Kenngo1969

For what it's worth [and I make absolutely no claim that this is, in any way, representative: In fact, I'm quite sure that it's not] currently, I volunteer for the Utah Developmental Disabilities Council and for the Advisory Council for the Utah Institute for Disability Research Policy and Practice [yes, the acronym/initialism is I-DRIPP ]. The total time commitment isn't all that impressive: A couple of hours [at most, a few] per month.

"[O]ften get the chance to serve in ways you would otherwise never (in a million years) volunteer for"? You mean, like, Ward Technology "Specialist"? I joke than when I got the calling, i said, "Understand, the only thing I know about computers is that if you try to turn them on and nothing happens, Yep! Sure enough, somethings wrong!" And then I started laughing and didn't stop for fifteen minutes, before finally, I told the Brother who extended the call. "Oh, wait. You were serious, weren't you." And then, I breathed a sigh of relief when my ward was dissolved ... before a suspiciously-similar conversation with another Bishopric Counselor in my new ward ... [Sigh!]

Artwork? (Hey, stranger things have happened!)

@JVW Not necessarily. Some people [even not a few, perhaps] do eat when they are "sad or stressed." Surely, you've heard the old saying that DESSERTS is just STRESSED spelled backward? And there are other scriptures that, while they don't necessarily associate joy with fasting, imply that we're not supposed to be "sad sacks" about it. Cf. Matthew 6:16-18.

Wait ... There's a pornographic magazine article on the Book of Mormon?! Oh. Wait. Sorry. My bad. Never mind![1] And before you excoriate me too bad for this bit of "blue" humor, I'm reminded of the conversation between a young J. Reuben Clark and a customs agent. When the agent asked the young Brother Clark if he had any pornography in his luggage, youthful, guileless, innocent Reuben replied earnestly, "Sir, we don't even own a pornograph." __________________________ END NOTE I can't see anything about the book ever making it into the pages of a skinmag, but the play? That's a different story.

Likewise!

I'm just about as pro-police and pro-prosecution a person as you will [n]ever meet, or that you will ever meet in Cyberspace, but if all I know about the person is that he or she entered the country illegally or that the person remained illegally (by, for example, overstaying a visa), and if my only contact with the person to speak of is at church, no, I can't see myself reporting the person. Presumably, the person comes to church for the same reasons I do: To draw nearer to Christ, to renew my covenants with Him, to be knit together in love with my fellow Saints and children of God, to serve God and to serve each other, and so on. As much of a "hard-line law-and-order" type as I am, one's immigration status is irrelevant to all of those goals and purposes. I haven't done much traveling outside the country, but even what little time I have spent outside U.S. borders and what I have observed of third-world conditions has convinced me that if I lived in such conditions, I very likely might very well conclude that I, myself, didn't have all that much to lose and, in fact, had a considerable amount [potentially] to gain by emigrating/immigrating, even if I had to do so illegally. in any event, immigrating illegally and overstaying a visa are mala prohibita violations, not mala in se violations.

God isn't going to save or to exalt anyone against that person's will. I'm not exactly sure what's newsworthy or particularly controversial about that.

I just stumbled across this in my "Cyber travels." It may as well be an open letter to the James Huntsmans of the world and others of like mind ( ). It's from the Church's General Handbook:

Nope. Not sure why you would ask.

Is there any real difference between, "Yew Marminz ain't Christiunz 'cuz ya believe in the wrong Jeezuss!" and "Yew Marminz is atheists 'cuz ya believe in the wrong Jeezuss!"?

I don't think it is possible to do any of those things without Christ's grace to begin with.

I'm in charge of "Zoom"-ing my ward's Sacrament meeting. (I'll hasten to add that I'm not techno-savvy ... at all. I joke that when I first got the call, I busted out laughing for 15 minutes straight before finally stopping, looking the counselor who issued the call in the eye, and saying, "Oh. You're actually serious, aren't you? Umm ... ... Okay." There isn't much I can do when people are having connection problems because I'm not in charge of the software, like @Nemesis is here. Occasionally, people will message me with the equivalent of "You're doing [x], which is creating problems on my end." I simply shrug and message them back: "I'm sorry you're having technical difficulties. Insofar as I am able to determine, things are functioning normally on my end." (I'm scared to tell them to try rebooting, because if their connection sucks that bad and they try to reboot, they might not be able to get back in. ) Whaddayagonnado? All I can say is, Good luck and God Bless to our "Cyber-congregation" every week!

Yeah, I got that error too, for a few days.

What's the first condition listed in Moroni 10:32? That we come unto Him. I suppose I'm not understanding what in that verse, aside from the human tendency to try make life a "do-it-yourself" operation, is so hard to do. In Christ, I can indeed "be perfected"; in Christ, I can indeed "deny [myself] of all ungodliness"; paradoxically, perhaps, in Christ, I can indeed "love God with all [my] might, mind, and strength." And why is it that I may become perfect only in Christ? Because, otherwise, I might be tempted to "deny the power of God." And if [as] I come unto Christ, it is He who does the "perfecting" ("be perfected in Him").

If one wishes to demonstrate to me what one values most, don't just tell me what one says. Show me what one does. Now, am I entirely consistent, at all times, in demonstrating what I value most by what I do as opposed to what I say? No, but that's where repentance and the Atonement of Christ figure into the equation. "All I can do" in cases, in circumstances, and on occasions in which what I say I value most is not reflected in what I do is repent, pick myself up, dust myself off, and, in the words that a sage three-year-old said when asked what it means to repent, "It means we git to twy agin." As the old saying goes, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." When all is said and done (the integral part of "All" being the Atonement of Jesus Christ) perhaps the one thing I have left to give to God that He did not give me in the first place (see Mosiah 4:21: I am indebted to God for all that I am and all that I have) is my will.

@smac97, It appears that Ms. Hartnett defines "biological s*x" in the same way that former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart defined obscenity: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." One might wonder what would be the equivalent of attempting to define "biological s*x" for the Court to the Court's former practice of holding screenings of allegedly-obscene films for the Justices so that they could attempt to determine whether such films were "obscene" or not. We live in ... interesting times ... and have, for quite awhile now.

That'll do it!

Weren't the Reelies ... Bill Reel and his acolytes ... arguing, awhile back, that 10% of surplus is the standard? (IMO, if someone thinks that 10% of surplus is the standard and tells his friends and family that 10% of surplus is the standard, that's one thing: Such an one is entitled to one's own opinion. If one "goes to war" [albeit only rhetorically and metaphorically speaking, of course] against the Church of Jesus Christ about 10% of surplus being the standard, Churchwide, is it therein that lies the problem? What say ye?

Did it work? I mean, did he succeed?* Sorry! Couldn't resist! *Asking for a friend who has insomnia.

Nah! Joseph Smith is the spitting image of Paul Wuthrich! 😁 Seriously, I wonder how much thought was put into how Joseph might've sounded.

And then there's this, from Daniel C. Peterson: Why — cue portentous music — has the Interpreter Foundation had nothing to say about polygamy denialism? Well, it has had something to say about polygamy denialism: Historical and Stylometric Evidence for the Authorship of Doctrine and Covenants 132

Yes, he was quite doctrinaire, wasn't he?

Umm, @theplains? Joseph Fielding Smith didn't write Doctrines [sic] of Salvation. Just sayin'!

Paging @A Wretched Soul!! "Bueller? Bueller?"