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Rain

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Posts posted by Rain

  1. 2 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

    "You won’t find this process spelled out in any manual. The Holy Ghost will be your personal tutor as you seek to understand what the Lord would have you know and do. This process is neither quick nor easy, but it is spiritually invigorating. "

    Ahh.  So men can be told and tutored in many manuals and conference talks and in the scriptures etc. and they can use the Spirit as they read and listen to these resources and be spiritually invigorated, but women can only use inspiration from the Spirit. The same inspiration that members are told must agree with what priesthood leaders have said (or will say when women tell of those inspirations). And strangely women can have lessons about all of these things that are about the men in lessons, conference etc - they just can't get it about themselves.

  2. 2 hours ago, JAHS said:

    Maybe it is something women will have to wait for.

    "Maybe."  Can you see how hard it might be for some women to wait for a "maybe"? Some women hurt and struggle so much and the best that can be said is maybe in the next life she will get it?   

    2 hours ago, JAHS said:

    We are told in the temple we will someday become Kings and Queens and Priests and Priestesses, which implies that some sort of added power and authority will be given to women; more than they have now.

    I don't see how that is implied.  We are told "There is no other religious organization in the world, that I know of, that has so broadly given power and authority to women"  and "How I yearn for you to understand that the restoration of the priesthood is just as relevant to you as a woman as it is to any man. Because the Melchizedek Priesthood has been restored, both covenant-keeping women and men have access to “all the spiritual blessings of the church”.  As if there is some kind of equal footing with men now.  What makes you think the next life will be any different when women are called Queens and Priestesses?  Added power doesn't mean equal.

  3. 5 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

    I think you need to read ALL my posts in this thread.

    Addendum: I have much sympathy for those who sincerely struggle and esp. their family members, having put my parental figure through that.

    Those who life's mission is to attack the Church... not so much. As I don't excuse my own previous behavior.

    I find most people who attack are actually wounded in some way.  That doesn't mean we should open ourselves up to more attacks (even if the scriptures say turn the other cheek), but it does mean that sometimes we should have patience and love for them and see if we can understand them better to help them heal.

  4. 7 hours ago, Tacenda said:

    I know so it seems the members can't get a break. But a lot of times members don't even bring up missing not seeing those that quit coming, or ask why.

    I have heard much discussion of those that are missing over the years as I was in leadership or my husband was in leadership. Also a lot fo assumptions of why people were missing, but also a lot of plans to bring people back without knowing why.  What my husband and I have both seen in ward councils was a lot of concerns, but not very good plan-making or planning to understand. I think people get overwhelmed with not only their own lives, but the many people who are missing and the others who have struggles of every kind. 

    Then there are also worries like mentioned by someone above that they don't want to offend.  You just never know if you should contact someone or not. 

    whatever it is I think most of the time it's not that people don't care or don't miss those not attending anymore. It's more the road to good intentions...We need to learn to love those who have stayed when we haven't and those who have left when we haven't.  And have some grace for the mistakes we both make.   

    7 hours ago, Tacenda said:

    Is it because they've been warned about doubters or ? The first counselor and bishop knew of my doubts because I brought it up to the counselor when he was calling me to teach Primary after being released as RS secretary after serving for the full time. I wasn't sure if I could truthfully testify to the lessons I'd be teaching since it was the D&C year of study.

     

  5. 7 hours ago, Amulek said:

    Imagine for a moment that Brad Wilcox had said or posted something that caused a similar uproar (hard to believe, I know ;)).

    If he then came out and said the same sort of thing, "As we read through the comments, we were moved by some of the experiences you've had. As a member of the Young Men General Presidency, I can assure you that we and our Church leaders are listening and learning from the things you have shared with us." Would you find that equally problematic?

    I take the "we" as being a reference to themselves as a presidency. And I don't really think the "our Church leaders" wording was intended to emphasize their otherness in the sense that they don't view themselves as leaders per se, but merely to acknowledge that the leaders who they share in common with us are doing the same thing they are (i.e., listening).

     

    I suspect it will be the case for quite some time (possibly always) that there will be those who consider only those with institutional administrative authority as being "real" leaders. I fell into that camp myself when I was younger (like tween-age, younger), but it was something I grew / matured out of.

    So, here is my question: If this is the problem then what is the remedy?

    Is it something that, culturally, we just need to grow / mature out of collectively? Or was Kate Kelly right - the only way to remedy the problem is to ordain women to priesthood office and place them into positions where they can wield supreme executive power?*

    Calm did a good job on answering the other questions.  I just wanted to add here. I know of very few women who want to be ordained with what men have in the way they have it.  We have been told that women have power and authority etc. but somehow that is supposed to magically happen perhaps when you are 18, perhaps when you go to the temple etc, but there is no ordination for all these women and there are no responsibilities or blessing specifically with it that women have been told about other than for callings, but having a calling is not the same thing as being ordained to the priesthood.  So many women would like to know more about this power and authority that compliments what the men have and they want to know how and why it is different than being ordained as men do.  Until they understand that then talking about the priesthood that women hold? (do they hold it?  what exactly is their relationship with it?) feels kind of like empty words to many.  

    7 hours ago, Amulek said:

     

    *Sorry, I was going to say something else, but the Monty Python bug hit me and I couldn't resist. :)

     

     

    I get it that it was a joke for you and you were trying keep things lighter, but know that for many it may be making a wound because women are told so often that they shouldn't be so prideful as to aspire to holding the priesthood or having callings like a bishop when usually what they are really asking for is often misunderstood.

  6. On 3/25/2024 at 2:09 PM, Tacenda said:

    Yes, Ecuador is a whole different matter. Many are crossing the border illegally. And the country isn't doing well with a recent uprising. I also looked up the safety issues if you're a tourist. And it's not good. That's why I worry about my son. He's blond etc, and will stick out like a sore thumb. Or I truly do think it would be a cool experience. I also think if she were to go back for two years and be with her family again after already being away two years would be a good idea. And my son could visit her. Besides, don't couples stick it out when one of them go on a mission or even the military. But I don't dare voice this opinion around my son and soon to be DIL. :)

     

    Some couples stick it out, but many do not.  With missions I'm not sure that is a bad thing (even though my husband and I were together before our missions) as sometimes they are so young and being a little more mature afterward has them choosing someone better for them.  With the military, depending on the military person's experiences things can be rough for couples and it may break them up. My parents stayed together, but it wasn't easy. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but sometimes it just makes for a faster way to break up.  So it really just depends on the couple.

  7. 52 minutes ago, Teancum said:

    I retract the part about most members as for as members are represented on this thread. And I had not seen other posts till after I poster my comment.

    However, I can tell you, as I have shared before, for quite some time after I stopped attending, nobody, and I mean nobody, from the ward I was a bishop of for almost 6 years, as well as a EA president, ward mission leader, YM president, councilor in a bishopric and so on, reached out to check on me and ask why I was not attending, save one friend who was my first councilor while I was a bishop.  And he knew about my faith journey anyways.  So what message should I take away from the ward I have lived in for over 40 years.  And most of those years I was an active believing member. This group that did not reach out included a number of friends that I thought I was close to.

    I'm sorry you lost those friendships.  As a bishop I'm sure you grew to love so many you served and to lose those loved ones on top of the struggles with faith must have been very difficult and lonely.

  8. 29 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

    I can opine about that.  We don't want to turn into the Church of Christ.  Or any other Protestant/Evangelical church run by a board, who structure their finances in ways to maximize their tithing intake.  Here's a sad and tragic page where the CoC is basically apologizing to it's members for the recent sale of church assets.  Trying to smooth ruffled feathers and calm upset hearts.  They have so many needs (and scriptural mandates), and not nearly enough funds to meet the needs.  Plus they need to spin their numbers in ways that don't upset people and keep them donating.  This is what Analytics and Teancum and SeekingUnderstanding would turn our church into.  

    No, this is not what they are saying should happen. 

    29 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

    You are proposing we take the 1st presidency and Qo12, with their claims of being led by revelation, and sort of replacing them with some sort of democratic rule by it's members.   No thank you.  We're the CoJCoLDS.  Either our church was restored by, and is run by Christ, or it's not. 

    President Nelson thought the idea of good information making for good inspiration was true enough that he quoted it in conference. 

    The church already can and does gather info through surveys, interviews, reading newspapers etc so they can have good info helping them get good inspiration/revelation. I know of no reason why financial things would need to be excluded from this info gathering.

    29 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

    The word "authoritarian" doesn't really fit.  It's sort of a word describing human politics and governments.  And authoritarian governments are largely ruled by various nasty forms of force or coercion.  My last 15 or so tithing settlement appointments with the Bishop, he didn't even look at the numbers.

    Heh - you know what?  I just checked:  This Wikipedia page keeps changing.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_religious_organizations  Not 6 months ago, it had the CoJCoLDS listed 2rd - behind (and dwarfed by) the Greek Orthodox.  Heh.  There has been Catholic activism afoot in Wikipedialand!  LDS Wikieditors, to arms!  Fight the Wikibattle for a more accurate public perception!   (Here's an archived version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_wealthiest_religious_organizations&oldid=1129411784.   Boy is it interesting reading through the Wiki revisions pages! :D )

     

     

  9. 8 minutes ago, BlueDreams said:

    You would still need women for the true order of prayer, which needs an equal amount of men and women. Even with the most recent changes, that's still a thing. When I was a worker, if there were not enough women in the session, they'd ask us to fill in at this part to complete the session. I haven't gone to a ton of endowment sessions post changes, but from what I could see they called men and women and if there was an uneven number to volunteer, they would ask for the needed amount of men or women to fill the gaps. 

    So you wouldn't be able to complete an endowment ceremony, even with the most recent changes. 

    And symbolically it wouldn't work/make sense, even with the new changes. It's strongly about bringing the two genders together and in an alignment that expands the work of God through said ordering. 

    The aspects that can be done without women are the preparatory aspects of the endowment for the men: the initiatory and new name ceremony. And obviously baptism, the GoHG, and Sacrament can be done without women present. 

    All higher ordinances though entail and need both men and women to function. And since you need both and initiatory/new name are preparatory ordinances for the endowments, you can't have a functioning ordinance without the women's side being done as well. Which makes the work of the matrons and female temple workers (particularly ordinance workers) essential. 

     

    With luv,

    BD

    Ahh. Thanks.  

  10. 1 hour ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

    Seeing as Temples cost between $7 and $70 million to build depending on size and location and the Church only seems to be ramping up Temple building....

    So, average cost $30 million x (will say) 200 (at present)= $7 billion

    With about 25-30 new Temples announced each year.

     

    I'm guessing that's where some of the money will go.

    Guessing is the key word there.  I don't doubt it, but we can't know it either.

  11. 2 hours ago, Analytics said:

     

    Likewise, Ensign Peak Advisors spends something like $8 billion a year on the Church's religious, educational, and humanitarian missions increasing the size of Ensign Peak Advisors investment portfolio. (By the way, do you think effectively spending $2.2 billion on a research and educational institution is easy? Do you have any references to where they say their goal is to spend 5% to 5.5% of the principle of their endowment on Harvard because doing so effectively is easy, and if allocating money were to someday become difficult they would stop making distributions?)

    I never said the Church should use fixed percentage as a benchmark for international humanitarian expenditures. Stop lying.

    What I have done is explained in detail based upon my own professional expertise why a $150 billion "rainy day fund" is obscenely too big for a rainy day fund. Your rants about how spending even 5% of that in a single year proves my point.

    Professor Aaron Miller who teaches nonprofit management and ethics at BYU agrees with me on that point and in an article in Public Square, argues that the EPA fund should be thought of as an endowment, not as rainy day fund. Dr. Miller is one of the dozen or so academic resources I've pointed to that explains the prevalence of and justification for the 5% rule. In his words, "Many private foundations annually distribute a minimum of 5% of their total assets." 

    My patient explanation of this are among the most meticulously reasoned things ever made on this forum. In theory I could be wrong, but when you say it is unreasoned you are projecting. I'm doing the opposite of that.

    No I'm not.

    More specifically, what I have done is summarized, with references, the different ways the vast majority of endowments deal with the issue of achieving a balance of savings and spending. I then said, "I'll go on record as saying that I'd find any spending rule that is broadly in harmony with any of these rules to be perfectly commendable by the Church."

    Please don't insinuate I ever denied that. I work in the world of finance. Allocating resources is very difficult. Superlatively so.

    How much the Church ought to spend and how it ought to spend it are two different questions.  On this narrow topic I'm appropriately addressing one of the questions and not the other.

    Let's take a step back and remember how we got here. Critics, including a former EPA senior portfolio manager, have accused the Church of hoarding money. They are right, which is why I agree with them. People then asked me to explain why it is saving too much money. What is my basis for saying that? How much should it spend or save? People ignorant of how finance works suspected that the senior portfolio manager was being arbitrary in his criticism that the Church is saving too much.

    To explain why his position (and mine) is the polar opposite of being arbitrary, I cited multiple references that support what BYU Professor Aaron Miller said, "Many private foundations annually distribute a minimum of 5% of their total assets." I went into great detail, supported by academic references, about why they did that. I also listed several variations of the 5% rule, all of which are well thought out. I then said, "I'll go on record as saying that I'd find any spending rule that is broadly in harmony with any of these rules to be perfectly commendable by the Church."

    That's my answer to the question of "how much should the spend?"

    If you honestly think the Church couldn't possibly spend 5% of Ensign Peak's assets on an annual basis on its religious, educational, and humanitarian mission, that proves my original point: the Church has too much money.

    That is true.

    I have considerable expertise in determining how much large organizations should save vs. spend. Multi-billion dollar insurance companies routinely pay me $550 an hour to help them answer that question in the context of insurance. On this topic, I know what I'm talking about in the same way you know what you are talking about when discussing Utah real estate law.

    As an example, in insurance there is a detailed calculation called "Risk Based Capital" which is basically a formulaic determination of the minimum required level of an insurance company's surplus (i.e. it's rainy day fund). I'm currently working with a company that has reasonably determined that out of an abundance of caution, it wants its surplus level to be 450% of the minimum RBC level. That is an eminently reasonable and conservative target level of surplus. However, this particular company has a surplus level closer to 900% of RBC. The company's senior management agrees with me--its rainy day fund is too large. The question of what to do about it is a related but different issue. The company could use the money to try and grow. It could try to acquire new businesses. It could give its executives obscene bonuses. It could return the money to stockholders in the form of dividends. There are lots of things the company could do with the money, and making those decisions in an effective manner is very, very, hard. The fact that this particular company hasn't figured out the answer of what to do with its excess surplus doesn't change the fact that it has too much money.

    The point is that I can tell this company that it has excess capital (something that I am qualified to determine), without knowing how it should deploy the excess capital. 

    These. Are. Two. Different. Questions.

    The Church is enriching itself. Unless its mission is to hoard money as an end in and of itself, it has too much money.

    Making money for the purpose of making money is exactly what hedge funds do.

     

    You make me even more interested to see whatever it is they want to do with it. 

  12. 9 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

    Do you think that there ISN'T a plan to do this already in place and being implemented? That the 44% increase in charitable giving over the last two years just happened by accident?

     

    That's the thing. No one knows because no one is told. 

    Here is one problem with looking at the available info and saying "yes, there was a plan to increase".  In 2020 many people lost a lot of income. 2021 was tough for a lot of people too.  Part of this giving is based on fast offerings which most likely increased as more people made more money each year - not just in people getting past covid, but also with income raises. If the giving by the church is based on the giving by the people is it accidental or by plan that the amounts given by the church increased as more people gave more money? 

    Is that what happened?  Who knows? It's just we can't really know if there was a plan to increase if we have partial info.

    Now pro for having a plan to increase shows possibilities in giving machines.  Quite a few more giving machines were placed in Arizona in 2023 than there were in 2022.  That means the church spent more in providing all that goes into the machines. So that shows evidence of a plan.  But if money from the giving machines comes from outside sources (people purchasing items from the machine) does the increase that comes from that and is included in the reports really count as the church giving? If Walmart has a giving bin at their door does Walmart get to count the items dropped into it? Because that's basically what the giving machines are.  

    So really, we are back to we don't have enough info to say the church has a plan to increase actual giving from the church.

  13. 1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

    This speaks exactly to my point - I'm not married to the Church or its leaders, I'm not married to God, the comparison doesn't ring true in my gut. It's not intuitive to me, and I don't see any paradigm-independent reason why I should change that. We're talking pre-rationally here. 

    You don't need to change it. I was explaining how your post changed things for me. 

    I don't see it as only a marriage relationship type of thing.  I see other relationships where people feel they need to be open with money as well. 

    So if you feel comfortable with it then I'm good with that. It would be nice if people who didn't feel comfortable with it got the choice to look at the numbers.

  14. 4 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

    Good point. If globalization has taught me anything, it's that Perverse Incentives (aka the Cobra Effect) are ever and always to be watched for. Easy solutions are rarely what they seem. 

    In the end, the thing that seems to matter most for me is that I never felt that the Church owed me an accounting of the returns of its investments on tithing funds. There was no duty to breach, not to me. But some things are fine in some relationships that would be dealbreakers for others. The roots of this particular disagreement are sentimental, I think, and essentially pre-rational. 

    When you talk about relationships here it reminds me of my relationship with my husband. I've for a long time have felt  not strong either way on the church sharing what it does with the money. I've seen reasons why it would be good and reasons why it wouldn't be.  But your post flips me into firmly thinking it should be shared.  As you say, some in a relationship don't share/account, but I could not imagine not fully sharing with my husband who I am closer to than anyone. True, this is supposed to be a parent child relationship with God, but the leaders who run it here on earth are still human and not our parents so it makes perfect sense for them to share about finances with their fellow brothers and sisters.

  15. 3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

    Oddly there are only two callings which have each individual person in the ward in their direct  responsibility.

    Wanna guess?  Don't read on.

     

    One is the Bishop, 

    Yes

    3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

    And the other is....

    the Sunday School President!

    No.  He is not over primary children.

    However, Elder Quorems President sort of is depending on how you look at it.

  16. 2 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

    Knowing how to use the money or identifying needs isn't the bottleneck. I think most philanthropic organizations have a small amount of unused capacity and a clear prioritization of program needs such that they can handle a marginal increase in donation levels.

    But I doubt that many of them can handle a doubling or tripling in donations. That sort of systemic increase requires systemic operational changes in procurement, contracts, vendors, and capital equipment. All of which will require new personnel hired and trained to handle it all. These personnel costs are an investment that will not be easily scaled back during leaner times. 

    The particular organization I was talking about would have none of these problems. 

    I realize you said "many", but when I replied to you I specifically talked about how some (and I'm quite aware of many of those) would not be ready, but some are.  So if the church chose to there WOULD be some who are ready. 

    2 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

    An organization that is only utilizing half or a third of their operating capacity is an organization that is over-extended. Expanding that capacity before there was a way to make that additional capacity sustainable was likely an unwise investment decision on the part of the organization.

    I would hope that a partnership with the Church not only gives philanthropic organizations the resources they need to deliver on their services and programs, but also the confidence that such a long-term partnership will warrant the investments to dramatically ramp up their capacity.

    Everyone wins in that case: the organization wins by expanding the reach and impact of their mission, the Church wins by getting more and more money out of their accounts and into the world to do some good, and the world wins by becoming a better place for all. I guess the perpetual complainers lose out, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to shrug off.

     

     

  17. 5 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

    Having or identifying a need is not the same thing as being prepared to address that need.

    I work in local government, and I am currently in the process of preparing a number of applications for some federal grant programs.  Our organization has done a swell job of identifying the needs that these federal programs could fill, but in about half of these cases, we are still a year or two away from actually being ready to use those funds.  

    There really is a network of institutional infrastructure that needs to be built in order to efficiently transfer, process, and utilize large donations of capital.  That infrastructure can take a number of years to build.  And even if that infrastructure could be built overnight,  it would still be best to build it out incrementally.  In that way, an organization can build institutional knowledge and experience among their work force and identify vulnerabilities in their process chains which can then be solved before those processes are carrying much higher stakes. 

    In other words, institutions, like people, have to walk before they can run.   

    That is true. Some institutions are still just crawling.

    But there are some who are running full out and have been for some time. I know one organization who definitely knows how to use funds given them.  This year donations are down and needs are higher than ever. 

    Luckily the church is helping them, but they could definitely handle more help.

    That isn't to say that I know what the church should do with its money. I don't know their plans (because they don't share them) so I'm not going to say they should give more.  I'm saying just because some organizations aren't ready it doesn't mean that all are there.

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