JAHS

I’m ok with that. Me too. One youth speaker and one adult speaker. After all the main reason for Sacrament meeting is to take the Sacrament.

^^^^^ This is really what I wanted to ask here... People who have not made the same covenants that members of the church have are not committing sin by drinking. If I am hosting a dinner at a restaurant I would almost expect the guests would take care of their own alcoholic drink orders. But if not I don't see anything wrong with paying for the entire dinner including the drinks.; especially if they are not nor never were members.

Personally I don't think one should talk about issues with their spouse on a public discussion group, unless it is to praise and express love for them. It should be handled between the two of you.

Besides the correction from JST some people interpret such scriptures to mean God allowed Pharaoh to act according to his own predetermined wickedness, rather than forcing him against his will.

I spent several months one year studying all scriptures that mentioned any cities, lands, rivers, etc and then constructed my own internal map of the Book of Mormon land. It was interesting that I found no inconsistencies for the relative locations of all the sites.

Changes like this are often announced months before they happen to give people time to prepare for it. Wards might need to extend more callings for the classes to be taught every Sunday. There are probably places in the world that have not even head about this yet. There is a new youth guide that needs to get printed for their class.

In my ward my gospel doctrine is in the first overflow of the chapel and I have to wait for the chapel to clear and then pull the curtain closed and get the tv and power point program set up. That has always taken at least 10-15 min after Sac mtg. I may have to make some adjustments.

I noticed that the actual announcement said: "sacrament meeting will continue to be no longer than 60 minutes" So maybe the Bishops will have the option of making it shorter to give more time for moving into Sunday school if it is needed for His particular ward.

I think it helps that there are 15 Apostles and the ones more recently called are relatively younger than the others and therefore can fill in as needed with younger minds and bodies.

I was a 70 once, but I was only 30 at the time.

Only 5 min to change and move between classes is going to be a challenge.

I think this has been mentioned before(hasn't everything?), but I saw a recent commentary in the SLT (so consider the source). Some excerpts from the article: "Never one to keep his opinions to himself, Elder Hugh Brown told First Presidency counselor J. Reuben Clark in 1945 what he thought of the church’s aging leadership. Clark recorded in his diary: “Hugh B. Brown — Quite a long talk with him. He says a very great deal of frank talk and dissatisfaction in the church. Dissatisfaction seemed to be over the fact that so many of the general authorities were getting old.” President Heber J. Grant, who was Brown’s mentor and his mission president, taught him that there was nothing sacred or doctrinal about the most senior apostle becoming the president, nor was there justification for it in scripture. It was simply a tradition. The apostles knew that there would be significant risks having the ailing Joseph Fielding Smith as the church president. They worried that he would stumble over his words in General Conference, and embarrass himself and the church. They had good reason to worry. Smith was dozing through meetings, couldn’t remember things, and often repeated himself to friends and family. They also knew of Grant’s strong views about presidential succession because they had heard them, too. Nevertheless, they feared change; they didn’t want to alter “the proper order of things,” as then-apostle Spencer W. Kimball put it. They asserted that it would take a divine revelation to change the practice of presidential succession. Brown proposed that all general authorities, including the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency, be given emeritus status at age 70. He proposed that apostles select the church president in a private meeting, in much the same way the College of Cardinals picks the pope in the Catholic Church. There wouldn’t be smoke wafting out of the Salt Lake Temple to signal that a new leader had been selected. The new president, rather, would be announced at General Conference, and he would be selected based on his health, vigor and fitness to lead — not on his seniority among the apostle Even though the apostles didn’t accept Brown’s proposal, his efforts did not go unheeded. In 1978, N. Eldon Tanner of the governing First Presidency announced in General Conference that members of the First Quorum of Seventy — which ranked just below the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency — would achieve emeritus status at age 70. ________________ I do remember when Spencer W Kimball was president the entire first presidency was too old and frail to perform duties so Gordon B Hinckley was chosen as a 3rd counselor to pretty much handle everything. So far having such elderly Apostles doesn't seem to have been a problem for the church. But could things be better if there were younger members of the FP and Twelve or is it more important to benefit from the older one's years of experience and wisdom?

Here's the story about Lorenzo Snow that some are calling hearsay: “One evening while I was visiting grandpa Snow in his room in the Salt Lake Temple, I remained until the door keepers had gone and the night-watchmen had not yet come in, so grand-pa said he would take me to the main front entrance and let me out that way. He got his bunch of keys from his dresser. After we left his room and while we were still in the large corridor leading into the celestial room, I was walking several steps ahead of grand-pa when he stopped me and said: ‘Wait a moment, Allie, I want to tell you something. It was right here that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me at the time of the death of President Woodruff. He instructed me to go right ahead and reorganize the First Presidency of the Church at once and not wait as had been done after the death of the previous presidents, and that I was to succeed President Woodruff.’ “Then grand-pa came a step nearer and held out his left hand and said: ‘He stood right here, about three feet above the floor. It looked as though He stood on a plate of solid gold.’ “Grand-pa told me what a glorious personage the Savior is and described His hands, feet, countenance and beautiful white robes, all of which were of such a glory of whiteness and brightness that he could hardly gaze upon Him. “Then he came another step nearer and put his right hand on my head and said: ‘Now, grand-daughter, I want you to remember that this is the testimony of your grand-father, that he told you with his own lips that he actually saw the Savior, here in the Temple, and talked with Him face to face.’” (Improvement Era, September 1933, under the title “An Experience of My Father’s” By LeRoi C. Snow:)

What do you think? From what I understand it needs to be read in the context of the conditions when it was said. Problems with false things being taught by women in Ephesus. We can also chalk it up to latter-ay revelation over-riding the ancient policy. There are however many Christian faiths that still believe it should be followed.

I wonder how this fits in with regards to the Bible teaching about women not being in authority over men. 1 Tim 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Does this scripture simply not apply to us as it did back then?

Right. Smaller wards and branches have to adapt and make their own changes according to their resources and needs. That takes revelation at the local levels.

I have seen the handbook list of duties and making sure there is a teacher for every class on each Sunday is not even on the list, although I guess it is implied as one of the things they have to do. I have been the Gospel Teacher for three years now and at other times in my life and that is all I have seen them do. But yes, there is a list of other things they could be doing as well.

I think most policy is determined by revelation, but it is true revelation relevant to the time it is given. We believe in ongoing revelation and because people and circumstances change over time a policy that was true and needed at the time can change or be discontinued by new revelation.

I wonder if this change might also apply to the the Sunday School General President of the Church?

Mostly the main thing a Sunday school pres does is to make sure a class has a teacher if the original one doesn't show up.

In my ward we have a woman Stake Finance auditor, which use to be only men.

Probably don't want men being Relief Society Presidents or Young Women's presidents.

Women did prepare and pass the sacrament during the war because of the lack of priesthood holders. They even collected fast offerings.

No reason why women can't be Sunday School presidents since it is not a priesthood organization. Similar to Primary and YW presidencies.

Appeals court questions timeliness of fraud class action over Mormon church tithes (CN) — Members of a class action asked a three-judge panel on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday to reconsider the statute of limitations in a fraud case that accuses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church, of misrepresenting its use of church tithes. The case stems from a dispute between mostly former members of the Mormon church who accuse the church leadership of creating a slush fund from charitable donations that the plaintiffs say were obscured through different accounts by its investment firm, Ensign Peak Advisors. The plaintiffs accuse the Mormon church of using tens of billions of dollars for noncharitable expenses, particularly in the development of City Creek Center, a shopping mall in Salt Lake City. The plaintiffs claim the church made false statements that their tithes would not be used for these kinds of investments. A federal judge dismissed the case in April last year for filing the class action past the three-year statute of limitations for fraud based on the widespread news reporting and public discussion of the Mormon church’s use of tithes. But the plaintiffs appealed that ruling, arguing they were unaware of these discussions. Much of the argument on Tuesday centered on whether the plaintiffs should have known about the use of the funds and filed their claims sooner. “Under the decision of the District Court, the timer on the statute of limitations was running, and my clients had no idea,” attorney Scott George, of Seeger Weiss, told the three-judge panel. But the panel was skeptical of this claim. “It’s not about whether they had an idea; it’s whether they could have or should have known,” U.S. Circuit Judge Nancy Moritz, a Barack Obama appointee, said in response. “When there’s significant media coverage nationwide, locally, that’s been sufficient, and that’s what there was here.” The origin of the fraud claims goes back to a 2019 whistleblower who leaked extensive knowledge of the Mormon church’s financial practices around tithing. The whistleblower report precipitated an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as widespread media coverage from Utah and national news outlets between 2019 and 2023. The SEC fined the church and Ensign Peak Advisors in 2023 for illegally hiding its funds. The church and Ensign agreed to pay a total of $5 million in fines. In his order dismissing the case last year, U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby, also an Obama appointee, ruled the plaintiffs should have filed the class action no later than February of 2023. The plaintiffs filed the case in October of that year. They were only made aware of the topic after a May 2023 “60 Minutes” report was published, they say in their complaint. George argued his clients did not have a legal duty to follow the news because, unlike in other cases, his clients were ordinary donors. But the panel pushed back on this. The news about the whistleblower and SEC investigation was huge in the Mormon community, Moritz said. “Tithing is a big issue for them,” she said. “People heard these reports, and they talked about them. I guess I’m not hearing you respond to that particular significant aspect to that case.” George argued that his clients are primarily former members of the church and are no longer active in the community and mostly reside outside of Utah. “This is the rare case where there is a market test as to whether people who were interested in filing a timely lawsuit could do it, based on the whistleblower report and the coverage of it,” said Paul Clement, of Clement & Murphy, representing the Mormon church. The panel also questioned Clement about whether or not a reasonable person would have known about the discussion of church tithes used in the development of the shopping center. “Does it matter how sophisticated the plaintiff was or how well read they were or what publications they subscribed to?” Moritz asked. “You can’t really conclusively determine when they would have had this constructive knowledge, or do you need to look at their individual situation to know when they would have had constructive knowledge?” Clement argued that the plaintiffs’ claim that they relied on knowledge within the Mormon community that tithes would not fund the shopping mall, while remaining unaware of the widely publicized SEC investigation until May 2023, did not hold water. “That strikes me as implausible, to be candid,” he said. It’s not clear in the plaintiffs’ complaint when they were first told the tithes would not be used for the project, which George admitted was a deficiency. Clement also told the panel that the class action was only filed after the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of a donor in a similar case in 2023. In that case, James Huntsman, a prominent former member, also sued the church for fraud after it used tithes to help the Salt Lake City shopping mall. Huntsman sought the $5 million he donated to the church while he was still a member. However, an en banc panel ruled in favor of the church, finding that no juror could conclude it misrepresented the source of the funds used for that project. Moritz was joined by U.S. Circuit Judges Harris Hartz, a George W. Bush appointee, and Gregory Phillips, another Obama appointee.