Chum

None of my 5 did. I think only one really saw himself going and was planning on it. However, he ran into challenges that precluded most options, including that one. In general, by the time the sons started ticking past 18, the ever-increasing stresses of home were choking out everything. Every moment was about keeping shelter in place and then hopefully achieving food, etc. We were still attending Church but a lot of that was one-foot-in-front-of-the-other time. Just being around that many people was pretty near our processing limit.

My take is that young men were explicitly required during the early Church. Later on, the Church worked out there was room for young women and senior couples to append to YM's missionary work - and then removed the Church's unstated restrictions.

Interior/exterior

The design is a huge Mobius strip built from 1 million white bricks, each representing an answered prayer. IDK how the last bit works but a few ways seem self-evident. ex: Donate a brick w/ note about a received blessing. I couldn't determine if the monument only represents Christian prayers. From the drawings, I find the design very appealing and inviting. I want to presume it will have an inclusive, welcoming spirit. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wllnlqgldo

Sure. It's a broad umbrella and this aligns with a lot of it. We are told that that ancient sacrifice (re: the Law of Moses) can work this way. It was part of a zero sum equation, in a world of limited resources. If you did A and A involved loss of a physical asset, then God had to do B. It is probably good that the Law of the Covenant updated things like sacrifice; the zero sum thing kept leading us into thinking we could negotiate with God. Which was never our best moment. In a modern context tho, the following notion is silly. 'It is fully impossible to shift the smallest bit of ourselves closer to deity without incurring substantive, equitable loss.' I've never known someone who's life would be well reflected in that statement.

Good on the Church for recognizing reality and clearing obstacles. Our society is so deeply dedicated to the adversary's plan (force first, punish quick, deny earned redemption) that Heavenly Father's plan (love first, ease the way, keep promises) seems like a novel approach.

This strikes me as a profoundly odd assertion. Doubly so for being an absolute. I don't make sacrifices; I make my best choices. That's all I can make. (And what is a sacrifice in this context? Is it a circle we draw around stuff we imagine we'd have?) As for when good things come along, it's when bad things aren't ruling the day.

The factor common to all of this is limiting women's autonomy. And it will always be women's choices that are curtailed, even if men's are too sometimes. If we are saying we can't fix marriage without kneecapping women, we should say that out loud and at the front of the discussion. If we are saying we can fix marriage without disproportionately targeting women's options, then let's get those suggestions out there.

You're right and it led me to something. Temples were restored just prior to a period of women gaining broad, historical rights. Revelation and keys to celestial marriage were restored when western culture was on a trajectory away from arranged marriages and other less consensual relationships. During the 20th century progress is more clear. We see historical barriers for women falling away while the Restoration increasingly thrives.

To Lay With: She is a woman who is to be sexually available to a man who isn't her husband. She is to birth children who either won't be hers or will be hers to raise on her own. The payout for this relationship: Having even less rights than wives did. To exist in a type of relationship that women get shamed for in every age. To be cut loose one day and to have the sort of life-options that are available to women who are at that age + have that history. In every inch of this I see markers of non-consensuality. Certainly, I think this isn't something women aspired to. I doubt that worthwhile dads wanted this for daughters they loved. I don't think their Father in Heaven did either.

oh look at the time

This quote is so true it's nearly physics. I wish the entire world would read it. A decade back: DC was binging hard on trafficking-hysteria. SESTA/FOSTA was going to be the counterproductive outcome of it (by making it harder for qualified leo to locate victims). At that time, I figured that anti-sex-trafficking efforts can be divided thusly. Groups of 1 or more people (usually women, often leo, typically underpaid) who were monitoring local sex ads and working with the community. Everyone else. Loud armies of trafficking-warriors who endlessly bullhorned about sex trafficking and turned it into mountains of cash for their orgs. The orgs bought bad law in most states. If trafficking was on the news, that was the latter group living their dream.

That's a heck of a thing. I think I can feel the catharsis that was present during creation.

I've read this thread a few times. Frequently, you displayed extraordinarily strong feelings for wildly incomplete notions. From here, those feelings felt like distress and unhappiness and they flowed from the content you shared in the thread. You deserve a quiet, happy mind because we all do. Those videos exist to rob us of that. I have some experience with the spirit that drives them. Their method is to degrade our judgment by immersing us in caustic ideas. They weave us into fake believe worlds. No one needs it in their life. I truly hope you don't either.

I live in a typical wage household, in a 4 income economy. Like many, many millions of Americans, I have no retirement plan because there has never been resources for one. The good outcome is I work until I die. It isn't optional. Having that, I am extremely fortunate that I like my work. My retirement dreams are to not be homeless, to have food and to not get a treatable, serious illness before I reach medicare age - assuming (usable) medicare is still a thing then. Could go either way. I've had most of a decade with housing I like and food every day. That puts me ahead of more Americans than I could ever count. I hope it keeps up.

Dear Ken, here's where I wronged you. I did not appreciate the value you placed on live blogging conference and I interrupted the enjoyment and positive experience you were counting on. As a human being you are have value and merit respect. I believe I failed to remember and honor that and that led to me disregarding what you were getting out of conference. I apologize for deeply disrupting what was important and valuable to you. I am sorry my failure led to a prolonged and negative experience.

Some of that is in play. This fundraiser is getting some of the most positive press I've ever seen - about anything. It's a whole other level of alluring. Ultimately, I will be okay with this. If only because for one moment, something is capturing American's attention but isn't advancing historical harm and cruelty.

I read about it. I was really hoping it omitted that part. Including it seems unfortunate.

I would like to add here that rancor is always rancor. And it's constantly on offer to us. We all come in contact with it. And consumers invariably don't know that they are consumers. I've been one. It looked like this. It always looks like this. I believed a narrative that [Group] is a problem. I allowed, accepted and/or supported harsh, life-changing measures against them. [this is the spot where the rationalization, manipulation, etc explanations go] What's important is that from Christ's standpoint, I was okay with harming God's children. And that I got there by consuming a different brand of our shooter's poison.

How it would make sense to me is that he had 2 powerful experiences that were intertwined; one was with his girlfriend and another was with the Church. Past here I am surmising. I imagine that both experiences faded with time and distance and left voids. His wife filled one. And somewhere he came across and consumed anti-Church poison and that distracted him from whatever was left. That he was exposed to vitriolic, anti-Church rancor and it had an impact on him - I think this bit is a given.

This is helpful and appreciated.

I accept this but I could use your help in bringing it home for me. If a parent finds there is no young men's weekday program at all except basketball, how should they proceed - once the initial polite asking to implement existing Church programs and polite offering to volunteer have all been politely declined?

I would like it if theological institutions and other Christian organizations would stop all instruction that leads to adherents believing other faiths are evil.

edited