NeedleinA

Let's see:
Romney says Russia is trouble for us.  The Democrats laugh at him.  We're not in the cold war anymore. Hillary colludes with Russia to play around with the election against Trump. First they laugh at people saying Hillary colluded with Russia because we're not in the cold war anymore. Then they accuse Trump of colluding because he simply must have in order to win the election.  Because, of course he did.  Russia is the big baddie now. Trump says some condescending things about Putin and makes threats against Russia for some military actions that Russia took. Somehow this is considered colluding with Russia. Biden is President and Russia is emboldened to make threats against America.  Russia is not a problem.

My two immediate reactions on seeing this.
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/husband-wife-chad-lori-daybell-203934244.html

Regrettably, having the same impression as of late.
Same boat, hoping the chess moves and proactive hand are revealed sooner than later.

It's all a series of chess moves, folks.  We're in the endgame now.

Things have seemed exceedingly reactive lately. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that time will bear out a careful, proactive hand at work.

My son is currently in Utah waiting to go to Spain. Supposedly Spain only has 30 missionaries in the country right now. It has started to open for tourism, but not missionaries yet.
He served in wards surrounding UVU campus in Orem. He said he was constantly approached by rogue jack-LDS trying to show how un-LDS they were. Playing loud lewd music was a common theme.

I thought this might be a great thread for people to talk about family members on missions.
My daughter is recently dealing with really loud neighbors.  She had earplugs and ear muffs trying to fall asleep.  She could clearly hear the lyrics of the music being played in two apartments over.   They apparently have also see drug deals happening in their parking lot. 
Things happened.  The mission home decided to get the wheels rolling to move them to another location.
My son, The Bear, just got his mission call to Kobe, Japan.  He's already gotten on Duolingo to learn Japanese.  We're trying to figure out how to get scriptures and gospel principles in Japanese.  No progress yet.  He enters the MTC in August.

Same in our area.

Same in our area.

That is so sad.  I've never experience either of these in the Houston area.  It makes me wonder how crazy things have gotten elsewhere.  Here's what I've seen play out many times.
1) Most places have signs up "asking" for people to wear masks.  Others "require" it.  But the enforcement of such requests/requirements vary from place to place.
2) Some places will politely ask patrons to abide by the rules.  Others don't care.
3) If a patron is asked, a few different responses.
a) Oh, sorry, I didn't notice.  Do you have one available?
b) I'm sorry.  But I left mine at home.  I'm only going to be here for one item, and I'll be out of your hair. (It is quite common for the employee to just wave them forward.)
c) Other times, people see the sign, go back to their car and get a mask.
d) Still others have to go back home and get it.  (They do actually go home, get it, and come back -- no temper tantrums).
e) And many people simply wear their masks with or without a sign.
After Abbott signed the EO to lift the mask mandate, I went to a Target.  The gal behind the counter asked very politely,"Hello, sir, would you care for a mask?"
"Oh, are you still doing that?"
"Yes, sir."
(Roll of eyes) "Ok, if you really want me to."
"Here you go, sir.  Thank you for being considerate of others."
Another time (before the mandate was lifted) Home Depot had people dispensing the masks.  But they apparently only had children's masks because it wouldn't fit on my Sputnik-sized noggin.  The employee saw my obvious difficulty.  "It's ok, sir.  Just do the best you can."
"Thanks".  I tried to place one piece over one ear, and hold the other side with my hand.  But when I started picking stuff up, I kinda had to let go of it.
Many people wore it.  Many people did not.  Everyone just respected everyone else's choice and we all went about our business.  I don't see why the rest of the country doesn't do the same.
When our family did not have it, we mostly just went about our business.  When we caught it, we called all around and asked what people's rules were for COVID.  We abided by THEIR rules, just as we did before.  The difference was that prior to contracting it, they needed to go a bit out of their way to ask us to abide by them.  After we contracted it, we became more pro-active in asking what their rules were and abided by them.  I would think this is a pretty reasonable approach.  But some of the reports I hear sound like this would cause some mask-nazi to threaten to kill me for behaving this way.

Yesterday was our first Sunday, as an entire Stake, without masks and singing from hymnals. Those blessing/passing the sacrament still wore them. Out of the 200-225 in attendance only about 10 people still wore masks.
Headed on vacation real soon. Normally it is a toss up between California vs. Florida.
Gone are the days of going to CA, Florida it is for foreseeable future. If we are going to put money into a state, it will be one like FL or TX.

Yesterday was our first Sunday, as an entire Stake, without masks and singing from hymnals. Those blessing/passing the sacrament still wore them. Out of the 200-225 in attendance only about 10 people still wore masks.
Headed on vacation real soon. Normally it is a toss up between California vs. Florida.
Gone are the days of going to CA, Florida it is for foreseeable future. If we are going to put money into a state, it will be one like FL or TX.

Good. Arrive, spend your money, then go home. 😉

The "sell" is that they are NOT straight, white males.  They are trans women.  And if you're a woman who wishes to exclude trans women from that movement, then you're a TERF and not worth listening to.  Cancel culture at its best.
Feminists who wish to embrace the trans movement are ignorant of the loss of all the work of the past century for women's rights.  At some point, those who truly are loyal to the idea of women's rights will awaken to their awful state and blame "certain other parties" for the loss of those rights, never realizing they gave them up all by themselves.

Can't be totally lost if you can crack jokes:
If you know any tall people and want to appear cool and woke, you can tell them their pronouns are fe/fi/fo/fum.
Also, how does a non-binary Samurai kill people?  They/them.
 
 

@Suzie, thanks so much for being willing to share what must have been such a gut-wrenching experience.  I’m so sorry you have to go through that.
For what it’s worth:  the post I cited in italics in my previous post was written within a couple of days of a client committing suicide.  So I won’t claim to know perfectly what you’ve gone through, but I would venture to guess there were  some superficial similarities in our experiences.  The client was an impoverished mother who was financially getting by (barely) as an online cam girl; her child was severely autistic (early teens and non-mobile, non-verbal, not toilet trained, etc) and went into DCFS custody because she could no longer afford to give him the services he needed.  It was supposed to be a quickie case where the child would be released back to her once perpetual state funding for the child’s maintenance had been secured; but an old meth habit came back with a vengeance around that time and she could never get her act together.  It went to a trial to have her parental rights terminated, and the night before trial she and I had a long talk where I made it clear that I’d fight for her at trial—but that based on the facts and law, we were going to lose.  On the day of the scheduled trial we walked into court and she chose to relinquish her parental rights rather than face a trial and a judicial finding of parental unfitness.  Two weeks later she was dead by suicide.  I am not aware that she left any kind of accusatory note towards me—but under such circumstances one  can’t help but do a lot of soul-searching and Monday-morning quarterbacking, wondering what one could or should have done differently.
So I’m certainly not saying that dismissing accusations of being an accessory to suicide is easy, or done lightly.  But at the same time, I’ve done some a lot of thinking and some research about the role and accountability of the decedent in choosing to end his own life; and the warped, tortured, desperate, and/or vindictive thought processes that lead to that kind of decision.  And because I have some inkling of what folks facing these kinds of accusations go through—I have very little patience for people who throw those accusations around lightly or for reasons that boil down to politics or lust or self-justification or virtue-signaling.
Going back to my experience with my client, and using it as a sort of microcosm for the experiences of LGBTQ Church members—I believe, and hope, that I was kind and sympathetic and understanding and supportive and ready to provide a helping hand to her.  But I also told her some stark truths about her legal situation.  I’m sure they were stressful—even traumatic.  In their way, they probably did significantly contribute to her suicide.  But I am also convinced that I would not have done her any favors by hiding the truth; and that had I told her pleasant falsehoods she would (very soon, in this case) have been put in an untenable situation that ultimately would have created even more trauma.  My calling and responsibility was to speak the truth, and I did it as kindly as I could.  What she did with that truth is ultimately on her, not me.
As to the present policy discussion, lest I have given the wrong impression at any point:  I have no problem with any of the CHI’s recommendations as to LGBTQ members.  I am sort of scratching my head over the Relief Society’s recent antics at the BYU Women’s Conference vis a vis the “queer” sister they lionized, just because it’s so weird in comparison to the way we as a Church have historically treated people who are predisposed to pretty much any other type of sin.  (Imagine a middle-aged married guy walking up to the lectern on Fast Sunday and announcing:  “Brothers and sisters, it’s great to be with you at this Fast and Testimony meeting.  I just wanted to let you know that I have a very strong desire to take a couple of the laurels in this ward as polygamous wives.  Now, rest assured I would never actually ACT on that desire.  But you need to know that it exists, and I’ve made peace with it because that’s the way the Lord made me, and  I don’t think it needs to change and I don’t think it will change either now or in the eternities.  But I wanted you to know this and I hereby remind you that YOU MUST LOVE ME because it’s part of who I am!!!!  In the name of Harvey Milk, Amen.”)  
So one way or the other, the Church may have (in President Oaks’s words) “more teaching to do on that matter” if it wants us to have a clear idea of what in sam hill we’re supposed to make of all of this.  

1.  Certainly not.  But of course, the devil is in the details of what “sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and an abundance of Christlike love” actually means in practice; especially given the LGBTQ lobby’s history of interpreting that phrase as meaning “you must never, ever tell us ‘no’”.  I can’t speak as to what specifically has happened in the incident @NeedleinA refers to; but (taking the account at face value) it does seem odd:  we don’t have, as far as I know, active and impenitent prostitutes or tax cheats or drug users being invited up to Salt Lake to advise the Church on how it can modify its rhetoric/practice to help these sorts of people feel more comfortable in church.
2.  I would say that any deep-seated desire to depart from community standards creates stress and therefore “is a very serious condition that can lead to isolation, depression and suicide.”  Am I obliged to give @Vort the nonsensical title of “breaker of chains and mother of dragons” just his mental illness renders him vulnerable to suicide?
And in what other set of circumstances do mental health professionals even accept the proposition that Person A’s suicide is really the fault of person B?  If I committed suicide tomorrow and left a note saying, “That @Suzie’s posts to ThirdHour rocked my world, and I don’t know what’s true anymore, and food has no taste and life has no meaning so I may as well end it all”—you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) take that seriously; you’d dismiss it as the rantings of an unhinged madman.  And you’d be right.
Even if we do ascribe third-party liability for the suicide of people in general, and LGBTQ folk in particular—what about the accountability of the “allies” who have legitimized suicide as an option for sexually-frustrated LGBTQ folk by continually nattering on about suicide while insisting that institutions like the Church that insist on traditional notions of chastity are somehow stunting these people’s chances for happiness and reducing them to a sort of second-class half-life as long as they can’t experience the glories of sexual fulfillment?  Isn’t there literature suggesting that the more suicide is normalized and discussed, the more likely it becomes?  As I wrote on these forums a couple of years ago, to an LGBTQ advocate (who, I hasten to add, was far less thoughtful, less careful, and less well-intentioned than you—hence the more accusatory tone I used in that discussion):
The rash of gay suicides has not increased due to the Church suddenly telling gays that they have value independently of their sense of sexual fulfillment—we’ve been doing that for almost two centuries, and if anything our rhetoric has softened of late.  It’s you guys who have started telling gays in the last 30 years that the unsexed life is not worth living; and then when they start believing your bullcrap and end their lives—either out of a sincere belief they can never be happy in abstinence, or out of despair when they reject the values of their youth and experiment with new sexual practices, only to find them a hollow foundation on which to build a life—you turn around and blame us; even though you created the tension and you’re the one trying to leverage their deaths to muzzle the Church and get more formerly-abstinent young Mormons into the sexual meat market for use and abuse by your allies.  
We mourn these youth and plan the funerals and dress the dead and pay for the undertaker and the coffin and the burial plot; while other filthy sex-crazed ghouls trot out their victims’ names at $500-a-plate fundraiser galas.
The absolute lack of introspection and unwillingness by “allies” to acknowledge the effects their own antics have had on the problem, lead me to believe that most of them don’t give a flying flip about the LGBTQ youth suicide issue.  Those kids are just cannon fodder in the left’s greater struggle for supremacy over the Church and the trappings of power that the left thinks it controls.  I find that situation both outrageous and tragic—but the solution isn’t to treat a dude as a dame just because he asks me to.  
The other wrinkle to the Church’s policy here is that while it is willing to put the new name on its records—a transsexual who changed their name is likely to be in the midst of a social transition to a different gender.  So what the Church is really saying here is, “we’ll do you the courtesy of calling you by the name you prefer—but we’ll be doing it at your membership council”; and we’ll be doing it in large part so that when Jane Brown applies for baptism in 2028, we can see that we’re dealing with the same individual as plain old John Smith whose membership was withdrawn for adultery in 2021.
3.  Oh, undoubtedly the Church is getting pressure; and one of the joys (!) of being in a church with living prophets is that we really can’t quite ever say “never”; whether we’re talking about hypothetical developments like modifications to the law of chastity, or gay sealings, or the restoration of polygamy, or announcing that there actually is no Heavenly mother, or decreeing that only Asians with Klinefelter Syndrome can be called to the Q12, or teaching that Adam and Eve were actually purple Oompa Loompas who lived in Antarctica.    The issue, of course, comes when advocates say “go ahead and perpetrate this excommunicable offense now, and just trust that the prophets will catch up with you eventually.”  

I think calling someone by the Christian name they prefer, is just common courtesy.  I have a family member who growing up was called by his initials, “T.J.”  As he got older he asked to be called by his first name, “Tom”.  I am used to calling him “T.J.”, and it’s a hard habit to break—but I try, out of simple respect for him as an individual.
(I do think pronouns are a bridge too far, because that would entail labeling someone as something they definitionally aren’t.  It doesn’t matter how sincere and psychologically deep-seated @Vort’s desire to be entitled “Breaker of chains and mother of dragons” is—he doesn’t break chains, has never birthed a dragon, and has an XY chromosomal makeup; so I ain’t gonna give him that title.  And if he continues to insist that I refer to him in that way, I may begin to either suspect he’s engaging in some bizarre power play/mind game [“How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?” “Four.” “And if the Party says that there is not four but five – then how many?”], or else begin to question his mental health.)
The ex-bishop has presumably done all he can to repent.  @NeedleinA’s example hasn’t—she’s still in a homosexual relationship that is inherently sinful.  
The Church is a hospital for penitent sinners.  People who won’t admit that they are sick but insist on going to the hospital anyways (and ordering us patients around while demanding we recognize them as the true experts in healing), are always going to feel uncomfortable in this Church; and if that tension leads to accusations of ecclesiastical apartheid—I guess we’ll just have to live with that.   

I'm pretty dang tired of seeing stuff like this, "gender neutral". 
How about: Most Church participation and some priesthood ordinances are not specific to gender. 

Why do we need to incorporate terms, that in today's world are hijacked / pushed upon us by the sexual progressives? Back to the complaint from the 'Queer Sister' thread, the more things are normalized, well the more they are normalized. 
I know a SSA sister who was married to a man for a decade+ with kids. The church had her go up to SLC to 'advise' them on LGBTQ issues/verbiage since she was some kind of 'role model'. Also from North Star just like the 'Queer Sister' thread.
Why do I care?
Guess I'm a little butt hurt from above mentioned SSA sister dumping her husband, helping to destroy my female cousin's marriage and then run off with her instead. I hate to picture the Church in it's eager beaver desire to love all, being led around by the nose by such a person. 
I can tell I'm not successfully merging the concept of all this SSA/transgender stuff bleeding into the Church, while still believing: 
 

Some of the current handbook stuff, bolding mine:
That last bolded part surprised me.  If brother Fred decides he is now a she, and wishes to be called Laverne, then our marching orders are to accept her with as much sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and an abundance of Christlike love, as we can crowbar into ourselves.  And whatever sister Laverne and the bishop figure out about priesthood and callings and whatnot, is none of my business.  How interesting to consider the prospect at such a person accepting a calling, with the congregation being asked for a sustaining vote.   There aren't many things I find difficult to just plain consider, but this is one of them.  I honestly don't know what my "an abundance of Christlike love" would look or feel like in such a case.

Best. American. Pizza. EVER!

Si senor.

My favorite is New York style loaded with mushrooms. 

I still think that BYU is doing this the hard way.
Non-Mormons and jack-Mormons primarily come to BYU because tuition is dirt cheap—about $5-6K/year, compared to $40K+ any comparable private university.
So—fine.  Eliminate the Honor Code Office and raise tuition to $40K for everyone; and then the Church can directly administer $35K scholarships to temple-recommend-holders through the PEF.  Students devoted to the Gospel will still be attracted to BYU for the superabundance of fellow believers there; and the rabble-rousers will go back to state universities where they can play beer pong and engage in weekend orgies to their foul little hearts’ content.
And if the Church felt so inclined, at some point it could even expand the scholarship program for students who attend schools that aren’t part of the CES and essentially offer a college education to every worthy youth.