Notatbm

Im glad for both you and your son and wish more were like that. Of course if more were....there would be less kids going on missions knowing they are not going to get a bashing from their family. There are many out there who cannot say the same. I had the opportunity to learn of many of their stories while serving. While there are not a ton of Mormons who join up before/instead of going on a mission; of those who do, many experience shunning and disappointment from their family and church leaders. My story is not unique. These parents and Bishops are out there...I had both and I know many others who did as well. Do you remember the kid who got dumped off in Zions natl park over deciding overnight he wasnt going on a mission?? Parents abandoned him there. My parents would have dont the same thing and there are other mormons out there who will defend that kind of behavior. https://www.ldsliving.com/our-take-on-the-family-leaving-their-son-at-bryce-canyon-controversy-why-we-need-to-act-mormon-even-online/s/85950 I didn't say they wouldn't want support- I said there are JW in the military. I'd think if they wanted some kind of support, they would ask. In my experience, unless you ask no one is going to come around ministering to you.

My take on this is that the various religions were grouped as “Christian“ since most any Christian denominated chaplain can minister to those particular religions, such as communion, sacrament, blessings, baptism etc. If one looks at the last four or five religions on the list, each one of them are of the persuasion that allows no ministers from outside their faith to participate in or officiate over ordinances in their respective religion. In the case of Mormons, they do not recognize any faith’s communion, sacraments, blessings, baptisms, etc. so why would a chaplain from another faith be assigned to minister to any Mormon for any religious purpose? That said my guess is that the last four or five religions on that list will have their own chaplains assigned to them since they don’t recognize anybody else as having any kind of authority. We will see what actually happens, but that is my hypothesis right now. it appears to me to be a streamlined tool to determine where to allocate different chaplains according to the overall numbers of particular members on each base or installation to make sure each denomination has its needs met. For example, a base having members of any or all of the listed “Christian” religions can be assigned any “Christian” chaplain. At this time, most military installations do not have any LDS chaplains. The members go to local family awards off the base. This being the case, it has taken demand away from the chaplain core of the military for LDS chaplains because we don’t recognize any of these chaplains unless they’re are Mormon. Since Mormons are not beating down the door of the chaplains offices, it would appear lds chaplains are not needed so we’ve kind of created this problem ourselves.

Did the parents get up in fast testimony meeting and say how proud they are that their kiddo is disobeying the Lord? If not, then are they really proud? I wish I grew up wherever you are or were at … ok maybe not if it’s Utah but not going on a mission here was and remains a social death sentence. I can’t name a single family in my ward who would openly admit they are proud their kid didn’t go on a mission.

I joined about 40 yrs ago.. right in the middle of the new mission push started by kimball in 1978 ish?? Anyway our stake had over 40 -50 ish missionaries out and it was a literal competition between wards to have the most missionaries out. My father was the stake pres and I went in the military. Salt lake even got involved in the fray because parents here complained that the Sp kid didn’t have to go but they have to empty their savings so their own kid can go to Brazil or wherever. It was a freaking disaster of epic proportions.I can go on but I know you don’t believe me. my parents never forgave me for the humiliation of having an apostate kid… yep I was an apostate for not going on a mission. My military service was not looked upon as honorable simply for the fact I didn’t go on a mission first. Even the church maintains the policy today that I was not honorable excused from missionary service. That goes for anyone who doesn’t go on a mission unless the brethren “honorably excused” them. That is church policy. believe it or not there are some serious psycho Mormon parents out there. I have a bunch in my ward last time I went. They just keep the screaming and yelling at home and act all TBM at church. No kid is gonna mess up the perfect Mormon family track record of eagles and missions. You know those people are out there. the eagles thing dates me, but that was all the rage. No eagle, no mission = faithless loser not worth marrying your older members who didn’t go on missions?? What is older? Ww2, Korea, Vietnam?? Well the church didn’t expect them to serve missions. It is different now. Missions are mandatory

There are some JW in the military. They are just the JW version of an exmo. A JW getting shunned by their church is orders of magnitude worse than getting shunned by Mormons. JW are ruthless. it’s kinda like being a Mormon, blowing off a mission and joining the army to kill people and break things. Definitely not an honorable excusal from missionary service, your parents are all renting their garments and gnashing their teeth over it and therefore -bad mormon

“And although 54% of Mormons feel positively toward evangelical Christians, the feelings are not reciprocal: 15% of born-again or evangelical Protestants feel positively toward Mormons, compared with 27% who express negative views.” https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2023/03/PF_2023.03.15_religion-favorability_REPORT.pdf I guess PEW saw this one coming.

Definitely a peculiar people. Also within the DOD one will find high ranking chaplains who have zero use for Mormons. They are probably partially responsible for how this list was constructed.

I agree Mormons believe they are Christian’s..and I believe they are. Problem is that one has to convince others that Mormons are Christian. Mormon leaders are on record throughout church history being dishonest so why should anyone believe what they say… esp when access to the temple is restricted.. who the heck really knows what goes on in there lol?

We need to remember where the majority of us military personnel come from: “Where Service Members Enlist From While the military draws recruits from all 50 states, the American Southdisproportionately supplies the most service members. The top states producing the highest volume of new recruits (often making up over 40% of all enlistments annually) are: [1, 2, 3, 4] Texas California Florida Georgia New York [1] However, on a per capita basis (adjusting for state population sizes), states with deeply rooted military cultures and localized economies send the highest proportion of their populations to serve. These include South Carolina, Hawaii, Alaska, and Georgia. [1, 2]” we also should remember that Utah has an enlistment rate that is near dead last in terms of people joining the military as enlisted soldiers. Officers in the military also originate from mostly the same states as the enlisted. what that tells us is it ain’t Mormons who are serving in and running the us military… participating? Sure there’s about 36k Mormons combined in all branches of the us military, but again. It is run by those who hail from those few states mentioned above. Many of these people have a very dim view on Mormons. Some of them may even be from Fairview Texas… lol there are about 280 us military members from Fairview fyi. I bet there are not more than two from there who are Mormon. I wonder what those folks from Fairview think of Mormons??

This guy is Staff Sergeant which means he is an enlisted soldier with anywhere from 5 to 15 yrs service. It also means he is regularly told to have his guys pick up trash or clean the barracks or stand around all day in line waiting their turn to do their rifle qualification shoot. It also means he has absolutely no idea and is just guessing. He is very near the bottom of the totem pole. A full bird colonel or a CSM or above MIGHT know what’s going on but even then- I doubt it. Nor will they care. For context of his rank in relation to a normal size infantry company (~120) there would be approx 20-25 staff sergeants give or take. That’s out of 120-160 soldiers. The commander of such a unit is usually a captain who is about 28-30 yrs old and captains are nobody’s in the army as well. A colonel is where the real power begins. Thats a 40+ year old officer with ~ 22-30 yrs service and in charge of up to 5k troops. could he be right? Sure but again no because he has inside info.. no one with any rank is telling him anything unless he is in violation of relationship rules with senior officials. If he was a 25 year old blonde attractive female I’d be more inclined to believe. anyway yea he’s just making stuff up. Kinda like a ward bishop claiming to know what happened at last weeks Q12 meetings

Not that I know anything but my 22 yrs experience in combat roles in the army taught me the Mormon church has less than zero cachet in the military. No one is gonna care if they are labeled as Christian’s or not. they won’t be caught dead at the grog bowl, but Jesus would. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8skqDSv/

I didnt ask for a statement proving executions. I asked for one where the church leadership said to not take the penalties seriously... dont make up stuff I didnt say. You really enjoy lying about what I say here. You do it all the time. You mister are a liar yourself. As for romney making that covenant with the throat slitting penalty?? He sure did and Holland eventually said he did.

Is it the temple endowment verbatim? Holland himself said there are no penalties and my post does have a penalty. Anyone sitting in an endowment right now at this moment is not going to hear what I posted....there are no penalties etc. Must be fake

If it wasnt real CFR for First Presidency statement Pre 1990 that states none of the penalties in the temple are to be taken seriously and are fake....good luck "You are aware this wasn't a friendly chat, it was a confrontational interview described as an ambush. In that high-pressure environment, if someone asks you, "Do you have a policy of execution?", you get to say "No" and you are telling the truth." Of course I know it wasnt a friendly chat. Holland knew that as well. He just got outsmarted and Jesus didnt bail him out. His first instinct was to lie and that is exactly what he did. "The "penalties" never existed in any legal or physical reality or time." Again CFR for First Presidency Statement pre-1990 that the penalties are fake. It would be real nice if you could find a temple prep class manual that says that. "If you really care about leading people to believe something that is not true, then you should care more about what Mormon Stories is getting sued for." I dont really care if Mormon Stories is getting sued, I just think its a dumb lawsuit. Mormon church fighting to keep its identity with satan lol. Bunch of dingdongs. Their effort in this just shows that Mormonstories is a threat. This comment on a reddit post is pretty spot on about what happened and how Holland should have handled it: "The appropriate communication practice would be to assume charity on the misunderstanding of people's semantics and seek to understand what they are asking, then respond to it. By intentionally catching someone's question in a technicality of how they worded something that they arguably are ignorant of, is poor communication. In this context, Holland knew that Sweeney likely didn't have a full understanding of the temple ordinances past and present and really had no way to understand it as fully as Holland should. But the general understanding of what Sweeney was asking was clear. It wasn't a technical question, it was a loose question coming from partial ignorance, (which sweeney admits by saying that it's "I've been told...") which is asking for clarification and/or confirmation. The only fair thing for Holland to do was to have intellectual charity for any miswording on Sweeney's part and to answer the obvious question. There isn't a person alive that knows about the history of the LDS endowment and the penalties that doesn't intuitively know that the REAL answer to Sweeney's question is that YES, ROMNEY SWORE AN OATH TO THAT EFFECT. Period. That's the only honest answer. Anything not the honest answer is by default a lie or obfuscation."

nobody attributed any statement to Romney and neither did I. The reporter asked about the penalty Romney likely would have covenanted to and holland answered by denying by saying there are no penalties in the temple now. Holland answered a question that was not even asked.

Not verbatim temple quote where there is no penalty: …even at the peril of your life, … http://www.ldsendowment.org/images/spacer.gif http://www.ldsendowment.org/images/spacer.gif You can make all the excuses for Holland you want. He said what he said to an audience and didnt explain any nuances. He said double digit stake growth every week of our lives 2015: 3,174 stakes 2016: 3,266 stakes 2017: 3,341 stakes Net stake growth 92 stakes in 2016....that is a far cry from double digit stake growth every week. Perhaps Holland should have learned to just shut up sometimes. He loved to be the center of attention. Like I mentioned previously, my family has hosted him on our home numerous times while I was growing up. He always ran his mouth like this. People loved hearing him talk and I admit he is charismatic and all, but yea an apostle should know when to just keep some things to himself. This clip from africa he makes three different moronic statements to the audience in less than 4 minutes. Prime example of how he was in private too. Couldn't stop running his mouth:

Sounds like sweeney had a better understanding of what went on in the temple than I did when I went through the first time. Also he never said "literally." That is a way to weasel out of it if someone wants to lie....oh yea he didntt word it exactly right so i just BS this dude and its cool. Nope it is a lie, Sweeney asked about when romney went through, not what is going on post 1990. Also I had a clear understanding of that the throat slit thing was even though I just agreed to have my life taken and they didnt say it word for word. everyone knows that that gesture means. If sweeney didnt follow up holland would have let that one lie where it was...leaving the questioner with a distorted view of reality is still lying according to the church definition of lying. "We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest. The Lord is not pleased with such dishonesty," https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-31-honesty?lang=eng Jeff is a liar...he should have just said "we dont talk about what goes on in the temple in public" just like we did to our own members back then. He would have been fine, but no he had to spar with this reporter and he lost big time. At the 2 min mark. Everyone knows that that means, nothing needs to be said

Holland was asked about when Romney went through, not what is currently the ordinance. Holland tried slipping it by Sweeney hoping he had not done his research. Holland lied and got caught. Jesus wasn’t helping him out any that day.

The first response from holland was the lie. He knows darn well there were penalties when Romney went through he and mitt are only seven years apart in age. That was his answer and he knew what the reporter was asking. He only explained it because the reporter pressed him and showed him he knew the answer was bs. Heck the church didn’t even explain the process to its own members who were going through the first time much less tell it to all to the world. I never was told jack squat till I went through and that was with temple prep class. I got totally ambushed in there not unlike pretty much everyone else I know who went through at the time. I just watched the video again.. he def lied. The transcript doesn’t do it justice. His buddy lied about the scmc too lol these guys. as for the double digit stake creation… double digits is at least 10. Multiply X 52 weeks is 520 and that wasn’t even close to happening. He lied. You posted an article where someone else explains it… the author explains that already that year the church had created 27 new stakes… that’s in four months which averages 1.6 ish per week. Holland needs (ed) to learn to keep his mouth shut. He has been an apostle long enough to know everything he says gets analyzed. Why say something that definitely isn’t true.

The double digit stakes comment was definitely not true… and he was in a position to know the exact numbers so yes he is a liar. also the bbc interview he lied about Romney and the temple penalties.

I’m pretty sure bill reel was ex’d over his public calling out of holland for lying. So yea the q15 had a problem with it.

Pres oaks has stated very plainly that leaders in the church are not to be criticized… even if the criticism is true, but you knew that already. has nothing to do with the trademark thing other than the leaders are ok with not acting Christlike ( aka giving Satan a victory).. just depends on who is doing it and it is NEVER them.

Olive branch? Since when have we been sparring about anything? I guess if in your mind you need to seek out peace with me perhaps you are the one with the problem. Persecution complex much? sorry but I don’t see where you and I needed to make any kind of peace. There was no contention.

Sure, but the discussion is about the word "Mormon." Church leaders lying to the world and its members is also a major victory for satan, but we cant criticize them for that... well good mormons cant.

You cant possibly believe the church cannot afford to police up the web of all the people using their precious "mormon" victory for the Devil. The church has a few hundred billion dollars that are used to pay off child molest victims, buy hundred million $$ resorts, high end houseing developments etc. Why not put the money to work for something Jesus would do and that is use lawyers to chase down everyone on the web not representative of the church who use the term "mormon" somewhere in their name...or uses the same color of blue? I have an idea.....Missionaries can do it or better yet make it a calling for some tech dude in a ward to dedicate ten hours a week looking for people and orgs to for the church to sue? He/she can use fake names and social media accounts to infiltrate anti-mormon sites and orgs. I mean it isnt like the church has not done that before.