Predictions for General Conference


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7 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

The other reason changes are expected is because a pattern has been set beyond last Apr Gen Conf.  There have been several changes since then - dropping scouts, church name reference, policy on interviews, update to Preach My Gospel, new curriculum, new history book released, no more paper mission calls, etc...

Change is happening.

I agree with Gator though...it would be awesome if nothing new was announce in General Conference. I would, honestly, laugh.

The reason for all the rumors is due to the apostles themselves saying there are changes coming.  They want us to watch and be prepared for it.  

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9 hours ago, e-eye said:

2 hour church 
Temple Marriage to just sealing
Lots of temples announced
Removal of stake auxiliaries
Changes with missionary work
Focus on in home family study
Focus on temple work
Smaller wards and stakes

My big shocker: Halloween celebration banned. 

 

Focus on in home family study I think would be great even if they did a by the spirit handbook of ideas or suggestions for family study. I think the first and best point of our spiritual growth should be at home and having your parents lead gospel study at home would be great and there should be no excuse if they lower Sunday meeting to 2hrs.

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7 hours ago, e-eye said:

The reason for all the rumors is due to the apostles themselves saying there are changes coming.  

How dare you...oh.....wait:

16 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Apostles have openly said more changes are coming.

 

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10 minutes ago, Vort said:

I am embarrassed for much of the membership of the Church that their idea of monumental and joyous change inspired by heaven is to cut our communal Sabbath day worship by a third.

I would hope that at least some of those who find such an idea monumental and joyous are truly and honestly excited by the idea of increased home focused worship. I expect (and perhaps unfairly), in that nothing is/has been stopping them from increased home focused worship heretofore, that even if they legitimately think they're excited by this idea, what they're really excited by (were they capable of being honest with themselves) is simply less worship.

It is indicative that much of the membership does not understand what true worship is -- having turned it inward and having made worship all about themselves and their so-called relationship with God, entirely missing the reality that one cannot have a true relationship with God without being about God's work.

The entire idea that "I attend church for me" is flawed from the get go. How much more sanctified might we all be if the premise was, "I attend church to serve God and to serve and uplift my fellowman"?

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On 10/3/2018 at 5:18 PM, Highlander said:

Focus on in home family study I think would be great even if they did a by the spirit handbook of ideas or suggestions for family study. I think the first and best point of our spiritual growth should be at home and having your parents lead gospel study at home would be great and there should be no excuse if they lower Sunday meeting to 2hrs.

This sounds kind of like what Family Home Evening used to be, complete with a manual.

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8 hours ago, SilentOne said:

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Does, "Law of Tithing now includes children" mean that children have to pay tithing -- or you have to pay 1/10th of your children to tithing.

Man...that's going to really suck for people with less than 10 kids.

1/10 of 3 kids = 1 leg, 1 arm...and....an eyeball.

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3 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Does, "Law of Tithing now includes children" mean that children have to pay tithing -- or you have to pay 1/10th of your children to tithing.

Man...that's going to really suck for people with less than 10 kids.

1/10 of 3 kids = 1 leg, 1 arm...and....an eyeball.

I know, right! When we had our first I make the rookie mistake of sending in a rib. Now I have to support him and his wife!

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On 10/2/2018 at 4:21 PM, The Folk Prophet said:

The other reason changes are expected is because a pattern has been set beyond last Apr Gen Conf....

In light of having two apostles who were asked about this conference, and both said the same thing, "You don't want to miss this next conference," allows the synapses to work overtime as to why they would say this. Both of which said this in September.

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17 hours ago, SilentOne said:

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Please provide me tickets to the first image for "steak conference" -- Yum!

Well, of course, a temple on Mars is required. We have a whole bunch of people who signed up to go to Mars and begin cultivating human civilization there. I understand one is a member, he will have them converted before they reach Mars.

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  • 3 months later...

I agree with many of e-eye's points.  I would include a couple of additional ones to the list:

-Word of Wisdom clarifications
-more leadership opportunities for women in the different areas of the church

The reason I think that there might be some updates to the way that the Word of Wisdom is defined is that it was never originally intended to be elevated to 'commandment' level, and wasn't lived as such until the early-mid 20th century.  Also, there is too much loose interpretation on what an appropriate vs. inappropriate 'hot drink' means.  Around the world, a lot of different hot drinks besides coffee and tea are consumed (kava, matte, etc) and they aren't expressly forbidden by the church.  However, often members in those parts of the world use that as a way of defining a more robust level of faithfulness (those who don't drink kava vs. those who do), and it causes a lot of judgment, misconceptions, etc.  After all, we have other prophetic counsel (staying out of debt, food storage, etc), that aren't given the same 'commandment/temple recommend question' status.  I can just see that the modern day interpretation of the Word of Wisdom is steeped in a lot of the 'Utah' church tradition and not really in what it was originally intended to be.  Anyway, my prediction is that in the globalization and de-centralization of the church that is happening now under President Nelson's leadership, I can see this Word of Wisdom clarification/update as being one of the changes.  My two cents...

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19 minutes ago, pablosocool said:

I agree with many of e-eye's points.  I would include a couple of additional ones to the list:

-Word of Wisdom clarifications
-more leadership opportunities for women in the different areas of the church

The reason I think that there might be some updates to the way that the Word of Wisdom is defined is that it was never originally intended to be elevated to 'commandment' level, and wasn't lived as such until the early-mid 20th century.  Also, there is too much loose interpretation on what an appropriate vs. inappropriate 'hot drink' means.  Around the world, a lot of different hot drinks besides coffee and tea are consumed (kava, matte, etc) and they aren't expressly forbidden by the church.  However, often members in those parts of the world use that as a way of defining a more robust level of faithfulness (those who don't drink kava vs. those who do), and it causes a lot of judgment, misconceptions, etc.  After all, we have other prophetic counsel (staying out of debt, food storage, etc), that aren't given the same 'commandment/temple recommend question' status.  I can just see that the modern day interpretation of the Word of Wisdom is steeped in a lot of the 'Utah' church tradition and not really in what it was originally intended to be.  Anyway, my prediction is that in the globalization and de-centralization of the church that is happening now under President Nelson's leadership, I can see this Word of Wisdom clarification/update as being one of the changes.  My two cents...

Some clarification as to precisely what substances are included may be helpful; but the part about “not given by way of commandment” is not part of the revelation itself (it was added as a preface for publication) and the Church was excommunicating people for nonconformance with the Word of Wisdom as early as 1838.

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33 minutes ago, pablosocool said:

Also, there is too much loose interpretation on what an appropriate vs. inappropriate 'hot drink' means. 

Not really. If you drink tea or coffee you cannot hold a temple recommend. Other hot drinks are left up to the individual. We are counselled to not use addictive or mind-altering substances, and to be wise with our health. Doing otherwise is inappropriate. But we are also counselled to not judge others. So the situation you described is pretty well covered.

37 minutes ago, pablosocool said:

I can just see that the modern day interpretation of the Word of Wisdom is steeped in a lot of the 'Utah' church tradition

By which you mean to say that temple recommends should or should not be held by those who drink kava?

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I do not drink coffee now days, but if they were too relax the standards and say it was no longer a commandment but rather advice...and we could go to the temple and drink coffee...I'd be in the crowd rushing to the store to pick up some.

Of all the things to give up to join the church, that's the one that I miss the most.

That said, I'm not sure loosening up the way commandments are is the best way to go about things.  It normally can lead to things like apostasy for a religion over time.  AS things are "loosened" up the things held holy are held less holy and the perception of those who are against the church to feel that they actually INFLUENCE the church grows until we get a situation like the ancient times where you have several factions in the church itself.  It then becomes a secular matter where a ruler and a council determine what is correct doctrine (including with ordinances) and what is not rather than the Lord.

The Word of Wisdom obviously would not be something that goes that far, but when talking about the loosening of commandments it can always be a scary proposition considering what happened with the Great Apostasy in the past.

Of course, on the opposite hand you have what the Jews did with their church where they tightened and tightened and restricted and restricted with more and more interpretation of commandments and scripture until they followed the Law so tightly that they had no understanding of the Law and thus lacked  keeping anyways.  (though, it should be noted, they were STILL the true religion when the Lord was in his mortal ministry as he was a member...though John the Baptist was the one with the Authority and the Lord established his church among them that was the correct church afterwards.  Unlike what happened with the Great Apostasy, even if we lose the understanding and thus the ability to truly keep the law, as long as we retain the commandments and such it seems we can still have the correct religion even if it's hidden and misunderstood as it was during the mortal ministry of our Lord.

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What I'm stating is that the decision to raise the level of the Word of Wisdom to a 'Commandment' has varied over the years.  The prophet Joseph was known to have an occasional glass of wine.  Different leaders varied on their opinions and it has been enforced differently over the generations (i'm sure this would be much to the surprise of many members).  My main statement relates to the fact that even though hot drinks were defined at early times as being 'coffee & tea' as well as later by President Heber J Grant, if you look closely at the historical records, the church hasn't always stressed this in temple recommend interviews.  Now that the church is more global, coffee and tea don't constitute all the hot drinks that are available and consumed by people worldwide.  Some of these hot drinks are found to have some stimulants in them (kava, matte, etc).  So why aren't they banned.  And now that the church has stated that it's never been interested in prohibiting caffeine - but you still have orthodox members that won't drink it - like it's some 'higher law'. 

I'm not saying that the church will all of a sudden say that it's okay to drink coffee or tea, but what i'm saying is that they may change the way that the Word of Wisdom is regulated and turn it back to 'counsel' and not make it a temple recommend question.  It just gets too complicated with all the substances that are available and consumed worldwide.  Can you imagine what would happen if in the temple recommend you were asked a question like, "do you have your food storage" or "are you free from consumer debt".  Certainly we have heard much counsel about these issues over the years.  Obviously we don't hear those questions, but we certainly have been counseled repeatedly. Also, don't you get tired of hearing members justify what kinds of tea are supposedly ok (herbal is ok - but green tea isn't??), i mean really, it gets kind of ridiculous to listen to.  

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10 hours ago, pablosocool said:

What I'm stating is that the decision to raise the level of the Word of Wisdom to a 'Commandment' has varied over the years.  The prophet Joseph was known to have an occasional glass of wine.  Different leaders varied on their opinions and it has been enforced differently over the generations (i'm sure this would be much to the surprise of many members).  My main statement relates to the fact that even though hot drinks were defined at early times as being 'coffee & tea' as well as later by President Heber J Grant, if you look closely at the historical records, the church hasn't always stressed this in temple recommend interviews.  Now that the church is more global, coffee and tea don't constitute all the hot drinks that are available and consumed by people worldwide.  Some of these hot drinks are found to have some stimulants in them (kava, matte, etc).  So why aren't they banned.  And now that the church has stated that it's never been interested in prohibiting caffeine - but you still have orthodox members that won't drink it - like it's some 'higher law'. 

I'm not saying that the church will all of a sudden say that it's okay to drink coffee or tea, but what i'm saying is that they may change the way that the Word of Wisdom is regulated and turn it back to 'counsel' and not make it a temple recommend question.  It just gets too complicated with all the substances that are available and consumed worldwide.  Can you imagine what would happen if in the temple recommend you were asked a question like, "do you have your food storage" or "are you free from consumer debt".  Certainly we have heard much counsel about these issues over the years.  Obviously we don't hear those questions, but we certainly have been counseled repeatedly. Also, don't you get tired of hearing members justify what kinds of tea are supposedly ok (herbal is ok - but green tea isn't??), i mean really, it gets kind of ridiculous to listen to.  

You are, of course, right that the Church’s stringency in enforcing the Word of Wisdom varied for the first eighty years of its existence.  That said, your original assertion about what it was “never intended” to be, is clearly inaccurate as a matter of history.  

More to the point, the current practice was implemented by a prophet of the Most High whose priesthood, calling, and divine sanction match those of Joseph Smith in every relevant respect.  Of course President Nelson (and any of his predecessors) could, if God so ordained, change the current implementation of the Word of Wisdom to make the Church more like it was in Joseph’s day.  He could also restore polygamy (and require that men initiate it without the knowledge or consent of their first wives), as Joseph did.  He could call married, employed men as missionaries on sight and insist they leave practically immediately with zero means of support for themselves or their families—as Joseph did.  He could declare his candidacy for President of the US and, during his campaign, have himself crowned king of the world and select a council of fifty men to transition the world into a “theodemocracy”—as Joseph did.  He could stand at the head of multiple military forces and send one of them into hostile territory knowing full well he was provoking an armed confrontation—as Joseph did.  He could have women swear unconditional loyalty and obedience to their husbands—as Joseph did.  He could participate in theological debates that degenerated into a physical altercation with his own brother—as Joseph did.  

I can respect (though I don’t necessarily agree) with folks who are puzzled by the seeming ambiguities in the Word of Wisdom and wish for clarification; or who sincerely wonder to what degree it will be applicable in the future.  On the other hand, if they kvetch about the role the WoW has in the modern Restored Gospel and justify themselves with a purported desire to practice Mormonism the way Joseph Smith practiced it—well, I’m going to expect them to endorse and live *everything* that Joseph taught and did; and if they don’t, then it becomes regrettably easy for me to suspect that their purported adoration for Joseph Smith is a cover for some other agenda—an agenda demanding that being a member of the Church only get easier, never harder.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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4 hours ago, pablosocool said:

Clearly you are missing the point of my opinion. That’s okay. I won’t try and convince you further as you don’t seem open to try and understand 

Oh, I daresay I’m quite as open to relaxing the Word of Wisdom as you are to resurrecting polygamy.  Possibly more so. ;) 

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