Iggy

Today I experienced the birth of a new Ward. My branch became a Ward -  Yeah ~ "claps hands & does the Happy, Happy Dance"

Today I experienced the birth of a new Ward. My branch became a Ward -  Yeah ~ "claps hands & does the Happy, Happy Dance"

You've been married for 3 decades.  You want to stick this out.  Here is my advice:
You need to accept the fact that this is how she is.  She is not going to change.  You need to love her as is.  There is no need for forgiveness, only acceptance.
 
I'm not you, but for me this behavior would be intolerable.  I would advise her that the next Credit Card deception will result in separation and divorce.  If she doesn't want that then you will need to take over financial control with an iron fist.  If she still lies about Credit Card use, then  you follow through on your threat.  

I have actually been to Area 51.  That is, I drove to public lands with a hill that overlooked the base, back before the Air Force annexed the land.  
Gotta tell you folks,

They must have not read the part, "Use of deadly force authorized".
Voluntarily choose to break into a military facility, you voluntarily decide to eat bullets to satisfy your alien curiosity.       Stupid.
 

Be brutal.  Examples:
”In thirty words or less—what does ‘THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY” mean to you?”
”In thirty words or less—what does “I’M NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL” mean to you?”
”Do you actually wait until you’re bored with your wife before you start cheating; or do you commit adultery even when you think your marriage is going well?”

People will tell me my priorities are out of whack, but I can't justify this for dinner.  Pam - wave as you fly over on your way to TX!   

 

I have mixed feelings about this topic. Growing up, I didn't listen to secular music, because my church told me that rock and roll was full of satanic messaging. Funny how nobody bemoaned the drunkenness and adultery/fornication that is so prominent in Country/Western. Then there were the boycotts of the 1980s of shows and material that were not "family friendly." We eventually grew out of that stage, and now the liberals suddenly think it's a good approach--boycotting Chick Fil-A, Walmart, etc.
The anti-Christian, pro-immorality messaging is just so prolific. I suspect the strongest answer--at least if we are to be "in the world but not of it" is to have our answers ready. Our children need to know why we "love the sinner and hate the sin." They need to know why we don't drink, smoke, gamble or chew, and why we choose to remain chaste unto marriage, and why we do not approve of men lying with men and women lying with women. They need to know why we insist that God created us male and female, and we need to honor that, regardless of any sense we have of gender dysphoria.
Sheltering only goes so far. If we push beyond, might our children not think we were hiding the truth from them? I'm done with boycotting, but I get the desire not to provide unnecessary exposure to immorality.

If you do not know that you said something offensive then do not own the idea that you did. Guilt/shame came from the enemy. They drive us away from the Spirit. Conviction comes from God, and urges us towards Him. "Recovered memories" are notoriously inaccurate. I know of a case where a 17 year-old 'recovered' memories of her father abusing her in horrific ways. To make a nearly two-year story short, a medical exam was able to verify that no such abuse took place. She was a virgin. Her story was so convincing a church therapist got involved. Did I mention the ultimate million-dollar lawsuit? Any time I mention this to the psychologists at work they cringe--especially when I mention 'recovered memories.'
Your case may be totally different, but if the thought that you may have said something offensive is distracting you from God and job, it's probably not valid. If you really did such a thing, the Spirit would convict you, and God would heal you. Then too, at some point, if it happened the offended adult needs to confront you. Otherwise, unless you come to clearly remember the incident--with certainty--treat it as a lie from the enemy.

Our Stake Patriarch gave a talk three Sundays ago - his wife was to be there too, but she was sick so she gave him her talk with instructions to NOT deviate from it. What a joy they both are.
For our 5th Sunday we were supposed to be learning about Member Missionary Work. Problem was our Branch Mission Leader is on vacation, our Branch President is still on vacation, our Sister Missionaries hadn't a clue what was to be taught other than they were to go to the next page of the power point presentation that the Mission Leader took with him, and the Branch Counselors didn't have clues either. Our assigned High Priest was NOT impressed with the Branch Presidencies lack of organization.
The Counselors didn't want the substitute GD teacher to teach next Sunday's lesson either, so the adults with no children in Primary or the YM (all of our YW are now SYA and are in their own Branch) left to go home early. Hubby and I went out to breakfast. When we got home, we watched the video that was really supposed to be shown, well the first 45 minutes of it. Hubby's legs hurt him, my neuropathy was in HIGH GEAR, thus neither of us could concentrate.
Today is a better day for both of us, so we will watch it.

If I remember correctly...Mormon Doctrine 1st edition was the edition that had incorrect doctrine and had to be changed.  Someone can correct me if I am wrong.  Plus I wouldn't use The Work and the Glory as official teachings either.  It's a historical setting with fictional characters so not everything in the books are historically accurate.

Going to the temple?  Exciting!
I've never heard the term "opt out" in regards to endowments.  I think it's probably more accurate to say that people just don't pursue going to the temple like they should.  Lots of reasons for this - fear, ignorance, apathy come to mind.
And maybe other people go to the temple and receive their endowments, and then later fall away from the church or go inactive, or stop believing or some such.  Again, lots of reasons for that too.
From where I'm standing, once you know what you believe and why you believe it, your testimony is pretty much rock solid and the only thing that can prevail against it is you.  
 

When I had the land area to have an outdoor clothesline, they were not visible by the public. Driving up to my house you might be able to see a peek of a line, but unless you went into my back and side yard you couldn't see my laundry hanging on the 6 lines I had out there. I didn't hang the underwear until I had the sheets to hang also because the underwear went on the inside lines with the sheets blocking any view.
For about a month one summer there were these all flat black helicopters flying around above me, well above about 300 acres of land all around me. Never did find out who they belonged to and what the *hay* they were doing, but they never landed and no *Men in Black* drove up my drive to investigate my 1500 square foot vegetable garden or my laundry hung out on 6 clotheslines. The dog I had would have taken several chunks out of any and all who ventured onto *HER* property and laid it all out on the front porch to show *Mommy* what a Good Guard Dog she was.
As for the garments, until one goes through the pre-initory/endowment interview one isn't ever aware of garments. Prior to my own endowment I did the laundry for my two sisters and mother (they all lived together) and separated and folded their garments for nearly 4 months before my Mother passed. They had no privacy to their back yard area yet I managed to hang their garments on the inside lines with towels or sheets to hide them. This is how I was taught to hang all *Knickers* prior to my family joining the LDS church ~ surround them with towels or sheets.
 
 

I think you about had it—though (once the media is old enough) there is perhaps a distinction to be made between the moral character of the individuals who happened to create the media, versus the mores openly espoused within the media itself.  
I really don’t know enough about the lives of Beethoven and Mozart to weigh in on their personal virtues or vices.  But for the purposes of this discussion, I haven’t seen anyone write a column about their ongoing struggles with depression and openly acknowledge that Beethoven and Mozart have been (and/or ought to be) highly influential in the way they have approached the problem. 
We have known for hundreds of years that certain attitudes and behaviors just plain don’t work, from a sociological/happiness perspective.  Then we find those attitudes and behaviors spreading, our culture doesn’t work as well as it used to, people aren’t happy, and we all say “golly gee willikers, maybe we can fix this by re-engineering the way our forbears approached the Gospel.”  
Well, maybe.  Or, maybe we could start taking all those scriptures about “fleeing Babylon” at face value; and then see if that doesn’t start making a dent in our woes.

So far as I am aware, I have no evidentiary basis to do so.  

An interesting article.  
One other tangent that occurred to me:
—Breakfast at Tiffany’s, stripped of its 1960s charm, is basically a morally despicable movie about morally despicable people.
—The Good Place (one of whose characters is cited in the article) is basically a show about morally despicable people doing and/or trying to get away with morally despicable things.
—Several of the Beatles (authors of the song Blackbird) were/are morally despicable people whose lives are not to be emulated in any meaningful way.
I wouldn’t blame anyone for being a product of the culture in which they were raised.  But, when are we going to look at the connection between the apparently increasing problem of depression/spiritual ennui, and the utter moral/spiritual bankruptcy that pervades our popular culture?  When are we going to liberate ourselves from mental and emotional servitude to the paragons of personal and relational dysfunction who are writing our movies and our music and our literature; and tell them to shove their nihilism and libertinism somewhere that the sun don’t shine?  Could it be that, once we work a little harder to break our residual ties with Babylon, we’ll find that the age-old techniques of Zion Memorial Hospital are even more effective than we’d ever thought possible?

Bishops are the closest the church has to traditional Christian pastors. They serve 20+ hours per week, offering counseling, ward organization, volunteer recruitment and retention, and the normal "politics" that comes with leading groups. Though they are volunteers, their families experience the "glass house syndrome." A classic joke is that a ward family decides to have the bishop for lunch--and he isn't even invited (i.e. they gossip relentless about him at their meal). I know of a couple of men who truly felt called into full-time ministry, but their wives did not sense this same calling. Ultimately, they both stepped out of the full-time work, though I suspect that they continued to volunteer their service and to take on teaching opportunities. All this to say to @Lds_doll that yes, you do carry a difficult cross. Your spouse's calling is a tremendously challenging one. I suspect that the long-term rewards could be tremendous. Further, it is likely that you both have done far more good than what you can see and know. My two tiny pieces of counsel would be to find a safe person you can gain support from. Perhaps more importantly, constantly be communicating with your hubby. You two need each other now more than ever.  

Not only should we be careful of the internet, we should be careful of strange white vans.
 

Congrats Mirk ~ Perhaps the Lord wants the 20 somethings to really learn about Self Reliance & food storage. Only He knows how badly our little branch and the neighboring ward needs someone like you. Our 20 somethings feel that Self Reliance & food storage is for the *Molly Mormons & Peter Priesthoods* not for them. The senior citizens feel that they are the inventors of self reliance and are doing just fine with the food storage ~ thank you very much.
Hubby has been Sunday School President since 2013, unbeknownst to him he was a Beta tester (?) for the Youth Come Follow Me program, and then again for the Teaching In The Savior's Way. He is terrified of being released and called as Financial Clerk. A calling he held for 6 years running in three wards. Cleaning up the seemingly unclean-able computer mess the previous financial clerks had made. (Hubby is a computer nerd/guru) Not saying our Branch is in a computer mess - the last FC held the calling for nearly 12 years and grew with it and is now our 1st Councilor. The current FC is a whiz on the computer, whiz with numbers and has become a happy, smiling man since he accepted this calling.
 

@Sunday21 are you financially dependent on family money? Say a trust set up where you receive X amount of $ to assist in your mother's health needs? Then if you are, I would have an independent lawyer (yours and yours alone) go over that trust and spell out in bullet points your responsibilities, each siblings responsibilities, etc. Then if the other siblings are not doing what the trust lays out for them to do, have your own lawyer proceed with legal action against them. 
Get your locks changed for heaven's sake - include your home office also. Are you on good terms with your neighbors? If so, ask them to call the police if they see any of your siblings traipsing about your home and yard when you are not home.
I have a younger sister that is a "nut job" like @anatess2 says. Took the rest of the siblings nearly 15 years to finally realize just how toxic she is. Because of her screwed up actions she now lives a very, very lonely life. Her husband divorced her, her 4 children and their children have nothing to do with her, and her 4 remaining siblings and their 8 children and their children avoid her at ALL costs. Toxic is toxic. Last we heard even her Ward & Stake members are avoiding her.
It was and is a continuing struggle to forgive her ~ in writing this, I am fairly certain I have forgiven her ~ I just will NEVER forget, or allow her back into my life. When asked by the neices, nephews, and their children why, I am forthright and tell them why. That story has been told so many times, that now I can do it without deviating (Oh, look, a shiny dime), and without hatred in my voice.
Remember, remember that the gospel of Jesus Christ is TRUE. I suggest that your download the Come Follow Me for Individuals and Come Follow Me, Sunday. Study each weeks scriptures. What I am doing is also printing out the Joseph Smith, Jr Translation. This way I can fully understand the scriptures. ,  https://rsc.byu.edu/recent/joseph-smiths-translation-bible-electronic-library  Download Word Cruncher, then select the free books from the menu selections. Joseph Smith translated corrections to both the old and new testaments. Actually I copy and paste, then I paste in the verses that remain the same, change their text color to red. As I listen to the lds.org scriptures, I read along with my copy of the JST.
 

You do, it is called Garments. 😃

You do, it is called Garments. 😃

Hey hey hey!!!  That's awesome!
I'm going to take this opportunity to bear to you my testimony of the Sealing ordinance as God ordained.  So, I was Catholic when I married my husband.  So we got married at the courthouse.  For 4 years, we struggled to be pregnant but, for some reason, it never happened.  In the meantime, I got baptized LDS in July 4 years into our marriage.  By December, I was pregnant.  One year later we got sealed and 3 weeks after that, my first son was born.  Born in covenant.  I believe with all my soul these things happened according to God's Plan.

My wife @Dollfacekilla and I have been married for 12 years.  
And this coming Saturday...
...at the Philadelphia Temple...
...we're getting Sealed.  
..finally.  
Just, ya know, thought some of you might like to know 
 

I'm very familiar with hoarders, unfortunately.  My main point was in MY case most people knew, there just isn't a ton of things people can, or are willing, to do that don't run a high risk of making things worse.