JustAnAustralian

There is so much more they could be doing though. Have a look at the handbook to see what their responsibilities are. If all they are doing is organising substitute teachers, then they aren't magnifying their calling as much as they could.

Although this is a good thing, I'm not sure I'd like to be in a bishopric if I was in need of a new Sunday School President in the next few months. They would be feel a stack of pressure (whether real or not) to extend the call to a sister. Likewise any sister chosen might feel a stack of pressure (whether real or not) to "prove" they can do it just as good as the guys can.

As a lifelong male church member (now well out of YM), I don't think I've ever been able to say who the general YM presidency were. Heck, it was only in the last decade or so that I really only paid attention to the fact that they actually existed. When Brad was in there, that was about the only time I knew who one of them were, and that was purely because Brad was well known before being in that position.

I believe it also helps with tax donation concerns at the government level. i.e people are donating to the church, they are not for example buying books/pencils/paper that they will use in a lesson and trying to claim a tax benefit.

D&C never specified 6 against. It only ever talked about 6 for. But yes, the split is not longer discussed in the handbook. Handbook 32.10.3 now says "7. The bishop or stake president asks for comments or insights from his counselors. If the high council has participated in a stake membership council, he asks for their comments and insights."

The clock has already ticked over here in Australia. Happy new year everyone.

Yes. Given the Anti-Mormon claim of Satanic rituals being performed in the temple, it would have been a great opportunity to show we are giving satan the boot.

The original criminal complaint can be viewed at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70239172/1/united-states-v-rowold/

"advancing religion" is explicitly listed as a charitable purpose in the relevant legislation. They get tax-free status simply by being a church. Paying tithing is not illegal. What you are probably thinking of is that people who pay tithing to the church can count it as a charitable deduction for tax purposes, where as that isn't the case with most other churches. The charity regular and tax office would be well aware of the arrangement, so clearly they are ok with it.

From the Trib article https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/08/26/appeals-court-rejects-lawsuit/ Are they ever actually going to pay attention to judges when they tell them to stop talking about church teachings? Or is this a case where Burningham is making these statements publicly, but is making good use of "my instructions are..." in court?

For those that want to read the court's long-form opinion you can see it at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-154_2b82.pdf The PDF is 44 pages, but given the standard SCOTUS ginormous page margins, it's actually closer to 20 of actual text.

How affiliated do they mean? I would be sweating if I was in a Bishopric/Branch Presidency or Stake Presidency in Russia right now (given the ecclesiastical endorsement role they have).

The temple can look up your recommend status via your membership record. Just make sure you have some ID with you.

Looking at Australian temples, and using google maps to define the centre of the city name, the distances to the temple (by road) are (rounding to nearest whole number): Melbourne - 33km (20miles) away Sydney - 27km (17 miles) away Adelaide - 7km (4 miles) away Perth - 6km (4 miles) away Brisbane - 3km (2 miles) away All are in the "greater <city name>" area, but none (even the Brisbane one) are in the same suburb as the CBD. The naming makes sense though, as they are capital city temples, and are linked to the capital city. The two recently announced ones will be interesting Brisbane South is based on the capital city name, but I doubt it will be close to Brisbane city since the existing Brisbane temple is already south of the CBD. Liverpool (sorry people in England) is based on the name of a city that large numbers of members travel through to get to the Sydney temple. Whether it actually ends up in Liverpool itself or one of the nearby suburbs is yet to be seen.

They've now done an interview with the SLTrib as part of the MormonLand thing. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/04/28/latter-day-struggles-podcasters/