NeuroTypical

I once took an informal survey of church critics, and recorded their responses: StephenVH, you preach a good lecture on the importance of reason and truth. I submit to you, that believing Mormons aren't the only folks who need your sermon.

I'll do my best. Consider some examples: You find yourself kneeling at the judgement bar of God. You find yourself kneeling next to two piles of stuff. In one pile is food, clothing, employment contracts, high school degrees, medical patient records, a marriage certificate or two, maybe even a temple recommend or two. The other pile contains empty wine bottles, pill bottles and syringes, hourly hotel keys and pornography, and free-clinic STD reports. God lets you know that both piles represent things obtained with the money you gave them. He acknowledges the first pile, and all the good it represents. Then, indicating the second pile, He asks you to explain why, instead of following His commandment to succor those who stood in need, you bought them that instead. No, you won't. You will be condemned for the second pile though, because that wasn't providing succor. Yeah, you did something when the beggar puttethed up his petition, but tossing a few bucks his way and moving on with your life turned out to be the wrong thing. So, if I, being homeless and destitute, beg you to help me rape someone, you should do it, and it's all on me? If I beg you to be the lookout man while I rob a house, it's all good for you? If I petition you to turn the other way when stumbling on a drug deal, because I just got out of the street, and don't want to go back? After all, I'm a beggar, and I've petitioned you, right?That's how I view those verses. Succor is something, and is not something else. You don't let a petition go in vain, but you also don't do bad things in order to meet the petition. Here are ways to not let petitions go in vain, and provide succor: * Give food. * Give card with the toll-free number to homeless services. * If there are more than one of you, and you think the one not driving could take him if he pulled a knife or a gun, offer a ride to the soup kitchen or employment line. * Do all that other stuff I suggested earlier. (Basically, if poor/homeless/destitute services exist in your area, they'll be 82% better than you at actually helping those who actually want help.) What do you think?

Welcome wayward and valdree. I remember being terrified the first time I was asked to speak too.

Ooh! Deviance, mystery, controversy, and intrigue! The coolness is increased!

How old is the kid? If he's like 8, "Sorry, you can't come in right now. Bye!" and then close the door. If he's like 23, you call the cops. :) Putting a kid into tears doesn't necessarily mean a grown-up has done something rude or wrong. Your mom knows that, right?

Not smarter, COOLER! (Only not the kind of cooler that Pam wanted.)

The acronym CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".

Wow - that's quite a story. I would recommend a series of escalating steps. 1. Have you and your mother both approach her, and tell her quite plainly, but not angrily, that both of you no longer want any attention from this sister. Tell her you appreciate her concern, but you value your privacy, and would like her to stop keeping an eye on you, trying to help, etc. Write down the time, place, and what was said. 2. If her behavior continues, I would approach her again, with you, mother, and one or two other people (trusted friends, the bishop if he'd be willing). Restate your request a little more plainly and clearly. Say you've tried asking nicely, but no really, you must insist that she stop. Tell her she is causing you folks stress and anxiety, and you want her to stay away. Write down the time, place, who was there, and what was said. 3. If this were happening here in the USA, and the behavior continues, I would recommend you report her to the police, show them the documentation, and file a complaint. They would at least visit this sister and reconvey the message, and might threaten arrest or actually arrest her. Ask for a copy of their report. (Not sure if this is how it works in Australia, but basically, if it gets to step 3, it's time to refuse to have anything to do with her at all, and have someone else start dealing with her.) 4. If the behavior still continues, contact a lawyer and seek a court protective order to force this woman to keep her distance or go to jail. Give your lawyer all the documentation. Hopefully, step 1 or 2 would be all it takes.

Yeah, I think Earl wins the thread. It is most charitable to see each other as sons and daughters of God, inheritors of a divine birthright. For that matter, it helps go through life to see people in general like this, lds or non. Also, it's really hard to draw a circle and figure out who to include and who to exclude. For example: Me and my house actually fits the first 3 here. But, it's no caffeine because of health reasons, everything on TV is crap not worth watching, and wife is always crafting because doing something with her fingers allows her ADD brain to remain in conversations with people. I think most people who have known us more than 5 minutes would get a chuckle at being grouped with these folks.At the end of the day, folks just have odd LDS-related experiences in Utah (and maybe Idaho) that you just don't have anywhere else. And lighthearted talking about such things can, well, lighten hearts if gone about the right way.

Oh, I dunno if that's the right application of the word or not. I think "Utah mormons" is a better phrase, but then I tend to ruffle some feathers when using it myself.

I don't know what that means, but I do know there are many many wrong ways to serve others.

Homeless folks can be very interesting people. This is a very common story: I live in my car, and haven't worked for years. I will eventually run out of gas. That means I'm not lying when I go up to people and tell them such a story. They give me money. I've been traveling the country for 10 years like this - wouldn't dream of living any other way. Even stories like this are common: I have a house and a job and a family, but I haven't paid to fill my own gas tank in forever. Because whenever I run out of gas, I go to a WalMart or Mega church parking lot and tell folks a sob story, and they give me gas money. Unfortunately, stories like this are also common: I'm a homeless guy with a $200/day drug habit. I wander around public places telling folks I'm out of gas, and they give me money. I'll end up dead in a ditch some day, having died of exposure after years of malnutrition and mental illness. The whole "Don't judge and I can walk away feeling happy with myself" deal doesn't work for me.

Excellent post Elect! Your heart is obviously in the right place. But I have a comment about where your brain is. You might want to look into the problem of poverty, homelessness, begging and panhandling on the streets of the US. Because if you want to help someone on the street, giving them cash is sort of the exact opposite of helping. What it does, is enable and support a person in their lifestyle of substance abuse and despair. That isn't what "help" looks like. From where I'm standing, greasing the wheels of someone locked into a drug addiction (or locked into the habit of idleness enabled by other's goodwill), is the definition of turning your backs on them and their problems. Toss a few bucks at them and they go away - so much easier than actually helping them.Here are some things you can do, if you'd like to actually help the poor among us: * Volunteer at soup kitchens, free clinics, rape crisis/battered women's shelters. * Become a child advocate in the courts. * Donate to Goodwill/DI. * Vote your conscience. * If you have to give cash to someone, you'll find more genuine urgent need in a grocery store checkout line, then you ever will on the street. If the person in front of you is wearing a look of tired desparation, and is pushing a cart full of whiny children, mac & cheese, and milk - your five or twenty bucks is far better spent there then on a guy holding a cardboard sign. One choice could be between beer and wine. The other choice could be between medicine and the water bill. * Instead of handing the panhandler five bucks, give him a dime and a quarter, shake his hand, and talk to him a little. Find out his name, and offer him yours. Ask him if he's warm enough at nights. Ask him if he's got a safe place to be. Carry a little business card with the toll free number to your city's homeless services if he asks you for anything else. Don't fall for it when he tries to work you. For the rest of the day, nobody else will actually look at him as a human being. He may remember what it feels like. Again Elect, kudos on the depth of your spiritual research and alignment with God. If you can match that up with some practical knowledge about realies of poverty, then you'll earn that username of yours.

Why?Are you interested in casting righteous judgement against your fellow man, or against yourself?

MissB, I'm so sorry. Divorce is usually pretty horrible. There are usually feelings of anger during a divorce. They usually have to get pointed somewhere. Inward, towards the spouse, towards someone or something else. What can I say? Emotions are what they are. You will move through them. They will change over time. Did the bishop ever meet with your husband one on one? Has anyone from the church done so?

People judge me? Huh - sounds like a waste of time for them.

Paula Deen? Who?

UtahJakey, you say you've provided links to the distribution? I'm not seeing your link. I see you've linked to findagrave.com, and an archived page from the NYTimes.Could you point me to this link, or post it again please?

Sorry - I'm not explaining myself very well. I sit at a computer all day and play with numbers. You are right - you're talking about first marriages only. I misspoke. It still comes down to what the bell curve looks like.For first marriages, the average age was 21-22. This is an interesting statistic, but meaningless until we know std deviation. Because going from your statistic, any of these could be true: Case A: Half the first marriages were at 14, half were at 29. Therefore, the average age was 21-22. Case B: A third of the first marriages were between 14-17, a third were at 26-29, and a third were somewhere between . Average age was 21-22. Case C: One percent of first marriages were younger than 18, one percent were older than 25, everyone else got married between 19-24. Average was 21-22. See, any of those three cases could be the true case. I don't know which case it is - do you? Until we figure it out, I guess we don't really know what to tell your daughter, do we. I'm asking you a question. Do you believe Mormons in frontier America married girls younger than the rest of the USA? If so, why?

My brief google-fu expands on that statistic - there were many multiple marriages, due to high mortality rates in both genders. So the relevant question here: If half were younger than 21-22 and half were over, what does the bell curve look like? If it's low and wide and symetrical, then lots of 14-15 yr olds were getting married and lots of 28-29 yr olds were also. Some google-fu from Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State: There are plenty more examples. Tell me UJ, are you of the impression that we cultish Marminz married 'em younger than everyone else in the USA? If so, could you give us your source?

Heh - when my wife was in YW, institute had a stake organized event that was supposed to be the same sort of thing. The stuffed-suit who showed up, however, had absolutely no intention of discussing anything at all in any sort of detail. He blurted a bunch of words like "sacred" and "covenant" over and over, and then ended the meeting early because "the kids wouldn't stop being disruptive".The institute instructor couldn't apologize enough, and gave his class daily updates on who he yelled at, how he yelled, and how nobody was going to fix it. Just one in my bag of many instances of the stake messing things up horribly.

"Life really, really, really stank in a lot of ways in frontier America. Not just for Mormons." Then dig out history books and biographies and historically accurate accounts of life back then, and teach her as much as she'll let you. Look at marriage patterns across history. Celebrate that the US didn't really do child-marriages or female genital mutilation like so many places in the world did (and some still do). Do geneology, figure out what age your ancestors got married, and to whom, and how long the marriages lasted, and why some died early. Learn about infant mortality rates, and how kids these days are 'consumer goods', but used to be 'producer goods'. She found one thing to get mortified about. Show her the whole picture. Then celebrate that we don't live in those times any more. This isn't really a mormon issue, IMO.

So, after years of carefully preparing to survive hard times in a remote home out of the city, the recent Colorado forest fire forced us to bug out of our retreat and take shelter in civilization. It burned over 14,000 acres, destroyed 509 homes, and killed two people (their bodies were found in their garage, still loading stuff and preparing to evacuate). It looked like this: We're safely moved back, all is well, our neighborhood seemingly untouched. 3 days in a hotel with pool and free breakfast. Dogs and cats in an emergency shelter run by a local vet business out of the goodness of their hearts. A big check written out by insurance to cover out-of-pocket expenses. Grateful neighbors, because I was able to take some of their things with us while they were in another state. My ward has 7 families with destroyed homes. It's impacted a few people at my work. In our school district, 200 students and dozens of staff are homeless. It burned down our local vetrinary hospital, and all 3 doctors are homeless. My friend who works with large animal rescue looks like she's aged 10 years, and has countless stories of horses with burn wounds and abandoned animals. My church is still standing. In fact, the YM/YW had just completed a church service project and hauled out 15 truckloads of pine needles. I saw that project go by - there was much whining and complaining. But there's a photo of the fire going right up to the property line, and then stopping. Good things: * Being a 'preparadness enthusaist' helped immensely. We were prepared and did not fear. * Large tupperware containers are great when you must pack and leave, and can rent a storage unit within a day. * Being able to walk around prepared in the middle of civilization, without looking like the backwoodsman militant patriot survivalist wannabe you know you are. (The grey man theory rocks.) * Colorado Natn'l guard, local cops, city cops, county sheriffs, state highway patrol, and utility companies - they all had superb coordination. County called the shots, everyone else said "no - go ask County if you want a yes". Very little looting/vandalism. Very friendly checkpoints and help for homeowners who left medication and pets behind. * Twitter and facebook were instant sources of official news - better than the media. * Safe deposit box, already stocked, and my shiny new 16 gig thumb drive, already backed up. With those two things, and an insurance company to write out checks, we would have been able to rebuild our home anywhere. (The thumb drive replaces boxes of photos, filing cabinets full of files, bank records.) * Family banding together to get along - everyone contributed - everyone helped the other members be comfortable. * I may be a fat guy in his '40's, but I'm a fat guy in his '40's who can do a 60 second plank, and who runs uphill 2x/week at the gym. I was able to load and unload, move and carry, lift and sweat, do just about all the heavy work our family of me, wife, and 2 young daughters needed. Most of it while inconspicuously armed. * My family watched traffic jams and news reports of desparate people rummaging through donated food and clothing, from the air conditioned comfort of a hotel room with kitchenette, surrounded by our bug-out bags and get-home bags and stay-put bags, plus a grocery store nearby. Stuff to improve for next time: * Cardboard boxes are the enemy. They are to be treated as a threat to your family's safety, because they come apart as you move them from place to place, sometimes in the middle of traffic. Duct tape continues to be king, but even duct tape can't fix cardboard. * Need to get rifle cases. Throwing a bedsheet over a handful of longarms worked in a pinch, but basically advertised to everyone who knew what to look for. * We risked our lives on a 50 year old pickup bed/trailer conversion with a slow tire leak and cracks in the frame welds. Never again. Goodwill picked it up yesterday. * Need to work on a 90 second plank, and faster running, etc. And less fast food. Always room for improvement. * Don't get complacent. There may not always be air conditioning and safety and functioning credit card machines.

I got layed off during the "dot-com bubble burst" - they estimated 30% of the telecom people were walking the streets of Denver unemployed.I custom designed a resume for every job for which I applied. Eventually, I applied at a contracting firm that specialized in filling spots way below my pay grade and skillset. I got one of the best contract positions available in that area - only required high school - which is all my resume said for that job. I made them love me for a year and we lived very meagerly, then got a permanent job offer and told them about it. They fretted and said "oh, if only you had a college degree", and I said I did. My boss was no dummy, I think she had it pretty well figured out from the first interview. Sitting at a desk in your house, with several pens and a notebook so you can keep track. Start calling people you know. Write down who and when you called, what you talked about, and who they referred you to."Hello, Bob Hiringmanager? My name is LoudmouthMormon. I'm looking for work, and Morningstar told me you might have something available in the area of..." You practice 10 second blurbs about who you are and what you do. You research and practice for every call. You also practice a 45 second blurb in case someone actually has something. You do this an hour a day. This is hard for some people and easy for others. It was like pulling teeth for me, and I had to do it for 6 months before landing that hourly gig, but it turned out. If your ward has an employment workshop, they should be able to teach folks how to network.

Anyone who needs a psycologist should have his head examined.