Calm

Apparently in the semi recent (2013) past, women typically served teaching missions until 40, but at 40 were more often called on service missions. https://latterdaysaintmissionprep.com/call-process/missionary-age-requirements/ There was no age requirement for couples either, though they couldn’t be working full time and couldn’t have dependents children at home if on a away mission. So my question is can young service missionaries go on away (from home) missions or only serve from home?

Should have done this first…on the serve a mission home page: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/callings/missionary?lang=eng So there is an age limit for teaching missions for sisters…unless it’s been changed very recently and the online stuff is way behind. Possible, but not seeing anything in the newsroom about it.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/24?lang=eng#title_number2 Service missionaries who stay at home appear to be any age for women or men. Not sure about those away from home. This is what is confusing to me because other places use have service missions as away from home as well, but maybe only for senior? https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/young-service-missionaries-integrated-into-teaching-missions-2024 Has it changed since Jan 2024?

Belief vs knowledge….is there anyone who actually no longer believes, but knows they are wrong in that belief? Seems unlikely, even impossible.

I don’t know if this is still a dominant view even among members older than I am, but the idea that homosexual love could be that deep was not common at least among church members in my youth in my experience (and I lived on the San Francisco peninsula so there was quite a bit of discussion about it, including personal relationships with those who were open about their sexuality…though can’t remember any that were still members of the Church at the time after they came out. It was also a big deal at BYU). Some viewed it as a purely physical attraction, as in no one cared about what the other thought or wanted, it was just body hunger. Then there was the narcissism view…someone was only really in love with themselves…or a little kinder, only felt safe with someone like them. Others viewed as a fear of deep symbiotic relationships in general, so sure they may actually love each other, but it wouldn’t be a deep, committed love as they were going for the easier relationships (because it was seen as easier to understand and fill the needs of someone of the same sex). No doubt there were other ideas, but most likely had the attribute that such love was relatively easy to put aside and be replaced with something else, especially since that love would be so much more ‘real’ than what they had before.

It is very different than telling someone they will simply want to do less of what they want to do (have heterosexual sex/sexual attraction with fewer people or with the person you are in love with only when you are married and sealed to them). Even if there are other things we expect we will be doing that we aren’t happy about doing in the here and now (perhaps some people don’t want to be kind to people, serve others, etc), somehow I doubt anyone feels disgust towards those possibilities unless they are a real misanthrope. If they are, they have a whole host of issues with exaltation I am guessing, and are quite rare, so not exactly useful to wave away the difference between the ‘typical’ homosexual view of our current teaching of exaltation and the ‘typical’ heterosexual view of our current teaching****. Can’t think of anything that might be comparable outside of possibly polygamy (not saying it’s for sure to occur or how it will exist even if it happens as in may not be only polygyny if polygamy actually happens, but also polyandry) and even then there is still the likely inclination to have a close physical/sexual relationship with one person (it’s the idea of sharing that is disgusting, not sexual attraction/behavior) unless one is disgusted by sex in general. I expect a lot of heterosexuals believe homosexuals wouldn’t mind having sex with the opposite sex since they are physically capable of doing so (as evidenced by gay men who have been married with women and had children), they would just prefer to have it with their own sex even when those heterosexuals are disgusted by the idea of any form of homosexual sex themselves. ****I have no clue what the ‘typical’ view of a bisexual of exaltation would be. In the past I assumed it would be no big deal as opposite sex attraction was part of their current attraction set, but I now suspect it is more complicated than that based on how Nehor and others have described their experiences and so am not drawing any conclusions on whether it is naturally easier for them to accept teachings about exaltation than someone who is homosexual.

I believe young single missionaries can go on teaching missions until they are 25 if male, 29 for women (don’t know why there is a difference). There is also the option now to do service missions for that age group, not sure what the application process is. 26 years and older adults can start senior service missions. For regular missions, single women and men and couples over 40 without dependents under 18 at home can serve. In the info part of the senior missionary portal, it says senior elders can serve regular missions—meaning for them away from home, but won’t be in companionships while senior sisters may be in a companionship or not. In the handbook it’s still saying senior elders can only serve service missions while regular missions are referred to as teaching missions, so I am not sure what is going on. It may be service missions include away from home now and single senior elders will only serve those or the handbook is out of date. If there aren’t the usual service missions for the 18/19-25 group in their area, these young ones can do the same stuff as senior missions. Since I have no clue about this difference between junior and senior service missions, someone else will need to explain that distinction. https://seniormissionary.churchofjesuschrist.org/srsite/as/faq-brightspot?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/24?lang=eng

How so? The levels of intelligence you point out is one (assuming God could make everyone of the same level of intelligence), what others might we see now as unfair? I definitely agree with this. It’s not that what we will get will be so much better than what we deserve so there is nothing to complain about (eventually it seems we actually need to be able to actually ‘deserve’ it if God is just even if how we get to that point of capability is all about God’s mercy). I believe if we finally understand the why of what God does, the question of fairness will become irrelevant. Plus if we fill the measure of our creation, to me that means we will get to be all that we want to be, so why would we care about what others have or compare ourselves to them.

Ben, what difference do you see happening if Catholic priests were to start reporting confessions of child abuse given the practical concerns 3DOP mentions?

If someone views homosexuality as part of the natural man, it makes sense to see it as a temporary state, emotion, or drive that is removed along with anything else that is carnal/part of the natural man when we turn ourselves over to God to be purified (I do wish we used a different word than “natural” in “the natural man” as we see children as “natural” in their behaviour and innocence and we certainly don’t believe that innocence is getting expunged in the next life). I would assume most of that opinion see the same thing happening to those who have homosexual desires as those who have desires to have sexual relationships outside of marriage or even inappropriate sexual behaviour within marriage, like sexual abuse or ignoring the other’s needs in ordered to be sexually satisfied oneself.*** So not magic or even unique to homosexuality, just part of the santification and justification process of accepting Christ’s Atonement that everyone must go through for exaltation. Temple work would be the same as for any single person or anyone that lacks a marriage record or any record at all for that matter (which is probably a very significant part of humanity), the information to perform temple work will have to be revealed. ***I assume this because this was my position in the past. At this point I am solidly in the ‘I don’t know’ category when it comes to both homosexuality and heterosexuality, though intellectually I am leaning towards no one is going to have sexual attractions in the same way we do in mortality because the experience of eternal relationships will be so far more all encompassing of our being because we will not only have the time to develop deeper and more intense relationships but also have so much greater ability to do so because of our increased understanding of each other and ourselves. Just think of what we could do now in our relationships of any kind if we could dump the baggage that leads to fear and holding back, absurd dislikes and reactions, etc. Therefore, in my view there will be no need for instinctual drives or programming to help us want to act, to make decisions, or to take risks…all things necessary to create any kind of relationships in this life, but especially longterm companionship ones because of upfront and potential costs if they fail. Plus I believe we will have so much personal self control/agency we will be able to choose our emotions and what functions as our motivators, so again sexual drives we are wired with will be a thing of the past. We will choose who we are attracted to and why and anything else in our personality not because we are made that way either by physical attributes or social influences, but because those attributes suit what we want to become. Of course, this becomes an issue of why we want to become what we want to become…ultimate cause and all, which is why my ultimate position is solidly “I don’t know”.

I don’t think assuming one knows others’ motivations based on limited info is wise. Too much error can occur and it stops communication with those one is othering by doing so, imo. You stop really listening imo once you assume you know why (on a fundamental level) someone is saying something.

If we are talking about the fullness of eternal truth, everyone in mortality is ignorant to some degree.

Intensity is not always ire. If it was, I would be known in my home as an angry old woman.

And then going off on how it being mango teaches us we need to have a solid center because it has a stone, etc….

Same here.

They are a very pro missionary family. I think likely Merrill and his wife went on a mission because they wanted to. I have in-laws currently in Vietnam on a mission. We won’t do it because of my and my daughter’s health issues, but my husband goes helps out cleaning weekly at the temple now, used to help out at the Bishop Storehouse. Probably will do that again in the future knowing him. My guess is the Osmond boys might have preferred going on missions to get a break from all the hard work they did (they had very regimented lives from what I heard and now read).

I hate having to think about punctuation as it ruins my train of thought. It’s automatic when writing. There is also something odd about hearing myself talk…not like I don’t talk to myself all the time. I assume that odd feeling disappears quite quickly though. Still dictation is tons better than it used to be.

I try to keep sodium low in my diet plus I hate the aftertaste…which makes me more prone to not brushing. But it’s always my backup, especially if my mouth is tender for some reason. I am liking the new toothpaste, a little chalky…because it actually uses chalk, lol. I had just scanned the ingredients to be sure no problems with it, so hadn’t made the effort to actually register what was in it; when I first got hit with the ‘inhaled the chalk dust while cleaning the chalkboard’ afterfeel, I was thinking “hmm, I wonder what ingredient gives that chalky impression” and promptly read “calcium carbonate” from “chalk”.

He isn’t saying most people who are in a better place have this belief, he is saying those who hold it are typically better off (it might be a large or small percentage of those better off who believe this).

And when will resurrection take place for those who will be exalted in your view? What are your thoughts about Joseph’s comment that “the principles of the Gospel--you must begin with the first...go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world”?

I see it as not fair now. It will be made so by God in the next life (which to me means we all end up prior to the final judgement—whatever that is—sharing all the pain, processing it together and then being healed together or perhaps God somehow individually removes the negative effects of mortality on us while keeping the positive effects and adding to them as we each take our time fully accepting the Atonement and turning ourselves over to him.

Greek and other ancient languages often used precise numbers for nonprecise things though, iirc, so it seems wise to avoid assuming it meant the precision such fractions mean today. Since my mind is going blank for example in Greek cultures (been way too long since I studied it), a centurion in the late Roman Republic had closer to 80 men under his command in the “century” instead of 100, even though “century” meant 100. The numbers reported for armies in the Bible are often debated as whether symbolic, literal, typos…

Well stated

I mostly agree with this up to the point where one starts trying to influence other members’ behaviors. I see it as similar in one sense to warning potential victims of someone’s past criminal behavior in that public behavior, behavior involving others in the community should be a concern of those who have stewardship over the community. I believe there are many noncriminal social behaviors the bishop should at the very least make an effort to be aware of. I use the idea of a member’s criminal past behavior as an example solely to make the point that it makes sense for the bishop at times to be proactive to protect the community because I think most people agree that is a good thing. I am not saying where the line should be drawn because I don’t know and suspect it greatly depends on the circumstances and who is involved and each of their strengths and weaknesses. I don’t see the bishop as having the role of ward police where he goes looking for the ‘lawbreakers’, but I also see a need for a strong interest in people’s lives to be able to truly serve them well. I am not certain myself when the bishop should wait upon the member coming to them and when he should reach out. I can even see some private behavior where I would hope the bishop would reach out without waiting for the person to come forward even if no significant harm to others beside the individual would be caused if one didn’t. I am thinking along the lines of someone who has no family and definitely no dependents or significant responsibilities acting in ways that mostly only harm themselves, such as not seeking out treatment for severe depression or drug dependency; I would hope the individual’s needs matter to a bishop as much as the community’s needs; after all, a community is made up of individuals. I don’t have a clue on how this should work out practically speaking, except to say the bishop needs to view each member of his ward with great respect and hopefully love, though the latter may be difficult.

I think there could have been a real problem with security or fans traveling to meet them where they were serving, even back then…though I used to see Donny (he was about a year older than I was) walk around BYU campus on his own a few times. One of his older brothers dated a girl in my dorm and I would see the floor get sparse when that happened. It was ridiculous.