NeuroTypical

"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.

And it kills me to say this, but I have to be honest with everyone here and with myself. As my family looks for a computer that will let us teach our kids graphic design and do animation and stuff, we're probably better off looking at Macs than PCs. Aren't we. The full truth can't be found in the church of Windows. I hope you all appreciate how hard this is for me to admit. This is tantamount to me deciding I don't want the ketchup in the refrigerator any more. Anyway, the only thing I know about Macs, is that $300 is about as much as we will have to spend on one. I need to start learning. Does anyone have links to the Mac version of a leaving-mormonism board? Any suggestions on what I should look at?

I read through the questions. Man, there are a lot of clueless people out there. I was one of them on a few questions. Couldn't remember that Maimonodes was Jewish. Wasn't certain that yes, a public school teacher can read from the Bible as an example of literature. Had a hard time remembering the differences and names in Buddhism and Hinduism.

Understandable. I have two comments:First, mormons are big on the concept of "By their fruits ye shall know them." So by all means, look at us and our history with a critical eye. (And by critical eye, I do not mean the eye of a critic, but with the eye of someone who is looking for the truth, and will listen to both sides of the story.) Second, consider for a moment the phrase "The only good reason to be a Mormon, is you believe God wants you to be one." Membership in our church hinges on gaining a personal testimony - direct, unambiguous, unmistakable communication from God to you, that our church is what it claims to be, and the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be. With such a testimony, it doesn't really matter what our history looks like. Without such a testimony, it doesn't matter how good we look. Glad to have you here looking around, King.

I pray that this turns into a true promotion...I'm only guessing here, but I think Prisonchaplain may be hinting at the additional possibility of non-financial compensation here. If not, let me advance the notion.Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

I forget which middle-eastern culture came up with this saying, but: Pray to God, but row away from the rocks. That said, I have personally witnessed a miracle while giving a blessing to my wife.

There is no shame in not taking the sacrament.If someone sees a person not taking the sacrament, and decides to commit the sin of unrighteous judgement, and engage in sinful gossiping, then that person has a problem which reflects only on them. In other words, yes, you can find unrighteously judgemental people in our church, and yes, a person who is going through the repentence process may feel like they're being discussed behind their back. But in my experience, the majority of the mormons I've seen, feel compassion and love when they see a brother or sister not taking the sacrament, and they don't think anything further than that.

From a practical "don't wander into the freeway" standpoint: Women in the military experience sexual harassment from their groping, boorish, drunken, sexist, horny male counterparts constantly. If you are a woman who is capable of handling such behavior easily without much negative impact, go be in the military. If you are a woman with notions of social re-engineering, you will be in for a very rough ride, because either you will break, or you will break the military. (That's how I'm billing things to my daughters. I'd be proud if they choose to serve in the military, but I will make sure they go in prepared to handle the realities of things.)

If you end up in CO for work, you'll be in good company. We came to CO from UT in the late '90's. We lived within 20 miles of Littleton for about a year, before heading to parts south.Littleton is technically a southern suburb of Denver, but basically it's Denver. If you get a job there, make sure you plan life (housing, etc) to the south and southwest of the city, otherwise you will curse your fate trying to commute through Denver regularly. Other than big-city-traffic commute issues, we liked the area.

Here's a useful website with pictures, videos, and even open house schedules when the public can visit: LDS Temples - Mormon Temples - Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

From our Gospel Principles manual:

Ahh, buzzwords. They make a complicated life so easy to live.King, if you're interested in a thorough treatment of our church's history regarding blacks and the priesthood, there are many sources available. Like this one. Or this one. Or this one. If you're interested in tossing around soundbytes, you may find your time here unproductive and frustrating.

Hi Withdrawn, and welcome! Have you been baptized, or did you just come to church?

Yeah, if someone isn't 'winging it' with a 3 and 5 year old, what they're really doing is satisfying their own personal need to be organized. The kids don't care one way or the other. For the long term? My girls are 12 and 9. There's not much structure. There is a math curriculum. There is 1 day a week homeschool outreach through our school district. There are homeschool co-op classes. Everything else seems to me (a person who thrives in an organized environment) chaotic and random. But they just finished their required state evaluations - both are doing better than grade level in most areas. If I were boss, there'd be much more structure. But my wife is boss here, and the state is happy, my kids are happy, I see them learning and growing, so that's what it looks like. (By the way, you once asked what was up with My Little Pony? Well, we spent the 2012-13 school year learning everything about it. Look what someone in my family drew: ) Different kids have different needs, and different parents have different styles. I see a lot of stuff with other homeschoolers that we don't do, but they're headed to the same goal - create healthy, moral, capable, productive members of society, able to take care of themselves and contribute, and release them on the world.

Hi Klein! Kudos for knowing Mormons. Sometimes we can be hard to know. Sometimes, just the act of knowing us or being friends with us, and you feel pressured to take sides, but you're not sure which side, or even what the fence is supposed to be separating. :) I'm glad you're having a mostly positive experience with us. I'll take a brief shot at your concerns/observations: Yeah. We also walk around calling each other "Brother so-and-so" - that raises some eyebrows too. Briefly, the name of our church, the titles priesthood offices, and the ages thereof were all given by revealation. But the rest of it I think could change if we wanted.It's easier if you think about it like this: When a Catholic feels the call to join the priesthood, they have rites of ordination, vows of celebacy, join holy orders, put on special clothing, get Masters of Theology degrees, and all that. And nobody bats an eye, because they're Catholic priests, right? With mormons, if you're a male of a certain age, you are in the priesthood. Just about all of us. So since we're part of the priesthood, a lot of the terminology applies to us. Understandable. But consider the nature of egyptology. It's not like science. It's barely like archaeology. To a certain extent, it's a personality-driven cult of it's own, with battling leaders, each with their own group of fervent disciples who like to duke it out on who is right and who is wrong.There are many widely accepted facts in such circles. Some of these facts are difficult for mormons to grapple with. None of them prove Joseph a false prophet, or my church as untrue. Regarding genetic/linguistic evidence, there are several scholarly papers published on the issue, explaining why we would not expect to find any. There's a big difference between "Cherokees don't have Israeli DNA, therefore the Book of Mormon is false", and what DNA science actually looks like. If you have a few hundred hours, go nuts. Start with Butler, Roper, Whiting, and Sorenson.Regarding archaeological, consider the nature of archaeology. Any honest, self-respecting archaeologist will tell you openly, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Hardly a year goes by, without half a dozen totally unknown city complexes being discovered in central and south america. Jungles aren't known for their preservative qualities. Understandable, but consider a few things. This church was restored in the 1800's. It was the time most all of civilized planet earth was gearing up to fight over the issue of slavery. Our history spans the Civil war - and LDS folks stood with the North. More than one LDS missionary was harassed, run out of town, beaten, for supposedly "inciting our slaves to revolt". God doesn't radically alter a culture when he organizes His people. One would be equally justified in finding fault with Christianity in general, for it's Old testament practices of blood sacrifice, slavery, brutal deadly justice, and arcane laws regarding marriage and property. As a former apostate, who told the mormons in my life I wasn't interested, I can honestly say that I've only had the exact opposite experience. As I openly left the church for 6 years, I was loved, accepted, included, invited, and loved some more by the mormons in my life.However, I know that my experience is not everyone's. I believe your friend had the experience he describes. I'm sorry. On behalf of my fellow LDS, who are supposed to let the light of Christ shine from them everywhere, I apologize to your friend. My church is full of sinners. If you think about it, that's sort of the whole point. Learning what is righteous judgement, about things in your stewardship, and what is unrighteous gossipy judgementalism, is a good skill to learn and apply. Lots of mormons need to learn the skill. I daresay your life would be blessed if you'd learn it to a greater extent as well. Here is a link to a story. It's worth a read. Well, no. Learning how to admit that you fall short of perfection, need to repent, and how life is a constant striving to be better, is a wonderful thing. Again, the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum to display saints. I share your frustration that more saints need to realize this.God bless you Helmer. I'm looking forward to your next musical production. (Blatant honesty time: your next video production, not so much. Please forgive me.)

If you expect schools to instill your values, morals, ethics, senses of right and wrong, faith, important beliefs, or favorite colors in your kids, you may find yourself up a creek without a paddle. It has always been the parent's job. If you try to outsource part or all of it, you may be disappointed.

Huh. I occasionally roll in some fairly non-christian circles, but this is the first "they tip crappy" complaint I've heard.Seriously? A tip-tract instead of a tip? That's an offense against basic human decency (in America and places that tip at least). I'm a stingy 10+% tipper. I stinge, so we can afford the occasional critical-need case my wife comes across. My wife can spot someone having a hard day from a mile away. The other day she almost bought someone's loaded shopping cart because they had lost their wallet and had a house full of hungry teenagers and hubby was in another state.

Hey madink77 - it sounds like you could really, really use a good long book on the history of the restoration. I recommend Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling about Joseph Smith. It seems to be hailed by both critic and believer alike. If you're honestly LDS and just hearing such things for the first time - learn, think, and pray. I'm not sure how you made it so far without learning about our fascinating history, and how easily it's criticized, but here you are. Get ready to ask yourself why you believe what you believe. If you're some drive by critic, I recommend the Mormon Dialogue and Discussion Board. You can argue over there all day long.

Now see, that's not true either. The biological functions don't stop just because of orientation. There are other ways to "have babies" besides the God-ordained way. God gave us bodies, and minds to discover how things work. We figured out IVR, and surrogate parenting, and adoption, and fostering and guardianship of children, and maybe even cloning in the next 100 years. No really - all the different ways we humans go against God's program, are in God's program. No really Smeagums - you're coming from an idealogical perspective, which is fine, but you keep trying to justify/support your idealogical perspective in factually incorrect and uncharitable ways. I restate my question - have you ever known one of these people well enough to love them? If not, I restate my suggestion - you ought to. I'm guessing you would grow from the experience.

I'm not offended at all. Even if you removed the bolding and underlining, your statement was factually incorrect. There are many same-sex couples who want children.

This is uncharitable, unchristlike, and unrighteously judgemental. People do things that result in them not getting what they want all the time. Take you, for example. You're trying to make points people will accept, but you're using a bunch of inflammatory language which turns a lot of people off, so even though you want something, you're acting in ways keeping you from getting it. Phooey. My wife will never be able to create life again. Neither will I. Neither of us have damned ourselves or each other.Smeagums, have you ever known a homosexual well enough to love them as God commanded? You should give it a try.

Dude - you get to have thoughts occur to you. It's ok to take a breath here and not fret. It's what you do with your thoughts that matters. One advantage you might have on your mission, is to see things from the other guy's perspective. If you can understand why people resist the gospel, you can address their concerns. You will run into many people who think like korihor. These people are your brothers and sisters - Sons and Daughters of God - inheritors of a divine birthright. The more you can love them, the more you can understand them, the more you can help them.