Sort-of Young Mom

Yikes estradling25. 😲  I didn't mean that!  I'm not belittling service missions at all.  That's why I put "sort of" I didn't know how else to phrase it.  I just hear people outside of the church assume it operates like missions in other denominations, so I wanted to be clear.  I think personally think it's wonderful when people who want to go on service missions are able to go and I'm sure they benefit from it.  Please, let me show you that my feelings are the opposite of what you think. 👱‍♀️
 The Savior's church used to have something called a stake mission which was optional, but choosing it if you didn't have to choose it was frowned upon, not by me--as you will soon see, it's what I'm inferring from the official church publications,  "Where will you go on your mission? If you are normal, and we hope you are—in fact that’s one of the requirements—you’ll want to go to some exotic place in a faraway land."--That's from Elder Tuttle 1974 , Your Mission Preparation, General Conference.  Or " I decided to stay home and serve a stake mission instead. I thought my dad would be angry, but he just said, 'Well, that’s your choice. But it’s a pretty big decision. Would you be willing to take two separate days and go off by yourself somewhere and fast and pray about this?'"--Friend to Friend July 2005, Answered Prayers.  Later we find out that his "mind and heart changed," and "I can’t imagine where my life would have gone if I had chosen to stay home."  You'd think he was choosing to not serve at all with that family's attitude towards them.  Even today's policy gives preference to proselyting.  Most of us imagine you can be excused for that for only a serious disability, but you can be excused for a wrong body mass index or a tatoo.  I honestly don't know how I feel about all this, I'm trying to sort out my own feelings, and being labeled as mean (if I read that right) doesn't really help.  It's not my place to change the church, it belongs to Christ.  Sure if it were me I'd combine the mission handbooks and do everything I could to equalize them, and I'd let the service missionaries wear their nametags all the time instead of being required to remove them.  My attitude is quite the opposite of what you're saying, it's actually quite charitable.  On the other hand, I do know this: I have a relative who is thrilled that he wasn't automatically reassigned to a service mission, he got turned down before the change and is married now.  I also read a LDSLiving story about a boy with down syndrome who refused to go on anything but a proselyting mission.  There are very rarely any church publication or media stories or firesides on young service missionaries, so why wouldn't some people turn it down and say that's not what I signed up for?  I'm all for upping the status of service missionaries.  😃 ... except that I'm getting all kinds of mixed messages about whether or not that's really appropriate since proselyting is supposed to be the priority, and clearly some people don't want it and it isn't exactly given what most people would define as equal status.  The assignments are pulled from justserve dot org and are assigned by the parents according to the young service missionary website (the letter from headquarters just gives the go-ahead) and the church outlined that they won't provide financial support for service missionaries.  This doesn't affect how I feel about people who sacrifice to serve, as you said, for some that's the best they've got, and I think that's wonderful.  It only makes me realize that if my perfectly healthy son were to say wow it looks like all service is equal to the Lord, so why not skip the fuss of a mission and choose my own path as guided by the spirit, I'd have to clarify things and that makes me cringe.
Man, it's really hard to word things online.  I hope I haven't offended anyone.  If you see my past posts you'll see I'm deeply supportive of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Sure there are things I don't understand because they are brought out in a confusing matter, but hopefully mentioning that is not causing discontent and strife.
 

I'm not sure if we were talking about the reduction in size of the handbook (singular) that will be coming out...but..
Well, half the handbooks could be done away with simply because half of #1 and #2 were repeating each other (literally, some paragraphs on some things were almost the same wording and all).  That could easily account for a 20% reduction I'd imagine.
There's no need to have another handbook or anything to be deleted really, just making it so that the stuff that was repeated between the two is simply rephrased and reduced in the amount of space it takes.

We haven't had a pandemic that ordinary people have had to worry about since WW1 (look up the Spanish flu).  Keep your eye out, if only vulnerable people are dying then don't stress.  The Spanish flu was a problem because it specifically targeted healthy people in the prime of their life--which just isn't something viruses normally do.  Add to that poor science: people relied on unproven things to stay safe.  I would say there will be heightened awareness for the next few months, some talk over the year, and then will die out, just like SARS, the swine flu, the bird flu, ebola, and west nile virus (I'm sure I'm missing more from the past couple decades).  They stop because people either develop a vaccine (they're working on coronavirus right now), and/or people most easily exposed to them become immune.  For every person infected you need at least 2 or 3 people to catch it or the virus will start dying out, coronavirus apparently might be BARELY at that rate, which puts it in the category of what-else-is-new .  I'm not a scientist, this is just stuff I found online, I had the same concerns, and I listened to both sides, including the ones that really believed we weren't being told the whole story, but I'm siding with those that aren't worrying.  This really is a great time to be alive, past President Gordon B. Hinckley lived through the Spanish Flu, Depression, and two World Wars and I think that's why he would say that all the time.  But I recommend using this as an opportunity to remember the important things in life and make sure you have supplies on hand in case of another far more likely emergency (unemployment, storms).  You will know if a virus has become a big deal because there will be travel restrictions and signs everywhere and the US President will have no hesistation imposing things that could hurt his re-election because he'll be in trouble either way.  Talk of it won't exist merely in sections online.

Yikes estradling25. 😲  I didn't mean that!  I'm not belittling service missions at all.  That's why I put "sort of" I didn't know how else to phrase it.  I just hear people outside of the church assume it operates like missions in other denominations, so I wanted to be clear.  I think personally think it's wonderful when people who want to go on service missions are able to go and I'm sure they benefit from it.  Please, let me show you that my feelings are the opposite of what you think. 👱‍♀️
 The Savior's church used to have something called a stake mission which was optional, but choosing it if you didn't have to choose it was frowned upon, not by me--as you will soon see, it's what I'm inferring from the official church publications,  "Where will you go on your mission? If you are normal, and we hope you are—in fact that’s one of the requirements—you’ll want to go to some exotic place in a faraway land."--That's from Elder Tuttle 1974 , Your Mission Preparation, General Conference.  Or " I decided to stay home and serve a stake mission instead. I thought my dad would be angry, but he just said, 'Well, that’s your choice. But it’s a pretty big decision. Would you be willing to take two separate days and go off by yourself somewhere and fast and pray about this?'"--Friend to Friend July 2005, Answered Prayers.  Later we find out that his "mind and heart changed," and "I can’t imagine where my life would have gone if I had chosen to stay home."  You'd think he was choosing to not serve at all with that family's attitude towards them.  Even today's policy gives preference to proselyting.  Most of us imagine you can be excused for that for only a serious disability, but you can be excused for a wrong body mass index or a tatoo.  I honestly don't know how I feel about all this, I'm trying to sort out my own feelings, and being labeled as mean (if I read that right) doesn't really help.  It's not my place to change the church, it belongs to Christ.  Sure if it were me I'd combine the mission handbooks and do everything I could to equalize them, and I'd let the service missionaries wear their nametags all the time instead of being required to remove them.  My attitude is quite the opposite of what you're saying, it's actually quite charitable.  On the other hand, I do know this: I have a relative who is thrilled that he wasn't automatically reassigned to a service mission, he got turned down before the change and is married now.  I also read a LDSLiving story about a boy with down syndrome who refused to go on anything but a proselyting mission.  There are very rarely any church publication or media stories or firesides on young service missionaries, so why wouldn't some people turn it down and say that's not what I signed up for?  I'm all for upping the status of service missionaries.  😃 ... except that I'm getting all kinds of mixed messages about whether or not that's really appropriate since proselyting is supposed to be the priority, and clearly some people don't want it and it isn't exactly given what most people would define as equal status.  The assignments are pulled from justserve dot org and are assigned by the parents according to the young service missionary website (the letter from headquarters just gives the go-ahead) and the church outlined that they won't provide financial support for service missionaries.  This doesn't affect how I feel about people who sacrifice to serve, as you said, for some that's the best they've got, and I think that's wonderful.  It only makes me realize that if my perfectly healthy son were to say wow it looks like all service is equal to the Lord, so why not skip the fuss of a mission and choose my own path as guided by the spirit, I'd have to clarify things and that makes me cringe.
Man, it's really hard to word things online.  I hope I haven't offended anyone.  If you see my past posts you'll see I'm deeply supportive of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Sure there are things I don't understand because they are brought out in a confusing matter, but hopefully mentioning that is not causing discontent and strife.
 

From what I understand (meaning I could be wrong) the church generally will have computers available (at least for the church leadership such as the clerks) at either the wardhouses when possible or the Stake or District buildings.  Most of them have printers there is people are very set upon getting a hardcopy but have no computer themselves.  The printing of it if one wants a hardcopy or how much of it they would print off will probably be up to each leader and the resources available.
On my visits in that part of the world they tend to be more technologically advanced than many people think...including having computers and cellphones abundantly among many in those nations.  It may not be as abundant as in the West, but they tend to have major cities with technology as we do, and many other things that some may not think they have access to.  There are poorer sections of some of the nations in Africa and other locations as well which have a lack, but in general they tend to have a lot more access to electronics and the internet than some people in the West occasionally may think.
Africa and Asia are big continents though, so it may also very well be that the nations I visit have been more advanced than some of the other poorer nations, and the situation in the areas I visited are not the same as other areas of the same continent (much like the North and South America probably, or even the US between state to state).

The bolded is the hurtful attitude.  The Lord cares about the willingness to serve to the utmost of their abilities... Even if that ability is not much.  The church's willingness to allow everyone to serve no matter how great or small is one of the ways they show they are the Lord's servants.  It is the attitude of some members that are hurtful.. belittling sacrifice because they do not have much to give.  Those members would be wise to remember the story of the widows mite.

I used to be extremely confused when other Christians explained that they only needed to accept Jesus as their Savior to be saved, and I'd go, yes, that's me.  Then they'd say but you're not really Christian so you can't be saved, and it didn't matter what I said.  Then it dawned on me...the scripture where people say they've done things in his name and worshipped him, and the Savior says it doesn't count because they didn't really know him.  So really, the Bible-bashing and inter-faith struggles out there come down to this: you have to understand his nature or POOF, he's not really Jesus, game over, you fool, you tried to do what is right but accidently consulted the wrong man--stinks to be you, there is no grace for accidental misunderstanding of his nature.  In the restored church of Jesus Christ, we understand that story differently.  Those people who did things in his name weren't innocent people, they were show-offs who didn't even bother to grow close to Christ.  When people reach out to God, even if they only understand him as someone in the sky and want to get to know him, he reaches back: draw near to him and he draws near to you, and he judges people based on their intentions.  Many churches base their beliefs on salvation off of a formula that has been scientifically created by their scholars, accept this formula and you've hit the correct Jesus jackpot, but deep down many people don't necessarily believe it, and that is a great talking point.  Someday I hope you'll hit on this common ground.

I'm warning you now, if you quote or post anything from Handbook 3 I will ban hammer you.  
 
That goes for you too @NeuroTypical
Then just because I'll be in a banning mood @MormonGator gets banned too.

If I were to guess....  To keep someone from trying to legalese their way around a bishop or other church leader

For all the conspiracy theorists & naysayers, let their disappointment begin.

Official church newsroom link: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/new-general-handbook-coming-in-february-2020

I used to be extremely confused when other Christians explained that they only needed to accept Jesus as their Savior to be saved, and I'd go, yes, that's me.  Then they'd say but you're not really Christian so you can't be saved, and it didn't matter what I said.  Then it dawned on me...the scripture where people say they've done things in his name and worshipped him, and the Savior says it doesn't count because they didn't really know him.  So really, the Bible-bashing and inter-faith struggles out there come down to this: you have to understand his nature or POOF, he's not really Jesus, game over, you fool, you tried to do what is right but accidently consulted the wrong man--stinks to be you, there is no grace for accidental misunderstanding of his nature.  In the restored church of Jesus Christ, we understand that story differently.  Those people who did things in his name weren't innocent people, they were show-offs who didn't even bother to grow close to Christ.  When people reach out to God, even if they only understand him as someone in the sky and want to get to know him, he reaches back: draw near to him and he draws near to you, and he judges people based on their intentions.  Many churches base their beliefs on salvation off of a formula that has been scientifically created by their scholars, accept this formula and you've hit the correct Jesus jackpot, but deep down many people don't necessarily believe it, and that is a great talking point.  Someday I hope you'll hit on this common ground.

Okay, I just talked to a ballroom dancer the other day, and this is a straight man who was outraged at the US Supreme Court decision regarding same-sex marriage.  He told me that people of the same-sex dancing together for practical (not romantic) reasons has been going on for a long time, and he danced with siblings all the time and rarely danced with someone he wanted to date (dancing with love interests is too distracting, but some people do it, there were gay guys, not at BYU, but they didn't request to dance with men because women always outnumber the men).  He pointed to a movie called Strictly Ballroom, which I haven't seen, but apparently the two main girls (they're straight) dance together in competitions.  He said it's not a big deal or new, except for the fact that it doesn't avoid the appearance of evil in today's world.  He said only people outside of ballroom would get worked up about this.  He felt personally that the girls were better dancers because it's more competitive for them to get accepted and they are running marathons backwards in high heels, which is quite a workout, but he's quite sure they'd be at a disadvantage in standard if they paired up--due to two ballroom gowns clashing into each other.  He affirmed that lifts are rare. 
I don't enjoy lowered standards.  I get disappointed easily like the rest of you, but I'm trying to overcome that...here are some of the sad things that have crept into our culture: church-owned Deseret News now publishes all week long.   BYU's not much better than a public school at times.  Every youth meeting growing up had some questionable and rude (not dirty) language BY THE TEACHERS, you know to fit it--and I hear it all the time when I pass the classes.  I was a youth teacher once but I was told by leaders that I wasn't cool enough to teach them and that's why I got released.  And I have been thinking of writing the Friend magazine and asking them to please improve the manners in their stories (a lot of them seem to have a problem of talking with their mouth full or forgetting to say please and thank you--I still support the Friend in case anyone takes this as criticism).  On the other hand I feel grateful that things have gotten better, activity rates are up, BYU used to have a serious cheating problem and have beauty competitions, and now grace is openly talked about at church.  I still have hope that Christ will polish us before or during the millennium due to His nature/prophecies, I don't believe we're completely at the mercy of peoples' personal continually lowering standards in the church, although where we are at convinces me the second coming is definitely going to take a while (interesting article on how heaven has very high standards and what our Heavenly Parents likely think of our church culture: Our Refined Heavenly Home, Ensign June 2009).  Likely there will be some movement towards better behavior in the future, just as I believe the Lord has influenced people to eat healthier, and treat the environment better, and learn about other faiths and genealogy, and be outraged at feticide.  It's as the scriptures allude to in Joel 2:28, the spirit of the Lord will influence not just His church but the outside culture as well.  One step back, but two steps forward, the sky is not falling in the church.     

Okay, I just talked to a ballroom dancer the other day, and this is a straight man who was outraged at the US Supreme Court decision regarding same-sex marriage.  He told me that people of the same-sex dancing together for practical (not romantic) reasons has been going on for a long time, and he danced with siblings all the time and rarely danced with someone he wanted to date (dancing with love interests is too distracting, but some people do it, there were gay guys, not at BYU, but they didn't request to dance with men because women always outnumber the men).  He pointed to a movie called Strictly Ballroom, which I haven't seen, but apparently the two main girls (they're straight) dance together in competitions.  He said it's not a big deal or new, except for the fact that it doesn't avoid the appearance of evil in today's world.  He said only people outside of ballroom would get worked up about this.  He felt personally that the girls were better dancers because it's more competitive for them to get accepted and they are running marathons backwards in high heels, which is quite a workout, but he's quite sure they'd be at a disadvantage in standard if they paired up--due to two ballroom gowns clashing into each other.  He affirmed that lifts are rare. 
I don't enjoy lowered standards.  I get disappointed easily like the rest of you, but I'm trying to overcome that...here are some of the sad things that have crept into our culture: church-owned Deseret News now publishes all week long.   BYU's not much better than a public school at times.  Every youth meeting growing up had some questionable and rude (not dirty) language BY THE TEACHERS, you know to fit it--and I hear it all the time when I pass the classes.  I was a youth teacher once but I was told by leaders that I wasn't cool enough to teach them and that's why I got released.  And I have been thinking of writing the Friend magazine and asking them to please improve the manners in their stories (a lot of them seem to have a problem of talking with their mouth full or forgetting to say please and thank you--I still support the Friend in case anyone takes this as criticism).  On the other hand I feel grateful that things have gotten better, activity rates are up, BYU used to have a serious cheating problem and have beauty competitions, and now grace is openly talked about at church.  I still have hope that Christ will polish us before or during the millennium due to His nature/prophecies, I don't believe we're completely at the mercy of peoples' personal continually lowering standards in the church, although where we are at convinces me the second coming is definitely going to take a while (interesting article on how heaven has very high standards and what our Heavenly Parents likely think of our church culture: Our Refined Heavenly Home, Ensign June 2009).  Likely there will be some movement towards better behavior in the future, just as I believe the Lord has influenced people to eat healthier, and treat the environment better, and learn about other faiths and genealogy, and be outraged at feticide.  It's as the scriptures allude to in Joel 2:28, the spirit of the Lord will influence not just His church but the outside culture as well.  One step back, but two steps forward, the sky is not falling in the church.     

Okay, I just talked to a ballroom dancer the other day, and this is a straight man who was outraged at the US Supreme Court decision regarding same-sex marriage.  He told me that people of the same-sex dancing together for practical (not romantic) reasons has been going on for a long time, and he danced with siblings all the time and rarely danced with someone he wanted to date (dancing with love interests is too distracting, but some people do it, there were gay guys, not at BYU, but they didn't request to dance with men because women always outnumber the men).  He pointed to a movie called Strictly Ballroom, which I haven't seen, but apparently the two main girls (they're straight) dance together in competitions.  He said it's not a big deal or new, except for the fact that it doesn't avoid the appearance of evil in today's world.  He said only people outside of ballroom would get worked up about this.  He felt personally that the girls were better dancers because it's more competitive for them to get accepted and they are running marathons backwards in high heels, which is quite a workout, but he's quite sure they'd be at a disadvantage in standard if they paired up--due to two ballroom gowns clashing into each other.  He affirmed that lifts are rare. 
I don't enjoy lowered standards.  I get disappointed easily like the rest of you, but I'm trying to overcome that...here are some of the sad things that have crept into our culture: church-owned Deseret News now publishes all week long.   BYU's not much better than a public school at times.  Every youth meeting growing up had some questionable and rude (not dirty) language BY THE TEACHERS, you know to fit it--and I hear it all the time when I pass the classes.  I was a youth teacher once but I was told by leaders that I wasn't cool enough to teach them and that's why I got released.  And I have been thinking of writing the Friend magazine and asking them to please improve the manners in their stories (a lot of them seem to have a problem of talking with their mouth full or forgetting to say please and thank you--I still support the Friend in case anyone takes this as criticism).  On the other hand I feel grateful that things have gotten better, activity rates are up, BYU used to have a serious cheating problem and have beauty competitions, and now grace is openly talked about at church.  I still have hope that Christ will polish us before or during the millennium due to His nature/prophecies, I don't believe we're completely at the mercy of peoples' personal continually lowering standards in the church, although where we are at convinces me the second coming is definitely going to take a while (interesting article on how heaven has very high standards and what our Heavenly Parents likely think of our church culture: Our Refined Heavenly Home, Ensign June 2009).  Likely there will be some movement towards better behavior in the future, just as I believe the Lord has influenced people to eat healthier, and treat the environment better, and learn about other faiths and genealogy, and be outraged at feticide.  It's as the scriptures allude to in Joel 2:28, the spirit of the Lord will influence not just His church but the outside culture as well.  One step back, but two steps forward, the sky is not falling in the church.     

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that sometimes people don't get along with their families, don't want to talk to them (my family gossips and twists things to no end--so I say the bare minimum) and may not have mental issues at all--it drives me crazy that my family now suspects I have issues just because I don't like them (the church is really great at screening those out and making sure companions say something--I believe in the old handbook before they just barely updated it said that mission companions would face church discipline if they didn't report it, plus most of those people don't want to extend their missions).  He may love the gospel, but just not want anything to do with his home ward (I can't stand my home ward knowing all the things my mom has said about me over the pulpit--but I am totally active/devout, however if I was visiting I might just come up with an excuse not to attend that Sunday--awful I know), and be planning on being fully active once he moves out.  Digging into this may cause him to resent you both even more (great they never let me grow up/figure things out on my own/they still think I'm I kid).  While it's possible that your child was disappointed with how few people he helped convert and is feeling like a failure and doesn't want to talk to his family or his ward for fear of that question (my husband hated his mission and doesn't like to talk about it because of that, but he didn't take it to the extreme your son did or extend his mission in hope that maybe he could baptize someone), it also could be a parent-child struggle and your child is probably perfectly healthy.  Instead ask your husband how many details he shares with others at church on his son or if he gossips about others in front of your son (leading him to believe no secret is safe), and if you both are only treating him like a pseudo-adult--he seems to be acting like someone who wants space, chances are he wrote lengthy letters to other people, especially friends outside of the ward.  A mission companion, not the president, is the best resource here.  If they are tight-lipped, suspicious, or acusatory, you can bet your child isn't putting his family in the best light.