dprh

Off topic-before I joined the church I sort of did feel like the world was doomed and everything was miserable. After I joined I sort of got an infusion of optimism for both myself and the world at large. 

IRL, I'm the entertainment writer for a local family of newspapers. 
I've had people tell me that they wait to get my review before deciding to see a movie or not. Even if they disagree with my review, they trust that I'm being honest with my opinion.
In other words, I - as one person - have the ability to influence what people in three counties see in theaters. 
Never underestimate how much influence you can have with your friends and neighbors. 

We will be fine, relax. Life is actually getting better. 
 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-big-idea/2016/12/23/14062168/history-global-conditions-charts-life-span-poverty
 
@Carborendum-aside from my raging cocaine problem, I think I fall short as an LDS because I just don’t see the world ending in three hours. I do believe we are living in the latter days (surprise!) but like how God created the Heavens and the Earth, I feel like His “six days” could be hundreds of years. Also, study after study shows that the world is getting vastly better in wonderful ways. 

Congrats bud!!!

That is sad.  I admit that I and my family could do better at studying CFM throughout the week.  But we do read from the sections almost every day as a family.  And I don't think we need to, or are even asked to do any or all the extra little things in the manual.  The intro says we should use the manual for our needs, in any way that is helpful to us.  So we need to walk a fine line of encouraging people to do better at studying without overwhelming or discouraging them by asking too much. 
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-individuals-and-families-doctrine-and-covenants-2021/using?lang=eng
I just got called as a gospel doctrine teacher (my first calling since being baptized again!)  and I'm hoping that my class will be doing at least some reading.  I'll try to figure out the best ways to encourage them to do more.  My first lesson went very well last week on section 76  

This is really wonderful news. Congratulations! I'm very happy for you. (Regarding the rebaptism, though I'm happy for you about the gospel doctrine calling, too.)

That is sad.  I admit that I and my family could do better at studying CFM throughout the week.  But we do read from the sections almost every day as a family.  And I don't think we need to, or are even asked to do any or all the extra little things in the manual.  The intro says we should use the manual for our needs, in any way that is helpful to us.  So we need to walk a fine line of encouraging people to do better at studying without overwhelming or discouraging them by asking too much. 
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-individuals-and-families-doctrine-and-covenants-2021/using?lang=eng
I just got called as a gospel doctrine teacher (my first calling since being baptized again!)  and I'm hoping that my class will be doing at least some reading.  I'll try to figure out the best ways to encourage them to do more.  My first lesson went very well last week on section 76  

The Church and Political Activism.
Politics is downstream of culture. The Church's culture is made up of families. We do the most good in society when we spend our time and energy on raising our children to know the word of God, and have faith in and a testimony of  The Atonement of Christ. The Book of Mormon as the word of God. The spiritual hospital that is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Sunday School presidency recently went around to families in our ward and asked the following questions:
Is your family actually reading the Come Follow Me manual and doing the extra little things that it instructs us to do? Is your family reading and studying the D&C and answering the questions that the manual asks? Is your family reading the Book of Mormon daily? The results were astoundingly awful.  Very few even opened CFM.  Very few read the assignment.  Almost no one was reading the BoM daily (or even close to daily).  A reasonable number were reading the scriptures "sometimes" outside of Church. 
Do we really hope to change the world through political activism if we continue to "treated lightly the things which we have received"?

I largely agree with this; but I keep having to remind myself how ephemeral 21st century politics really is in the grand scheme of things.
My “side” is the Kingdom of God—period.
If Kirk is willing to use his position to lie about/stir up sentiment against The Kingdom (ie, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), then he is fundamentally an enemy—or at best, an enemy-in-waiting.  He does not become Captain Moroni, or anything like, just because in the short term he is successful at getting my tax rate lowered from 31% to 29.5% or makes YouTube videos showing stupid college kids to be (surprise!) stupid college kids.
Having hung out in some conservative discussion fora, I think many Church members underestimate the degree of suspicion and contempt a lot of conservatives (especially Trumpian conservatives) have for the Church as an institution, its members as individuals, and its principles (particularly the ideals of self-discipline, sexual restraint, education, and—for lack of a better word—“thoughtfulness” or intellectual humility.)  Many of them talk about us very much the way many early-1930s-Germans talked about Jews.  They are not our friends.  

Sorry, I must have skipped this line  

Maybe you misunderstand my point.

Oh, understand fully my friend. No need to defend yourself. 
 
I disagree strongly. It’s 100% about their leader, Trump, and how he convinces his hardcore supporters to believe truly bizarre things and in worse case scenarios, act upon them, like their comically inept “revolution” that happened. Does Trump represent their values? Sure, but how they acted and still act in regards to him is what you would expect from a cult leader. 

 The Obamabots were bad in 2008, and while they lack the self awareness to see it, they set the seeds for worship of our political idols. Unlike you and I @Just_A_Guy, liberals simply can’t engage in self critique. It’s just not in them. 
 
Created it? Nope. Fanned the flames with his obnoxious and boorish behavior? You bet. So, while he didn’t start the fire, he doused it with gasoline. 
 
So I do understand your points my friend, I just see it differently. 
 
btw, have you read “On a Sea of Glass”? Best Titanic book out there. 

Mass ive

Did you mean to say a massive oversimplication?

When I hear about Church leaders doing something wrong... one of the first things I try to apply is the Golden Rule.  I have been in leadership positions, and I have messed up plenty, but I was always trying what I thought was best what I thought the Lord would have me do.
I see no reasons why the Administrators of BYU Hawaii would be acting any differently.
When I read articles critical of various church leaders, I have to ask myself how unbiased is the article? After all I am living proof that leaders can make mistakes.  The one that is linked seems to be less about examining facts then it is about generating outrage.  Where in the article do they talk about reaching out to the other side of the story and give the leaders a chance to respond?  I see no attempt to do so.
So this article reminds me of the trend in news that someone else described as "We are going to tell you how you should feel about something... but you have to figure out if it is true."  And frankly I have no desire to let anyone pull my strings in such a manner

Zooming out to what is known: 
-Hawaii is in a very tough position when in comes to covid. They rely economically on tourism from all around the world.  So lots of opportunity for things to come in. Most of the population is also very concentrated in certain areas- the population density of Waikiki is 7x that of Tokyo. So they want people to come in, but also want to not have things go rampant.  Hence a lot of thier actions as a state  
-BYUH is a prime example of this: their students come from all around the world, in addition to general Hawaii tourism, the Polynesian Center is a huge part of BYUH’s history, culture, and students finances - if it has to shut down many students won’t be able to work and pay for school/living.  
-It’s a HORRIBLE situation to be in as a decision maker.  You want to respect individual choices, but there’s also the group to look out for.  I do get the impression it was a school-admin decision to mandate the vaccine. And they appear to be working hard to make things work for cases where a student declines. I’m not sure how the current general rules are in Hawaii. 
 
-Zooming specifically about this one student: I would like to know a fuller picture of what’s going on (if we’re going to stick out noses in her specific affairs).  The linked news article appears extemely biased in its accounting of things. Like I’m wondering: if you have an autoimmune condition severe enough that getting a vaccine has large chance of death: would you not likewise have problems with other vaccine?  What would happen if you actually did contract the full disease - is that not even more life threatening?  Would it be safest for you to do an online school rather than a densely populated international tourist attraction?  There’s so many unanswered questions here, I can’t even begin to make a call. 

The First Presidency serve as the chairman and two vice-chairs of the board of directors at BYUH.  They could overrule this, if they were aware of the situation and thought it was important enough.  
As it is, I think Admin has a strong point that with the PCC being an international tourist destination staffed by BYUH students, it makes sense to err on the side of caution.  The last thing the Church needs is a pandemic surge/outbreak that is clearly traceable back to a Church institution.
Transferring from BYUH to another CES school is not that onerous; and with regard to Sandor specifically, it appears that BYUH has science on their side—the various vaccines are functionally and qualitatively different and she does have statistically safe alternatives; she’s just snippy because Admin didn’t unquestioningly kowtow to her osteopath (who by definition does not primarily focus on the latest scientific research, particularly where synthetic medications and vaccines are concerned) and his merry band of non-doctors whom she managed to browbeat into giving her a semi-informed excuse note.  
Frankly, the drama queenery is strong with Sandor and the other would-be students cited.  I resent that they ran squealing to an advocacy group to try to humiliate a Church entity into changing its policy; and my gut is that if they weren’t being pains in the Church’s posterior over this issue—they’d find something else to gripe about.  In the event, I’m glad my tithing isn’t going to go towards the “education” of these miserable, self-entitled little maggots.  As the saying goes—“Bye, Felicia . . .”

I’m the opposite, lol. When it comes to food I treat it like all the chefs in the world are conspiring to poison me and I only eat when not eating will lead to my immediate demise. 

I remember being on the winning side in 2000, which was incredibly contested.  I remember when Al Gore and his side called foul and refused to give up.  Wisconsin and Oregon were incredibly close, but it didn't matter because whoever won Florida would take the prize. I remember Gore's team of lawyers energetically suing away, all the way up to the supreme court.  I remember dimpled chads, and uncounted ballots, and my 2 decade dislike of Broward County began.  
I also remember everyone on my side, howling like they were being murdered, at Gore's antics.  My side of the fence was grabbing every megaphone we could find, and standing on every soapbox, shouting about how the nation depends on accepting the results of a free election.  How our nation was a collection of shared values, and if you erode election confidence, you erode a cornerstone of national legitimacy, and therefore Gore needed to knock it off.  I remember some of us accusing election officials in Broward, and Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach, of fraud.  We loathed and hated them, and mocked and yelled at them.  I remember nobody was happy about Gore forcing the supreme court to pick the winner.  One side hated it because it weakened the country, the other side hated it because they lost the fight.  I remember how so many from Gore's side spent 8 years yelling "not my president", and sticking it on bumper stickers, and bringing it up in every national debate.  
Now, a scant two decades later, the same thing is being played out on a larger scale with multiple states, and everyone has switched sides.  And I'm hearing the same arguments, everyone saying the exact opposite of what they were saying 20 years ago.
And I'm not happy, because I'm sort of in agreement with the notion that shared values make a nation stronger, and notions of illegitimate elections weaken a nation.  It's why our enemies spend so much effort with their behind-the-scenes amplifying claims of election fraud.

They probably would if you left out the Kim Chee

I don’t understand prayer. Nor do so understand priesthood blessings or fasting. I try to rationalize how it all works all the time and I find myself running the mental circles.
Here is what I do understand: Praying in faith for good things and being specific with those prayers brings miracles.
Whether the thing is worthy or not worthy of taking to to pray for… I don’t know… if it’s good, pray for it 

That was awesome. Lol. 

Very well said.  My thoughts were along this line, but I couldn't articulate them.
I still sometimes fall into the mindset of treating God like a vending machine, or maybe more like a slot machine.  I put in my prayers, put in my effort and then hold out my hands for the blessings that may or may not come.    This isn't the case, most of the time. 
Edit: I recognize that there are blessings tied to following specific commandments.  But I think those are general for everyone and we're talking more about specific blessings for individuals.

I see no reason to not express our true thoughts to our Father in Heaven - but this is with the caveat that the reason we pray to our Father is to change ourselves - specifically to become more like our Father.  Definitely we must be honest to ourselves as well as to our Father and express all our concerns (especially our deepest concerns) and petition his help and assistance - especially in understanding what we can do to help him with helping and assisting others as well as ourselves.
 
The Traveler

No matter who is influencing them, they much choose to change.