Texan

Thanks for your comment. I noticed that you used the term "LDS Christian" twice. Is this the preferred term nowadays? If so, I like it. It's certainly easier to say and write than "member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," which I have heard missionaries say.

I have member friends, and I wonder the same thing.

What a great post. If I may share memories from my own "America in Space" file... I was also a small boy when the U.S. landed men on the moon, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. My extended family had gathered in the home of my aunt and uncle to watch the landing live. Hearing the first words from the moon was more riveting than I can describe, but my most vivid memory was a stray comment from one of the news anchors. It may have been Walter Cronkite, I'm not sure. In 1969 the world was still deep in the Cold War, and all the communist nations across the globe had decided to ignore the moon landing completely and not even mention it in the news broadcasts to their own people. "And what a terrible shame it is," said the news anchor, "that one-third of humanity is being denied these live pictures of one of the most momentous events in human history." By a strange turn of events, I came to work for NASA at the Johnson Space Center here in Houston. My boss's boss's boss's boss's boss was Gene Kranz, the head guy of the Mission Control Center who famously said "Failure is not an option" during the Apollo 13 crisis. He's still alive. I heard him on the radio today talking about the anniversary of the moon landing, and I was astonished at how little his voice had changed since the 1980s when had I worked in his organization. It brought back memories of my very first meeting with him, which had been very odd indeed. He opened our meeting with a lengthy fist-thumping commentary on the glories of cigarettes and coffee, which (among other things) led me to believe he was not Mormon. I suppose this is a strange thing to remember, but I had been dating a Church member at that time and she was slowly teaching me the Word of Wisdom and why I needed to give up coffee if I wanted the relationship to move forward. In 2012 I happened to be in California when the space shuttle Endeavor was flown for the last time on the back of a 747 from Sacramento to Los Angeles. I had wandered outside to see it fly over but I wasn't expecting very much. The 747 flew rather low, and when it finally materialized in the distant blue haze it seemed like the largest thing I had ever seen in the sky. As soon as I could see the sheer enormity of the shuttle, a lump formed in my throat and tears began to stream down my face. I had never been tearfully proud of my country before that moment, but I suddenly realized that the United States had earned its place among the great civilizations of humanity and that it will almost certainly appear in history books for the next million years, long after the follies of communism have evaporated from human memory. Our achievement fifty years ago was that profound. It should be remembered with awe.

I think I misunderstood your original comment. Somehow I got the idea that the young lady darted out of the course after it was over and flagged down a taxi to take her to the nearest meetinghouse for an emergency baptism. Glad to hear things were more orderly. Your story was very interesting to me. Church members in my part of the country are certainly present and visible in significant numbers, but I've never seen any of them participate in a heated Q&A session with heckling and brutal arguments. Perhaps I travel in rather different circles.

Good for the girl in your story, but her sudden baptism does raise a question in my mind. I have heard conficting stories about how swiftly investigators can be baptized. There are old posts right here on Third Hour (although it was called something else back then) that say a person can walk right into a meetinghouse and get baptized on the spot after answering a few questions about Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, and so forth. But I've also heard stories that investigators cannot be baptized until they attend x sacrament meetings or go through y missionary lessons, where x and y are generally small numbers. Does the waiting time vary from mission to mission in 2019? And did the Christian Seminary in your mission repeat their course on Mormons the following year, or did the unintended consequences shut that all down?

Actually, I'm a big fan of Lawrence Welk reruns and I play them in the background all the time when I work. I think one of their shows ("Salute to Lynyrd Skynyrd") featured Myron Floren on the accordion playing this.

Well... "illegal" is such a harsh word. I'd just raise the taxes on the earned income of professional athletes. Something modest, perhaps 150% or so. And three cheers to your girlfriend, whose achievement is very noble (but is inspiring a bit of envy in me, perhaps).

There are so many megachurches here... I visited one here in Houston that seemed more like a Broadway show. I half-expected the Rockettes to come dancing out at half-time. But Psalm 150, ya'll.

I didn't know that, I thought Howdy was a Texas-only thing. It's nice to learn about the splendor of other civilizations beyond the Texas state line (of which there are so few, sadly). Well then your mother-in-law must be a fine person, I was born not far from Fort Worth.

I am not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (I thought the term "Mormon" is now frowned upon?) but I think of myself as very friendly to the Church and open to learning wherever I can find it. As Scott said, this is also the biggest issue I've seen, but a close #2 is how Jesus and Lucifer are sometimes portrayed as spiritual brothers, which is a total, instantaneous, and irrevocable deal-breaker for many of my fellow Protestants, who simply cannot bring themselves to visualize Jesus and Lucifer as a sort of Cain and Abel. I have studied this topic a bit and my understanding is that God is believed to be the Father of all beings, so in a sense we are all brothers and sisters. But that concept can be awkwardly expressed in ways that frighten the daylights out of people who have never heard it before. Maybe I'm a naive contrarian here, but I'd say many of my thoughtful friends define "Christendom" as "the set of all people who call themselves Christian," which seems like a reasonable starting point to me.

First cousins can marry in nineteen U.S. states, including California, New York, and many other blue states. Seven other states allow it under some conditions, usually if the partners are old or infertile, or in one case (Maine) if the couple can provide proof of genetic counseling. North Carolina does not allow marriages between double first cousins. In my whole life I've met only one set of double first cousins. They claimed it was a lot of fun because all the cousins had the same grandparents. I did not know these facts until a few minutes ago. Many years ago I knew a guy who always wore a T-shirt that said "Polygamy Porter" on it, and I could not for the life of me understand what it meant. Wikipedia had no English-language entry on Polygamy Porter (only a German one, curiously), but it had lots of trivia about cousin-marriage laws across the United States. I was surprised by what I learned.

Thank you, I've actually been reading the forums for some time without a login and nothing has alarmed me so far... some of the people here are really witty, which I enjoy a lot. And today I learned what an "apex predator" is. Who knew?

West Houston, not terribly far from the Houston Temple, which I actually toured during their open house in 2000. Did I read that you are moving to San Antonio? Another great city. I drove through it recently for the first time in many years and that city is booming. I hope you will be happy there.

I can't believe that the name "Texan" wasn't already taken. Thought sure I'd be stuck with "Texan487593" or something like that. And I am a Southern Baptist, born in Texas and I live here now. Just moved to a new neighborhood and saw a big building near my house, which I believe is called a "stake center." I've been investigating, uninvestigating, and reinvestigating the Church for many years now. Not sure where this will lead, if anywhere, but I've enjoyed reading the comments in these forums and just wanted to say thank you.