Rain

This goes along so well with part of a book I am reading, Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn from Them, in fact the current spot I am in. Currently, it talks about the difference between obedience and fealty. That obedience can help us have good morals and be authentic, but fealty has us pretending.

It makes me think that you were typing, at least somewhat, like you talk. I am with an organization that interviews refugees and others about immigration. We record what is said on an app and it transcribes it for us, but it always needs a cleanup of mistranscribed words or who is saying what etc. "You know" is very common in people's language. There have been times when people have said it 80 times in the course of 60-90 min. Sometimes it is just a filler word, but sometimes people are just trying to make a connection. The latter is what I think of yours.

When I stop seeing people misunderstanding something someone said or did, and mobs attack them because of that misunderstanding and ruin their lives, maybe I will worry less about people knowing who I am. When I can be in another country and ask about where I can find such and such or how to do ____ without worrying that someone will rob my house while I'm gone then I'll think about not being anonymous. When I don't have to worry about what people will do to my loved ones or me because I advocate for refugees and other immigrants, then I will consider not being anonymous. I read through the transcript on YouTube, and it seems to me that he is less worried about actually being anonymous and more worried about how being anonymous may tempt you to be unkind and cruel. I try to be the same person I am online as I am offline. I try to be kind. I try to love friend and foe. I try to be empathetic. I understand that isn't the case for everyone. Until I feel safer communicating online, I'm always going to take some measures of anonymity. I'm aware that people will be able to figure out who I am anyway, but I hope that the measures I take can reduce how many people try.

I thought the same!

Have you practiced mindfulness? One book I read said that if you are being mindful then you won't be bored. I've wondered if that is true. I've been trying to be mindful, and the idea holds up for the short time, like I can wash dishes and not be bored for 10 min, but if I had to do it for hours I don't know how true that would be.

If it is the same story, it was in the Ensign. Maybe around 1997-2000? I don't remember when exactly, but I remember the couple being prayful about it and choosing that. It was a very tough choice for them.

I also had very high risk pregnancies and know the pain of losing a child. I knew that I had 3 children coming to me before they were born. Had I been faced in the situation of my life or the life of my first pregancy I would have made it a matter of prayer. Knowing I had 3 children, there is a chance, being prayerful I would have chosen my life to go on and trusted God with my first pregnancy. I made it a matter of prayer with the second child of whether to have one biologically or adopt. The answers were clear I should have one. If we came to the choice of me or that pregnancy I would made it a matter of prayer, but there is a chance the prayful answer would have been to choose my life to go on because my first child, a little boy, needed me. The same with the third pregnancy. Before my 3rd c-section we reminded the dr so many times about doing the tubal ligation and any other thing that could be done because we were confident that I wouldn't make it through another pregnancy. But there have been times since then that I have thought about what I would do if I got pregnant despite having surgery. Again we would have made it a matter of prayer and trusted the Lord and there is a chance we would have chose my life over a pregnacy while my children were still young. And maybe when they were older too. I no longer believe in the church, but still feel the same - we don't know God's whole plan for us or our children. We don't know when my first pregnancy truly became my son and the same for the other two. Our whole life has been filled with prayer, being willing to do what He wants and trusting Him. I'm happy to let other women work with God without me thinking I know better than they do about their own situations and I trust that God loves each of his children and has a plan for them, no matter how far they got in this life and how they left it.

Reading the book Misreading Scripture Through Western Eyes opened my eyes to this need. How can you really hold to the teachings of a book if you don't understand what the author means? Obviously, Dan doesn't know it all and probably has some things wrong, but he could be one of the tools people use to gain understanding.

It depends on when you use the second one. If people use it to say what is present in the bible then yes, one should follow the data. If people use it as part of their beliefs (like resurrection) then it may make sense to follow the dogma. We would have to know in what context Dan was using it.

It's not satisfying because it only works that way for some people, but it doesn't fit Nemo's situation or a lot of people. Generally it only fits people who feel they have done something wrong and need or want a clean slate to come back to and feel excommunication is part of that process. A reboot is only a reboot when it starts something over again. A reboot is not a reboot if the problems stay the same or get worse.

That acknowledgement has given me peace, but I understand it might not to others. But then through my life I have appreciated when people have acknowledged that things will be hard. It's like I was listened to.

I get it. Something grabbed hold of me with that talk, but I knew I didn't understand it at the time. I've since gained more understanding through reading books by Thich Nhat Hanh a Vietnamese Buddist monk, probably more in his book "No Mud. No Lotus. The Art of Transforming Suffering", but I couldn't say for sure it was that one. It doesn't really help with the thread question. Just that it helped me with gratitude in our circumstances rather than for them.

Perhaps this can help? Grateful in Any Circumstances By President Dieter F. Uchtdorf - Being Grateful in Our Circumstances, not just for our circumstances

By "do it to ourselves, do you mean to ourselves personally, or do you mean as humans as a whole?

Deleted. Changed my mind.

Yes, you do have to experience something to learn from it.

I have rarely had trouble trusting God and I think it is because the idea of God creating hardships for us never rang true to me. It's just not how I have ever felt or known parents to work. I mean there are some specific occasions like if your child wants to gain muscles you might hand him a heavier weight, but the majority of time I think just being mortal and living in an imperfect world throws you enough hardships that a parent or Heavenly Father doesn't need to give you more. Now I have had a hard time trusting that God is all powerful because he allows so much pain because I did trust him, but now that I have let go of him being all powerful and feel that he is not able to help all the time I no longer struggle with that.

It wouldn't surprise me if taking a picture in front of a temple was part of them trying to do missionary work on whatever social media they are in.

What is different about this from the prior monthly teacher training?

We really like it on spaghetti squash.

No. This is something I've always struggled with. If we understood then we wouldn't "need" it.

I get this idea and I somewhat agree with it and personally think that one can have meaningfull worship on a noisy, crowded bus too, but if the decorations, the music, the sounds, the design don't help people be in the right headspace why does anyone have them at all? It's because it helps those who are willing to try to get in the right space get there. I think what is wanted in chapels by those who complain is a change of focus. It wasn't all that long ago that the church said the hallways and foyers should have pictures that focus on Christ, yet the room where he is worshipped in a meeting house has no pictures/statues of Christ. So are most of those who are complaining they are not ornate enough really meaning they are not fancy enough or do they just mean the chapels themselves don't remind them of Christ?

I've only ever heard about it on the internet.

A past ward of ours had part of a retirement community and had that same thing. One particular street of nicknamed "Celestial Street" because so many of them lived on it. It wasn't very long. Just everyone moving in didn't end up living long.

This was 4 different stakes in 2 states so it's more widespread than that, but who knows how far.