NeedleinA

The people who wanted the vaccine got the vaccine.
Using bribery/lotteries to get us to do it isn't going to work.
Using threats of "no jab, no job" isn't going to do it.
Using threats of "no jab, no _______": school, flying, dating, etc. isn't going to work either.
The Govt. can't give this stuff away any longer, that should be their clue to leave us alone now.
The more anyone pushes at this point, the more I'm digging my heals in and they are turning a "wait and see" person like myself into a hostile leave me alone person.

This image has been circulating. It is reportedly to be from the upcoming Friend magazine.
I can't verify it. I will happily delete it if it is not from the Friend. 

I am unconcerned with who has or has not received the shot(s) - as long as it is their choice.  I am somewhat concerned with the logic that anyone ought to be treated so that someone else will not get sick.  Or that people that are known to not have an illness or not having been exposed should/must be quarantined to stop a disease from spreading.   As I understand - if you have antibodies - you should not get the shot(s) - I do not know why anyone should assume or think otherwise otherwise????
 
The Traveler

So, what do you think... should Colonial have paid the $5 million in ransom to the hackers of the east coast pipeline?
Should hospitals who get ransomware do the same?
Somali pirates?
Hostage takers?
What would be better in the long run?
Feed the beast now, only to condition it to repeat the same behavior again?
 

So, what do you think... should Colonial have paid the $5 million in ransom to the hackers of the east coast pipeline?
Should hospitals who get ransomware do the same?
Somali pirates?
Hostage takers?
What would be better in the long run?
Feed the beast now, only to condition it to repeat the same behavior again?
 

HOLD THE PHONE!!! THE WORLD IS DEFINITELY COMING TO AN END.
I just sat down with a bowl of rice and kim chee, and... well... it didn't taste good. Why of all the curses I could have to bear!! Why this one!?!?!?
Wars and rumors of wars... check. Sin on the level of Sodom and Gummorah... check. Let me look out the window... yup there are the swarm of giant locusts coming to consume all my crops and even all our flesh.  Okay, okay, there was one cricket that chirped a little loudly.  But for KIM CHEE's SAKE!!! I'll just wait until tonight to see if the moon has turned to blood. But it is a sliver of a crescent tonight.  Maybe I won't be able to tell.  But is not the redness of the kim chee sufficient to satisfy that prophecy.  I say "Yea!" and again I say, "yea, verily." Wo be unto the world that is filled with flat flavorless kim chee.  What?  You say it is the after affects of COVID?  Whew!  That's a relief.  Here I thought that the end of the world was happening because of plagues hitting the earth like it has never seen before.  Glad to hear that isn't the case.

I only read the first two pages of this thread and came out shocked no one shared this connection.  I sincerely believe the brethren have been instructed, as the Lord's servants, that the time has come to let the wheat and tares grow together as we navigate the "winding up scene" during the "latter part of these latter days".

When wheat and tares grow together, some of the wheat may be starved by the tares, and some of the wheat will be spared by not gathering the tares.  In the end, all the tares will be burned and only the wheat will remain.

So long as we maintain our number one priority to live in accordance with the commandments of God, and the principles of the Restored Gospel, we will be prepared.

I'd like to share an experience about "commercial racism".
DESCRIPTION: We know about violent racism.  We also know about stereotypes.  We know about ethnic jokes.  And we know about those individuals who, well... bless their hearts... just don't know how racist they sound when they say or do certain things.
COMMERCIAL RACISM is what I'm calling those things that people do in commerce/business/employment, etc based on race.
While I've experienced this before, there was always some shame in it.  They always hid it in such a way that there was a small (sometimes tiny) level of plausible deniability.  Yesterday, I came across blatant, open, admitted commercial racism.
I have a Sam's Club membership.  As such I have a credit card that provides a lot of cash back.  Every April/May I cash in (that's the cycle I'm in).
I went to the club  to get a few things.  I went to a checkout line that had the "open" sign on.  I began to unload when the checkout lady (let's call her Shayna) said that she was closed.  She was just standing there doing nothing.  Just waiting for... something.  Then as I moved away another woman came with her cart and began to unload.  Shayna began to help her unload and started checking her stuff.
I waited in another line and checked my stuff out there.  I asked about cashback.  They said that I could cash out at the membership desk.  Once all loaded up in the car, I went to the membership desk and asked for my cashback.  The lady there said that she couldn't do it at the membership desk. I told her what the checkout lady said.  She told me that I'd been misinformed.  I needed to go back to the checkout area and speak to someone in a green vest (one of the supervisors).
I found that Shayna had a green vest.  So, I began waiting at her line.  When she was all out of customers, I asked her about he cashback.  She said that she was not going to help me.  Then she proceeded to wave someone else forward to unload.  I asked her why she told me she was closed earlier.
She said, "I don't want to serve you people.  You're the reason we've got COVID."
"I'm actually Korean, not Chinese." (in some half-effort to appeal to her).
"Same difference."
She then began to ignore me and got the next person to unload.
Just then I noticed that another green vest came by.  I spoke with him.  He said that it is taken care of at the membership desk.  I rebutted.  He took me there personally.  The lady then looked at me with some disgust and went through the motions.  I got all my money.  She didn't need any instruction from the green vest.  She knew exactly how to do it.
After it was all done, she walked briskly away from me and began a conversation with another worker until I left.  As I was far away, I noticed she came right back her station again.  No customer.  Just the lack of "me".

The speaker could have easily added a clarifying statement to her comments - one that could have changed the tone of having her on stage to begin with. One that could have even given hope to individuals in her shoes. 
Something like..."While I do experience feelings of same sex attraction*, I married my husband several years ago. We have a great life and I love him dearly**".

Omitted by accident OR design? I suspect the latter. 
Why not share how you have moved beyond your struggle and not let it constantly become your identity?

* She explains in a North Star bio. 
** She shares her marriage with her husband on her FB page.

The speaker could have easily added a clarifying statement to her comments - one that could have changed the tone of having her on stage to begin with. One that could have even given hope to individuals in her shoes. 
Something like..."While I do experience feelings of same sex attraction*, I married my husband several years ago. We have a great life and I love him dearly**".

Omitted by accident OR design? I suspect the latter. 
Why not share how you have moved beyond your struggle and not let it constantly become your identity?

* She explains in a North Star bio. 
** She shares her marriage with her husband on her FB page.

Yes, yes and yes. 
Bingo. "Perverted" is absolutely correct, to the point that people don't even know up from down any longer as if they were in a mist of darkness.
I don't really care what the 'struggle' is, I just want people, especially "LDS" members who should know better, to:

1. Stop trying to normalize their struggles
2. Stop trying to demand that I, my family, other church members and society in general accept and embrace their struggles or we are some kind of "phobe".

What you say above sounds good, NT, but IMO it misses the central point.
Sister Liv has urges to fornicate (with members of her own sex). This is how she casually defines herself—sister, YW leader, queer, daughter of God, likes long hikes and camping, etc. Just another morally neutral descriptor.
So replace "fornicate (with members of her own sex)" with any other carnal urge toward sin, and tell me how people would respond to its usage as a morally neutral descriptor. Try "fornicate with her neighbor's husband", or "molest young children", or "abuse small animals", or "embezzle funds from her employer", or "curse at loved ones when she's not feeling well". None of them really work.
Now, factor in that large swaths of society, including those who call themselves Saints, even on this list, openly advocate for the Church's acceptance of homosexuality. Rather than standing firmly against such agitators and making it clear that we reject all sin in any form, even sin that's currently popular, we instead take a mealy-mouthed approach that doesn't exactly say that homosexuality is okay, but simply avoids the issue of morality and proclaims that homosexuals are people, too!
Duh.
Can you see that being done with those who are sexually attracted to children? With those who have a terrible temper and a propensity toward physical abuse? With those who are prone to lying and deceiving incessantly? With those who struggle with pimping out their daughters? With those who enjoy kicking puppies and are constantly tempted to do so?
The teaching "Homosexually inclined people are children of God and heirs to salvation if they accept Christ" is, I daresay, perfectly fine with and accepted by 98% of Latter-day Saints. Few would argue with it. But it is assumed that the next sentence clarifies, "To accept Christ means to follow his teachings, put off the natural man, and reject carnal actions such as homosexual activity or nurturing homosexual attractions." That latter sentence is missing, and the silence is deafening.
Many young Latter-day Saints are being influenced and deceived by the lies of the political Left. At or near the front of this pack of lies is the lie that homosexuality is morally acceptable, a wonderful expression of human love to be nurtured and encouraged in anyone who claims to feel that way, and that anyone who claims otherwise is a "homophobe" and should be shunned from all polite society (and from all economic participation, as far as possible). Our children are hearing these lies, and many of those precious young people are buying into them. We are literally seeing our children being taken from the truth before our eyes.
So what is our response? Is it to stand firm as an example to our children, to fight the good fight, to reject evil in all its guises? Or is it rather to talk about love and acceptance and tolerance and all the other buzzwords that sound so good but that the political Left has perverted over the last two full generations as shibboleths of political correctness?
Please show me how Sister Liv's open proclamation of her "queerness" and Sister Eubank's subsequent thanks to her make sense in the context of any temptation toward moral perversion, especially sexual perversion, other than homosexuality. If we're talking about a propensity toward sex with little children, are we going to thank people for their bravery in admitting such—especially when their "admission" is really more of a laundry list of personal identifiers? "I'm a son, a brother, a Young Men's president, a man who dreams about sex with little boys, a son of God, and a program manager at work"? How's that going to go over? "Thanks so much for that inspiring introduction, Brother Lyle!" I don't buy it.

JJ, I don't know if you intended this,  but the take-away from such an experience is that 
1) We all have disabilities of some sort.
B) It would probably be better if we all just did our best to deal with it as much as possible.
Finally) We should be very discriminating when we decide with whom to share our difficulties.
Yet the tone of your post seemed to try to argue that we SHOULD be open with whom we share our difficulties.  Did I misread you?

1.  Good.  And of course, heterosexual  LDS members have the advantage that there has not been a broadly publicized, well-funded movement with support in academia and the mental health professions that has specifically targeted LDS youth and insisted that heterosexual Church members will never find fulfillment and meaning within the confines of the law of chastity.
2.  How is a propensity to any sort of behavior a “choice”?  I’ll agree that dispositions or predilections can be reinforced by the consequences of prior behavior—but this is also true to some degree in matters of sexual predisposition; which is one reason that the number of youth identifying as LGBTQ has (IIRC) doubled or tripled over the past fifteen years.  (And also why we’ve seen numerous reports of transgender teens who, once removed from their school peer groups due to COVID, decided that they were actually cisgender after all.) 
Anyone who says “I am this way and I have no need to change, and you need to acknowledge that I have no need to change”, is practically by definition seeking validation.
3.  “Brainwashed”?  There was something wrong with them (and with all of us).  They (and we) want to sin.
And . . . is the modern trend of them just committing suicide, supposed to be better than whatever we had decades ago?  “Better dead than closeted”—is that the mantra now?
And, we’re just going to give a pass to the LGBTQ advocates (and the rest of the proponents of the sexual revolution) who for decades said “your life will never be truly fulfilling or meaningful or worthwhile unless you’re getting laid, when you want, with whoever you want”?  We’re going to rewrite history and pretend that LGBTQ advocates were just fine, all along, with the Church’s insistence on celibacy for gay members; and that it was the big bad Mormon Church telling chaste LGBTQ members that they had no place among us?
4.  The same as the rest of us.  Our hearts.  Our desires.
2 Nephi 4:31-32.  Mosiah 3:19.  Mosiah 5:2.  Alma 5:12-14.
I don’t deny that, especially in matters of sexual orientation, it can be gut-wrenchingly hard (in some cases, impossible in mortality) to completely get there.
But if we don’t want that change, we’re not saints.  And I think the Church membership generally is entitled to know that any given nominal member at least wants it—Mosiah 18:10, and all that.

1.  I was referring specifically to the parts of your post that I had quoted.  I hope many LGBTQ members are enjoying happy, fulfilling lives by seeking to be disciples of Christ and earnestly striving to follow all His commandments, not excluding (and of course, not limited to) the Law of Chastity.  
2.  The thing is, while I acknowledge that their situations are unique—they are not the only people who struggle with some kind of propensity for sin.  What other group of people in the Church who are afflicted with a common weakness, have ever sought validation for the weakness itself and affirmed a hope that the weakness—even if not acted upon—remain a part of their mortal identity?  Porn users like myself, don’t.  Habitual cussers (also like myself), don’t.  Bad spouses and inadequate parents (also like myself), don’t.  Drug users, don’t.  People who are attracted to children, don’t.  Where is the theological or ecclesiastical precedent for this?
3.  Yes, but teenagers have walked this road through time immemorial; including in the 1970s and 1980s when Church leaders and institutions were saying and doing some very shocking things.  Yet the suicide epidemic came, not in 1975 or 1985; but in the early 2000s as the gay rights movement caught fire.
The trauma isn’t in being taught sound doctrine or being held to the behavioral norms that logically flow from that doctrine.  The trauma is in the tension between sound doctrine on the one hand, versus distorted definitions of self-worth and self-fulfillment and the meaning of life on the other hand.
4.  I didn’t think we needed to debate the question of whether lifelong fulfillment can be found in celibacy, because your last post seemed to acknowledge—indeed, seemed premised upon—the idea that this is something that is indeed happening in the Church on a widespread basis. 
To the extent that a truly committed, obedient, chaste person finds ostracism in the LDS community upon announcing themselves as LGBTQ and insisting that they have no inclination to have that change—the result, I think, isn’t a factor of cultural homophobia.  It’s a factor of the generalized LDS belief that it is both possible and imperative to use the Atonement to at least try to change one’s sinful nature; in conjunction with a sense of bewilderment as to why someone wouldn’t even try to use the Atonement to at least hope for a purification of their nature, while still demanding the privilege of acceptance in a community that is under covenant to do just that. 
 
 

Suzie, I hope what you say is true.  
But the thing is, for the last thirty years the party line has been that what you describe—a LGBTQ individual finding contented fulfillment in a lifelong commitment to celibacy—is emotionally, psychologically, neurologically, evolutionarily impossible. 
And a lot of us are kinda wondering why it’s so desperately important for us to know that a person is deeply tempted to commit a sin he has sworn never to commit, unless he indeed characterizes the issue as a “struggle” and wants third parties to support him in that struggle. 

Gallup Poll -  2/24/21

QUESTION: I know what some Church leaders think, but I wonder what you think...
is this self-identification a learned behavior, perpetuated by people trying to 'normalize' it OR is God simply sending more non-heterosexual individuals to earth in these latter generations?
SIDE NOTE: 
Currently Gallup says 1 in 6 adults of Generation Z identify as LGBT now. 

If it is a learned behavior, what will the percentage be of LGBT for Generation Alpha, Beta, etc. at this pace?
If it is a learned behavior, what happens to the LDS % of LGBT every time someone in authority in the Church tries to cast it in a positive light or normalize it?

Although this is off topic, I was in a meeting once with the Presiding Bishop of the church. He made the remark that the real reason for 401k/retirement plans being introduced in the world was so that in "retirement" individuals and couples would be able to serve in temples and as missionaries while still relatively young. The Lord was providing His servants with additional opportunities to help each other. Church leaders feel sorrow that so few choose to serve missions in retirement, and instead choose to travel the world, go on cruises, buy new cars for no reason, and waste their wealth in riotous living. So may aspects of our lives are so easy compared to the tens of billions of people who lived on the earth before us, and even billions more currently living on it. How do we choose to thank the Lord for what He has given us? Do we freely give of ourselves, or just build bigger barns?

Y'all are on to me.   This is actually me:

Sure. That doesn't mean it's always wrong to feel like you've been bad. Sometimes you have been bad. That should be recognized and acknowledged.
I realize my attempts at silly humor don't always come across as such. My comment above was meant humorously, not cuttingly.
The "extreme examples" are there because I want to point out a fundamental flaw in the thinking. If you just redefine away problems and state that thus-and-such condition does not exist because you refuse to acknowledge the wording, you haven't actually solved any problems. You're just playing word games.
If "bad man" has no meaning, then what we're really doing is reassigning the meaning of "bad man" to something else, like "man who makes bad choices and ends up doing horrific things" or "poor, messed-up guy who takes pleasure in inflicting pain". How is that any better than simply saying "bad man"?

In our ward and stake we actually don't have this problem, but the opposite (at least as far as youth/parents report it to their Bishops). Pre-marital sex is way down amongst heterosexual youth. The only ones that seem to be engaging in sex are those that claim to be gay. Our straight boys have 2 main problems - pornography, and slothfulness. All they do is watch anime and porn, and play video games. Zero ambition to do anything with their lives. The girls have more problems surrounding mental health and abuse of various kinds - depression, anxiety, alcohol, drugs, cutting, etc... Porn use amongst young women is also rising.
The number of youth in our stake/area going on dates, and even interacting with the opposite sex, is falling. A counselor in our Stake Presidency is a High School principal, and he has said over the last 5-6 years that attendance at school dances has dropped off significantly. Our priests quorum has 14 relatively active boys, and only 2 of them have ever been on a date. The world is not teaching our youth the proper fundamentals of interacting with the opposite sex...it is teaching the exact opposite of what should be done. Women are taught that men and the patriarchy are dangerous and abusive, and will hold them back; and men are taught that women are a useless waste of time and money.

I figured it was so a Covid mask fit on more securely??
brilliant beard = check!
magnificent mane = check, check!
Pre-covid NT...

I figured it was so a Covid mask fit on more securely??
brilliant beard = check!
magnificent mane = check, check!
Pre-covid NT...

A somber warning given by Elder Quentin L. Cook back in 2008 as the Church actively fought to keep marriage between a man and a woman - only. 
Welcome to 2021 my friends.
A time where members of the Church, a mere 13 years later, now label other members of Church who don't cater to the LGBTQ community as being intolerant, behind the times and unloving to all of "God's children". 

 

I figured it was so a Covid mask fit on more securely??
brilliant beard = check!
magnificent mane = check, check!
Pre-covid NT...