Rain

No doubt. And then add to that the complexity of immigration laws and the many processes by which people are illegally here it gets crazy.

Not quite the same. It's subtle. You talked about resisting unjust laws. I'm asking about following unjust laws. One is trying to figure out how to not follow the law, the other is trying to figure out how to deal with following the law. It may not seem to make a difference, but it will make a difference depending on the law and the persons beliefs. For example in resisting the no prayer law a person may find places not to be seen while praying. In following the law the person may feel it is best to not pray, but feel God will understand as long as you are trying to get the law changed.

The opposite question could be asked as well. How much would you follow immoral or unjust laws? Say there was a law that you couldn't pray. How likely are you to not pray while you are waiting for the law to get changed?

I loved the first part. The last part I felt kind of went against the principles of the first part. They pressed it so hard that for me it was like, "Wait! No. Goals are not just for showing you a direction, but the thing you should focus on rather than the habits and systems." Maybe I felt that way just because it was the last part, but it kind of felt to me like the editor said, "this part isn't strong enough. We need to press it more so that it will compete with other "be the best you can be" books. I've not run into anyone who felt the same way though.

Not a chance. I've had several years where I've been learning how complicated immigration is. The last year I've heard more. The last week, specifically the last 2 days I've heard even more from lawyers doing charitable immigration work. The system seems set to fail you at a number of points. Plus I've been listening to former detainees and their lawyers talking about what they are dealing with in detention and it is immoral what is happening in some of these places and how the system works. So, not a chance I will report them for their immigration status. I would report felony and some misdemeaner criminal behavior to the police.

My husband and I are at the point we would really like to go to the theater and watch more matinees, but rarely are we finding one we want to go to.

Thank you

Thanks! For Nemesis. Here is one of the errors. An error occurred (500 Error) We're sorry, but a temporary technical error has occurred which means we cannot display this site right now. User mormondi_db already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections You can try again by clicking the button below, or try again later. Try again

Or is it just me? Incredibly slow sometimes. About a third of the time, when I click on a new page or board, it will come up with different errors.

I don't think most people do this purposely. I think your first paragraph works with that. The second sounds like it is more done on purpose.

South America is almost always mentioned. Was it not mentioned in this thread? But like I said originally, another thing that would account for Europe (at least the UK and Denmark) and America another thing for that is the strength of the church there for long time or strong ties to the beginning of the church. In other words, they are mentioning the 2 areas where much of the church's roots come from.

I can see why you might feel this way because some who leave the church do a lot of scoffing, but I think it would be a good thing to really look into whether it is just a correlation before deciding a feeling about people being racist is correct.

I know for me community is a huge thing. While I no longer feel like I belong, I don't belong to groups of ex members either. Not because I haven't officially left, but because I'm not against the church and I'm not feeling lost and trying to replace the church or deal with things of leaving the church. I would love to do social things with church members, but I have long felt frustrated of not finding church members who prioritized anything social that was just social.

I haven't paid much attention to this thread and believe it or not I'm not opposed to the church (plus I don't pay attention to the numbers), but usually people bring up the activity rates of Central and South America, which while West, do have a lot of brown people. Have they not been mentioned on this thread? I think while sometimes it may seem a race thing, it is probably more likely a stronghold and time thing. Meaning, they are talking about numbers in places the church has often seen as strong. As far as I am aware, the church has never been strong in most of Asia or the Middle East. Then we have Polynesia countries and Africa with people of color. I rarely hear much of Polynesian countries growing anymore, but not about them losing members either. So that pretty much leaves Africa, and while the church sent missionaries in the 1850s, blacks were not supposed to be officially taught till 1978. The major growth there is fairly new. Maybe you are seeing correlation rather than cause. I'm not saying you are because I really haven't studied the stats, but given I saw other possible reasons, it might be good to look into it.

He should be able to. You could always respond on these boards, just not start them.

"Tithing is the donation of one-tenth of one’s income to God’s Church (see Doctrine and Covenants 119:3–4; interest is understood to mean income). All members who have income should pay tithing." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/34-finances-and-audits?lang=eng

It would especially work if the church quit the nice, neat in a box 4-year rotation and taught for as long as the books are needed. The OT has 1184 pages, the NT has about 400, the BoM has 531, and the D&C/PGP has about 375, yet each of them is taught for a year each. I never noticed it till I was teaching OT how much we were racing through it and missing so much. Would it really matter if it took, say, 2 years and 7 months to go through the OT and 14 months to go through the BoM? I know there is a big deal about starting over so many things on January 1st, and sometimes that can be motivating, but I think sometimes we do ourselves a disservice by always doing things that way. So many things in our lives don't start over on January 1st and are just fine. I think it might be worth a try with the church and the books of scripture. Note: I am NOT saying the church is wrong on this. I haven't even thought about praying about it - even when I was a believing member. At this point, I don't care all that much about it. I just think it would be something to consider and would help with a better understanding of what people are reading and discussing.

Is this at the beginning before the different lessons?

Good question. If I remember right it did handle it differently in the home version (the one I quoted was the Sunday School version) though also, if I remember right, it just skipped over discussion of it in the home version.

" I can also withhold judgment on the weird stuff especially in the Old Testament until we get the whole story someday. But I also trust the God won't allow His prophets to lead us astray today. " @gopher Just saw your quote in MrShorty's post. I missed it somewhere. You asked where the church could do better. Here is one place. I was at a place where I felt the same when I was teaching Gospel Doctrine. The problem comes with things like this - during that time when we came to the OT lesson in Come about God commanding to kill all the men, women and children. Out of all churches this would have been a great place in Come Follow Me to talk about the bible being translated correctly or precious things being taken away etc. allowing people to "withhold judgment on the weird stuff." Or a great place about how to deal with what seems to many to be contradictory to God's will. But the church didn't do that. It put this in the manual: "While we don’t know all the reasons Saul was commanded to kill all of the Amalekites and their animals, there are lessons to learn from his response to that commandment. To help class members identify these lessons, you could write on the board To obey is better than … and invite class members to ponder this phrase as you review together events from 1 Samuel 15. What are some good things we do in our lives that we sometimes choose instead of obeying God? Why is obedience to God better than those other good things?" https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-sunday-school-old-testament-2022/25?lang=eng Just an assumption that killing of innocent adults and children was the right thing to do plus the idea that it is better to obey God directly with it. No witholding judgement of the weird things. Just an assumption that this was right and good.

I no longer believe that the church is the only one with authority. I'm unsure that any have authority, and I am unsure of prophets, but I am open to most church leaders speaking for God to some extent. Most of what I have been saying on here is that I see how people faithful to this church, specifically, and trusting of its prophets, could believe that those prophets are not perfect and could make some mistakes. I don't have to believe to know there are spaces between 100% trusting and being disloyal, as I understood long before I ever thought about the church not being "true". I understand this and have understood it all through this thread. I don't really see anyone here doing that. What I see is people who have tried to know the will of God and done what the Lord has asked of them in finding answers, and feel they got a different answer on certain subjects. Maybe you see that as the same thing. I see a subtle, but important difference.

If everyone had spouses they could trust to be 100% true there wouldn't be rules/ideas like husbands and wives should share social media accounts, RS presidents and bishops shouldn't ride together to meetings, women shouldn't wear skimpy clothes because it might tempt a man - all things church leaders have put out because they find that humans can't be 100% trusted. Yet, most of the people who follow those ideas don't feel a real lack of trust in their spouses. They just recognize that no one is perfect. And that includes the prophet. He is human. He can make mistakes. You can have a ton of trust in a prophet and still understand he may make a mistake. That doesn't mean you find the prophet untrustworthy.

Many people who accept they are prophets of God also accept they are not perfect in all that they say. It isn't a binary thing for them. It's not "accept they are a prophet and trust everything they say" or "don't accept him as a prophet". For many of them it is "accept he is a prophet, trust most things he has to, and when you're not sure, do what the church has taught and pray and study it out while being sincere and humble and doing your best to be a good receiver of inpiration." No one here has said that or shown that. Some of the people who don't feel the process is always either trust the prophet or don't may feel their moral compass is the same as the prophet or may feel that that the prophet's compass is better overall, but still not perfect which is why they pray to know if the prophet's compass is in line on certain matters. Right. Which is why many people read and pray sincerely and often read and pray more when they don't line up with the prophet. And more. But sometimes in following the prayer process as the church teaches those answers are going to be different than others who will be praying. I think you are right, but I think you might be wrong if you think that those who think the prophet can sometimes teach a wrong thing don't trust orr are not loyal. Yes! The church often acts as a parent. When parents are willing to tell their children when they are wrong, the children trust them more.

We had 2 of our kid's and spouse/girlfriend for our traditional appetizer grazing dinner. They left earlier than expected because 1 couple is headed to her parent's house a couple of hours away. Tomorrow it will just be me and my husband as the other couple is going to his parent's. Traditionally since moving to AZ we have done Chinese, but with just us I don't know if I want to call around to find one open - I called quite a few last year before finding one. My husband will probably work on our bathroom cabinets that he is building. I'll probably organize a room. We are good with that as Christmas Eve is the night I really like to have family things. I light up the plac with Christmas lights and it just sets the mood.

I understand. I just wanted Navidad to know that I agreed that the chapter did not explain that part well. It's pretty bad because I always was pretty aware of making things simple for those who were learning and aware of when things weren't, but I had never noticed how much my other learning affected how i saw things that were there or not there in this chapter before.