Waylon

On 1/7/2020 at 4:41 PM, MorningStar said:

We are having difficulties with our oldest. We fell for the gap year because he claimed to be preparing for a mission, but that ended up not being true. He threw away an entire year for a crappy job. He quit the crappy job when it seemed to be causing health problems and he was on the verge of needing surgery. He ended up improving after quitting, but still hasn't found a new job. Days ago I told him he had 4 weeks to find a job or move out. He stopped going to church months ago and I know some people feel like that should be expected as long as they're living under your roof, but I just didn't see how that would help things. 

Last night we were about to have family prayer and he still had his headphones on. I asked him to remove them and he said, "I'll just leave the room instead." Now that he's negatively influencing his younger siblings, I just want him gone period. I do love him, but he's not progressing in life in any way and it's so frustrating. We just got a new smart TV for a great deal and you can block any input you want, so he will have zero fun when he decides he wants to have alone time in the living room from 12am to 4am. Just to annoy him more, I slept on the couch last night to further ruin it for him. 

The past couple of years have been a nightmare between my parents' health, my health, other challenges with children, etc.. I'm now doing better and am feeling more equipped to handle the drama that's about to happen. He better believe me that I will make him move out, whether it's to couch surf or be homeless. It's an awful thought, but he's acting like an entitled brat. He rarely leaves the house at all unless it's to play games with friends.  

Have any of you had to get really tough with your young adult children? I just don't understand this. I was so determined to be an adult and not mooch off of my parents. He still has some money left from his job and if no one his home, he orders door dash instead of making himself something. I'm so done! 

I'm in the same situation, only my boarder isn't a child.  It's my 60 year old mother in law.

Dealing with toxic family members is a little like dealing with North Korea . . .

I have a very very strong testimony, but I definitely don't fit the mold of a "peter priesthood" type.  While remaining temple worthy, I do not (and in some senses cannot) conform to the ideals of "Mormon culture", a lot of which simply don't work in my own life.  In some ways, I do my own thing within the bounds of temple worthiness, which is why living in a small and isolated Texas ward suits me well.

I find that I am often very vexing to both Mormons who are very conservative and religious as well as Mormons who are very liberal and secular.  

I have always understood the gospel to teach that you can (and will actually have a responsibility to) visit family and/or friends in lower kingdoms.  D&C 76 is strong evidence for this, and states that you will actually have a responsibility to take care of those in lower kingdoms.  This "isolated for eternity" doom and gloom sounds like really depressing personal opinion in direct conflict with scripture (D&C 76).

9 minutes ago, JAHS said:

 

Please see my response to Let's Roll above. I  really do feel sorry for those people who find themselves in the position where they feel like they need to quit. I have some close friends and family members who have been affected in this way.  Because the church leaders speak to all the world they have to cover all the important doctrines God wants them to proclaim. They should all be taken seriously, but in my opinion the individual member should not feel like they have to be perfect at every one of them at all times. They work on them as they can with the Holy Ghost helping them to determine which ones they should be working on.  In this life perfection is a journey and not a condition. It is something we can only obtain after we are resurrected. 

You don't have to be remotely near perfect!  Just live worthy for your temple recommend and you will be fine.

My understanding is that the standard for being exalted is essentially the standard for living temple worthy, assuming you have received the necessary ordinances.  These are not very stringent or mystical standards.  I think those who are being perfectionistic to an unhealthy level need to read the Pauline Epistles and remember we are saved by grace, not works.

14 hours ago, Navidad said:

Oh my, you skipped the Anabaptist faiths! You missed the best! 🙂

I may have my theological disagreements with my Mennonite friends, but I very much respect their love and devotion to Christ.

7 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

If messengers from another faith knocked on your door, gave you a book and asked you to read it and ask God if it is true, would you invite them in to learn more?

I have done it occasionally in the past.  That said, I am not really receptive to door to door contact.  I am a very private person and I do not like the loss of control inherent in inviting strangers in. 

I have exhaustively done my own research on Catholicism, protestantism, Islam, and atheism, including reading their own missionary materials, and came out with a much stronger testimony of the Church.  But I have honestly examined other religions to see if there is anything more true there than the Church.  I have said the sinners prayer, prayed for the gift of tongues, prayed about the Quran, deeply thought about atheism, and delved into Catholicism.  And every time all roads led me to the conclusion that the Church is true.

I didn't want to knock doors on my mission, because I felt it was invading others privacy.  However, it appears to be the best way of reaching some, so I put a lot of my negative feelings aside and did it.  

I don't have a problem with gaming.  I do it once a week, on Saturday night, after my daughter has gone to bed, for a few hours.  Time limits and confining gaming to low priority times of the day are key.

I think excessive gaming is a lot like watching excessive TV.  The big difference is, society is so used to so many people who rot in front of the TV all day that no one really cares anymore, whereas gaming is less familiar and seems scarier.  But I don't think gaming is evil or addictive per se the way drugs and pornography are evil and addictive.

Haven't been to tithing settlement in years!  I just pay the tithing and tell my Bishop I am a full tithe payer at temple recommend interviews.  Apparently no one cares.

If evolution is true, then I'll be a monkey's uncle

Middle Way sounds pretty good to me.  I feel a little uncomfortable around both those who are too liberal regarding the Church AND those who are too conservative (or at least those who loudly proclaim their viewpoints either way and are judgmental about it).  I feel best around middle of the road Mormons who are believing and trying but who aren't weird about it.

On 11/9/2018 at 4:21 PM, readstoomuch said:

Tuesday the oncologist called to tell me that I have Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia or CLL.  It was found during my annual physical.  He says it is slow and many people live quite awhile.  I am much younger than most patients are when they are diagnosed.  The 5 year survival rate is 83%.  The average life expectancy is 12 years for someone my age (56).  My wife isn't taking it real well and my older kids mother died of cancer at age 31.  I haven't told my four children or the rest of my family.  There are a number of new treatments and reasons to be hopeful.  Probably the hardest part of all of it is the unknown.  I am not the most well known person around here.  I read much more than I ever contribute.  Partially out of time commitments.  I have been in the bishopric for a year now.  Lots of things might be changing.  Thanks for listening.  

Greetings!

First, I am very sorry to hear about your diagnosis.  I will keep you in my prayers.

Second, I don't know if this will make you feel better or not (and my wife hates it when I make statistical observations to try to help others feel better), but 5 year survival rates are simply how many people who get a type of cancer are still alive after five years.  The 17% are those who have died from any cause, not just cancer - so a person who was diagnosed with cancer and then died of a heart attack within five years would be counted in the 17% of those who did not survive.

Now, given that your cancer is primarily diagnosed in much older individuals, that 83% may be skewed low because of older individuals being diagnosed with the cancer and then dying from other causes (e.g., old age, heart disease, etc.)  Basically, the odds of beating this cancer are higher - probably much higher - than 83%.  So, it seems to me your chances are at least 90%, if not much higher, of being just fine.  I agree with @katherine the great - you have every reason to expect many years ahead.

Anyhow, I don't know if this helps make you feel better, but is more of a reason to be hopeful.

I am a born-again Christian AND a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

My religion is exactly the same religion as the early first-century Christian fathers.  Not an approximation, not an evolution, but the same exact religion.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints isn't a type of Christianity.  it IS Christianity.  To say it isn't is historically inaccurate.

2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Can you explain this? I've never lived anywhere that we couldn't teach and baptise Muslims, including Indonesia.

My mission president was worried about potential honor killings due to religious conversion and advised us not to target Muslims for formal teaching. 

I do not personally know if this fear was valid, invalid, or only very occasionally valid.

1 hour ago, rongo said:

I absolutely think you would have had a night and day difference in a "normal" mission. And you were in France! It is insane to expect discussions taught daily anywhere in Europe. Yeah, that is totally not healthy. 

Germany is very similar to France in that regard. We were taught, by both mission presidents, to do our best and work hard. Neat things happened every day, but teaching was a special event. Teaching deep into the discussions with people who were genuinely making progress was . . . wow. 

Some of my best memories from my mission were befriending and talking with French Algerians.  I don't know what German Turks are like, but I noticed that French Algerians were often much nicer and more open to missionaries than just about everyone else.

There were limits, per the mission rules, to actually teaching French Algerians, due to the Church respecting Islam's tradition of non-proselyting, but we were allowed (and encouraged) to socialize and befriend.

4 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

Waylon, just curious and forgive me if you have already stated ....but what years did you serve and was it in the US?  My female cousin put herself in a closet crying because they could not make the numbers with the cold calls of the 60's mission in California. Of course, this was at the time when they would go through telephone books and classes for salesmen.

My mission was in the early 2000s in France

15 hours ago, rongo said:

 

This was an anomaly, as we were not a pressure or numbers-driven mission. 

Remember how you said you were trying to understand the experiences of those who didn't like their missions?  I think a big difference is right here.

Aside from my mission president issues, my mission was a complete numbers-driven pressure cooker.  We were told we were supposed to be baptizing monthly.  Since no one was getting this (you were lucky to baptize once your entire mission), there was a big push towards teaching a certain number of first discussions a week (this was in the day of the six discussions).  We were told to miss P-day if we had to to get our target discussions.  Basically, it was all about grinding numbers, which is apparently very different from how mission work is done now.  As a very introverted person who could barely even talk to girls in high school, I had a very, very hard time with this kind of mission.  I certainly never had very good stats, and things just never took off, even though for the most part I worked hard.  I also feel I never really adjusted fully to doing missionary work - it always felt "weird" for me.

I think my mission may be an anomaly - most people have really good experiences and miss their missions when it is over.  I did not, and I do not, despite the fact I am still active and believing after rebuilding my testimony.

I kind of wonder if I would do better under the current guidelines than how things were run back then.

2 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

So here's my question. Wouldn't it be preferential to support or even encourage people who have left the LDS church to find another spiritual home at another Christian Church?

Absolutely.  Being in another Christian church is infinitely better than just leaving religion altogether.  If I were to leave the Church, I would march myself straight down to the Southern Baptist congregation down the street.

I dunno, I kind of like the three hour block!  More time to be engaged in a good purpose (worship) while socializing with great company.

I think I would rather see Conference reduced to two sessions . . . 

I've been kind of amused by this thread, because it is a reminder we are all on a spectrum regarding how casual or serious we are with our beliefs.

I have always felt that temple worthiness is the barometer that actually matters, an easy way to determine if you are on track to go to the Celestial Kingdom, and I get this from the counsel of numerous bishops and implied through many conference talks.  See, e.g., Joseph B. Worthlin, Cultivating Divine Attributes, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1998/10/cultivating-divine-attributes?lang=eng.  I personally think that this is a primary goal of temple worthiness interviews - to make it clear and explicit what the standards of admittance to the Celestial Kingdom so one can see how they are doing towards that goal.  

In my mission, I only know of one missionary out of 90 who went home early over the entire two years, and that was because his mother died while he was in the field and he really did have a breakdown.  Given the level of gossip among missionaries in my mission (unfortunately), I think I probably would have heard if anyone else got sent home early.

In my ward, out of ten or so people who left, only one went home early, due to unconfessed sin.

This was all during 2001-2008.

So, I am a little skeptical of the 1/3 number, but I am basing this on my own personal experience.  Maybe I have just been lucky or something?

Just now, BlueDreams said:

Since I'm the only Millenial so far to post....I'd say these numbers feel way to high. On my mission, we had a few people go home early. Usually for mental/physical health concerns. And 1....(maybe 2?) For breaking mission rules, that I can remember. But no matter how I cut it, we were no where near 1/3 leaving early. My extended family is also very young. I'm one of the oldest cousins. We've so far only had one return early due to severe depression. My mission was right before the age change ('10-11), but according to this article, there wasn't much of a difference. Which would suggest it may not be fully about maturity in and of itself.

I've had a few people I know return early....usually for the same reasons: mental/physical health. On the mental health note, that could be in part generational. Younger millenials and generations are having increased rates of anxiety and depression. Often times it may go undiagnosed and mission stress can be a great place to exacerbate emotional problems. It could also be that this era has more awareness of mental illness and are more likely to insist it's better to go get help than to "tough through it." 

 

With luv,

BD

I'm a millennial!  I guess (born 1982).

5 minutes ago, rongo said:

That was 16 years ago, man!  

There might be local exceptions, but the trope now in most North American missions is that tracting is ineffective, we need to work smarter, not harder (i.e., tablets, smartphones, skype, "chapel tours," etc.). Many missions even forbid tracting to "force" members to do their duty and provide investigators --- or have the missionaries teach active members instead. 

That would make a lot of people want to go home early. 

I'm just a little surprised.  My mission was basically nothing but tracting (and my president, halfway through, said no more member or less active work - just go find and teach people).

We had two choices.  We could either knock doors, or contact people in the street.  For a real treat, we could take a bus and contact people on the bus.

My mission president was NOT onboard with technology use (he was worried about pornography) and strongly encouraged we write our families, not email them.  He would have had a heart attack about the prospect of using tablets, smartphones, or skype!

Just now, rongo said:

 

In a sense, they are much easier than they used to be (especially stateside), but I think that might be a big part of the problem. The coddling and "missions made safe for snowflakes" missions that are common in the U.S. can cause anxiety and depression and boredom simply because they aren't asked to do anything difficult, find people, face rejection, etc. And, they are expected to be on devices "doing missionary work," which leads to some feelings of guilt. Many areas require them to hang around the Church during down time. On our missions, many of our adventures and great stories came when we tried to work during down time. 

Have they really softened that much?  I was on my mission circa 2002 and we knocked doors all day long, every day . . .