very silly. And this was a large, robust ward outside Washington DC that pulsed with life and energy. If anyone could get it right, this ward could. I'll be interested to read others' comments here... best wishes!

I don't see any issue, then, unless you started exploring interesting things around you, found yourself examining your parents' private clothing, and are now feeling remorse. We all do accidental things that bring us to places we shouldn't be. It's how we respond that determines whether a sin has occurred.

The "other stuff" that you don't want to mention... can you say whether it had something to do with the Temple?

Sir Wilfred Robarts (Witness for the Prosecution... one of my favorite movies)

Then I've got problems. I thumbed through this PDF, sent all the way from Russia, and found information about the von Klitzing constant, the thermodynamic properties of formaldehyde as a function of temperature, magnetic monopole and supersymmetric particle searches, and the elastic constants of orthorhombic crystals. But thanks for trying... I will soldier on.

Kirk, James Tiberius

Batman

Now I'm worried that I'm being vain about my appearance. But really, the sandpaper and the nose job are all I have done to improve my looks, and the nose job was to fix a broken nose. Do I get bonus points for going to a bad hairstylist? The place I go to has one hairstylist that nobody likes, but I feel sorry for her and ask for her by name so she doesn't feel so rejected. I don't think she could do a worse job if she cut my hair with a dull tomahawk, but I don't care how my hair looks. Does that make up for my skin vanity?

Any noun can be verbed, but sometimes it's imprecise, sorry. I meant use sandpaper in the usual way to rub my skin lightly. Not with an electric sander, of course, and certainly not vigorously like you do when sanding off old paint. I spend a fair amount of time in hot sunny places like Nevada and Hawaii, and after a few days of squinting in the heat and having my skin dried out and tanned (or burned) by the sun, I see creases appear around my eyes. The usual crow's feet, nothing especially strange. Lightly sanding my skin is sort of like using an exfoliant. I don't do it often, and I'm very gentle. It's like a deep cleaner. Eowyn's comment makes me think that I must have heard about this from a dermatologist, maybe online. I doubt whether I'm clever enough to have come up with this idea by myself.

Very interesting that 10 of the 11 new missions are in the Americas, and the 11th (Portugal) is in the so-called 10/40 Window.

To minimize the appearance of fine lines around my eyes, I sandpaper them away. A moderately fine grit (#100-#180) works best. Works like a charm. Now and then I will wash and dry a big load of towels, and then bring the hot towels up and dump them on my bed so my cat can crawl inside and take a nap. I don't wash them again before I use them. Once or twice a year I will buy a National Enquirer and a box of animal crackers and enjoy them both late at night.

Your experience is also a concern of mine as I struggle to return to the Church, so I very much appreciate your post and look forward to the comments from others. I have found that the Miss Manners approach is often very effective in situations like these: be gracious and give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but be ruthless about repeating facts. If you're asked to reintroduce yourself, do so cheerfully by saying something like, "This is our 4th Sunday here, for those of you who have not met us yet; most other people have met us already," as you look serenely upon the person who asked you to stand and reintroduce yourself. I guarantee you that this will put an end to reintroductions very quickly. "Vicious Sisters in Relief Society" would be a great title for my next novel, thanks. If these vicious comments pop up, and you decide they really are vicious and not just babbling from some tongue-tied sister who is struggling to make small talk, then let them become water on a duck's back to you. Smile wanly, pretend the comment never happened, and move on. Best wishes on your return.

Um... Cherry-picking one small part of a secular definition is hardly a proof that these two concepts are identical in the LDS Church. Discipline can also be defined as behavior or order maintained by training and control, without an element of punishment. If the Church really wanted to punish people, it could do a lot of things besides restricting the privileges of membership or revoking the membership entirely. Whether excommunication is punishment depends on your definition of "punishment," I guess.

Good grief... does his offer expire at midnight or something? It's okay to postpone a decision until you have all the data you need. If you've totally ruled him out for remarriage, tell him No with a capital N. If you have not ruled remarriage out, then why not tell him you're willing to gather data and explore options and understand his vision for a remarriage (and vice versa) and how he'd treat the Church? Make it clear that this little discovery period in no way obligates you to remarry and that many outcomes are possible, but that you're willing to try to find a way forward. If you enter this period with a prayerful and discerning spirit, and you give it time, I bet this decision will pretty much make itself. If he balks at this and wants to remarry pronto, then I'd suspect something more sinister is afoot, and I'd tend to agree with Vort on this. And I agree with everyone else here that many risks are present. Tread carefully.

So when does something stop being discipline and start being punishment?

You left out the barfing part. I think both anatess and pkstpaul are correct. As a single man with no immediate family, I find that pets have enriched my life in ways that I cannot even begin to describe. But they are a commitment that should be carefully considered. The SPCA in my area has a pet foster program where you can open your home temporarily to a litter of kittens or a terminally ill (but noncontagious) dog or cat. Or you can even volunteer, as I have mentioned on other posts. But I'm getting off-topic. divorcedat28: Change is hard and scary. I have no way of knowing how your situation will turn out, but I can tell you that the worst way to deal with it is by withdrawing. 28 is still very young, even though it may not seem that way to you now. You have your whole life in front of you. If your marriage ends in divorce, wipe the slate clean and start over and focus on the future instead of the past. It's the only way forward. If you are faithful and positive, new options will open up to you. Either get yourself woven deeply into your ward and find support, or think about moving closer to your family. Happiness begins with delighting in reality and creating positive change in your life. Those changes ain't gonna create themselves. Wishing you well.