Did this General Authority lie in his Conference talk?

[Notatbm]

40 minutes ago, bluebell said:

They’ve had a form of FSY for decades. At least since the 80s I think. But it was called EFY and you had to travel to BYU (or maybe a couple other locations around the US, I’m not sure) to attend. Worship band type music has been a staple of those events for just as long. You could even by the tape or CD at Deseret Book each year. 

Yea my pops was the stake pres in the 80s. Never heard of trips to byzoo. Must not have been a thing here and this is mesa az area

[Calm]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

They’ve had a form of FSY for decades. At least since the 80s I think. But it was called EFY and you had to travel to BYU (or maybe a couple other locations around the US, I’m not sure) to attend. Worship band type music has been a staple of those events for just as long. You could even by the tape or CD at Deseret Book each year. 

We had youth conferences when I was a kid (70s, Northern California). Had different classes with popular speakers to attend.  Went to some resort in the mountains in California.  Church rented a bus to get there iirc, but maybe we carpooled.   Took a couple of hours.  It was three or four days.  Lived in dorms.  There was a dance.  Only speaker I remember was Keith Merrill, film guy.  Had just won an Academy Award.

Edited 6 hours ago by Calm

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Notatbm said:

Yea my pops was the stake pres in the 80s. Never heard of trips to byzoo. Must not have been a thing here and this is mesa az area

I'm in Mesa as well.  It was definitely a thing for people to go to EFY at BYU and later in Tempe and Flagstaff and maybe other places. I'm trying to remember if my daughter went to one of the local ones, that came later, here or if it was in Salt Lake. 

I really didn't hear about it at church till the church changed from it being a special, separate thing to an everyone does it. I don't know if that is still going or not as it has been years since my kids were that age. I heard about it more from friends, talk CDs for teens and Education Week so I could see why you might not heard about it much.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Rain

[Calm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especially_for_Youth
 

Quote

Especially For Youth (often abbreviated as EFY) is a week-long youth-oriented seminar focused on fellowship and teaching the principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It is run by Brigham Young University's (BYU) Division of Continuing Education (CE) and is the largest church-oriented summer camp, attracting over 50,000 attendees every year at locations around the world.[1][2]

Quote

EFY was created by Ronald C. Hills in 1976 when 172 youth and 15 counselors met for the first session of the summer program. Then-Commissioner of Church Education Jeffrey R. Holland, now of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was one of the banquet speakers at the founding session. The next year, attendance rose to 863 youth. As of 2005, the total number of participants who had attended EFY over the years was 409,484.^[3] John Bytheway wrote his master's thesis at BYU on the early years of EFY.^[4]

I was pretty sure it was going on at BYU when I first attended, which was the summer of 76.  I was annoyed by the non students wandering around campus.

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4577/

John Bytheway’s master’s thesis on EFY.  Has lists of teachers, classes, activities, etc.

Edited 5 hours ago by Calm

[Notatbm]

53 minutes ago, Rain said:

I'm in Mesa as well.  It was definitely a thing for people to go to EFY at BYU and later in Tempe and Flagstaff and maybe other places. I'm trying to remember if my daughter went to one of the local ones, that came later, here or if it was in Salt Lake. 

I really didn't hear about it at church till the church changed from it being a special, separate thing to an everyone does it. I don't know if that is still going or not as it has been years since my kids were that age. I heard about it more from friends, talk CDs for teens and Education Week so I could see why you might not heard about it much.

 

Yea my time I could have gone I suppose was before CDs existed… 

[Notatbm]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

We had youth conferences when I was a kid (70s, Northern California). Had different classes with popular speakers to attend.  Went to some resort in the mountains in California.  Church rented a bus to get there iirc, but maybe we carpooled.   Took a couple of hours.  It was three or four days.  Lived in dorms.  There was a dance.  Only speaker I remember was Keith Merrill, film guy.  Had just won an Academy Award.

We had a youth conference here. It was a regional thing and one day long with a dance at the end. I dont remember anything about it except we had a really cool speaker. Vietnam vet. All kinds of inspiring war stories even better than Paul Dunn ( lol). Whole uniform except Garments got burned off in a bomb attack, using a vial of consecrated oil to lube  weapons during an all night battle on a fire base somewhere in nam..the event was a success I suppose. No worship bands or live music.

Several years later he ran for president. Learned he wasn’t even Mormon till 1984.

boy what a let down it was to learn it was all lies. Can’t believe Salt lake sent us this dude. Interestingly it was 85/86 within a year give or take of the salamander letter bombings. Turns out none of our leaders had their discernment meters turned on back then.

speakers name was Bo Gritz…

Edited 5 hours ago by Notatbm

[webbles]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

I'm in Mesa as well.  It was definitely a thing for people to go to EFY at BYU and later in Tempe and Flagstaff and maybe other places. I'm trying to remember if my daughter went to one of the local ones, that came later, here or if it was in Salt Lake. 

I really didn't hear about it at church till the church changed from it being a special, separate thing to an everyone does it. I don't know if that is still going or not as it has been years since my kids were that age. I heard about it more from friends, talk CDs for teens and Education Week so I could see why you might not heard about it much.

 

I'm from a small town in Arizona (Mohave County) and I always wanted to go to EFY growing up and that is the 80s/90s.  I did get to attend the younger "World of Adventure" which was only for pre-teen boys.  There was also a "World of Adventure" for pre-teen girls.  Similar to EFY/FSY but for younger ages.  I think they merged those in with EFY in 1999 - https://universe.byu.edu/1999/04/12/lds-church-educational-system-makes-changes-to-youth-program

[Rain]

14 minutes ago, Notatbm said:

We had a youth conference here. It was a regional thing and one day long with a dance at the end. I dont remember anything about it except we had a really cool speaker. Vietnam vet. All kinds of inspiring war stories even better than Paul Dunn ( lol). Whole uniform except Garments got burned off in a bomb attack, using a vial of consecrated oil to lube  weapons during an all night battle on a fire base somewhere in nam..the event was a success I suppose. No worship bands or live music.

Several years later he ran for president. Learned he wasn’t even Mormon till 1984.

boy what a let down it was to learn it was all lies. Can’t believe Salt lake sent us this dude. Interestingly it was 85/86 within a year give or take of the salamander letter bombings. Turns out none of our leaders had their discernment meters turned on back then.

speakers name was Bo Gritz…

The CD I am talking about didn't come out till after I could have gone as well.  They were ones I had for my kids. John Bytheway, Hank Smith. Those kind of CDs.

Your speaker likely didn't come from Salt Lake. The speakers for my kid's activities and the RS activities I went to were always found by our stake leaders. But yes, Bo Gritz is a interesting choice for a youth conference.

[Rain]

12 minutes ago, webbles said:

I'm from a small town in Arizona (Mohave County) and I always wanted to go to EFY growing up and that is the 80s/90s.  I did get to attend the younger "World of Adventure" which was only for pre-teen boys.  There was also a "World of Adventure" for pre-teen girls.  Similar to EFY/FSY but for younger ages.  I think they merged those in with EFY in 1999 - https://universe.byu.edu/1999/04/12/lds-church-educational-system-makes-changes-to-youth-program

Interesting. I hadn't heard of the adventure ones, but that sounds like it was inbetween the time I would have gone and when my kids would have. 

[Notatbm]

46 minutes ago, Rain said:

The CD I am talking about didn't come out till after I could have gone as well.  They were ones I had for my kids. John Bytheway, Hank Smith. Those kind of CDs.

Your speaker likely didn't come from Salt Lake. The speakers for my kid's activities and the RS activities I went to were always found by our stake leaders. But yes, Bo Gritz is an interesting choice for a youth conference. 

Hmm yea I have no idea where he was dug up at. Looks like he lived in Nevada at the time. I wonder how someone crossed paths with him? I know my dad had no idea who he was until just a week or two before the conference and he was the one who organized the conference. He told me because he thought I’d be excited to hear him speak which I was. I was and still am a military aficionado. 

Had to be someone in Utah though. My dad and bk packer knew each other pretty well and he stopped by the house from time to time when in the valley. Probably someone packer recommended. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Notatbm

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Notatbm said:

Yea my time I could have gone I suppose was before CDs existed… 

I had a cassette tape for one.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Notatbm said:

Had to be someone in Utah though.

Why?

[BlipBlap]

On 8/18/2026 at 1:42 PM, Notatbm said:

Agreed- they just need to be careful when they say "WE" have no paid clergy when clearly "WE" do have some paid clergy especially when the person who is actually saying it gets a paycheck from the church every two weeks.

This is similar to a commander I worked for in Iraq who never once stepped outside the wire and went on a combat mission. In fact, to my knowledge he had never personally engaged in combat in his entire career. He would routinely brag about how "WE" were kicking AQI butt on a daily basis despite taking hundreds of casualties in the process. He wasn't wrong about "WE" meaning "US" because "WE" were kicking butt. He wasn't involved in it so it would have been much more accurate to say "you guys" or some such thing. 

 

No, we do not need to be careful at all when we say that we have no paid clergy.  "Paid clergy" is a direct reference to someone doing this as a profession.  They are receiving payment in return for services rendered.  Trying to act as if this is equivalent is incredibly poor faith and this is essentially another "leak" about something that was never a secret.

[BlipBlap]

On 8/18/2026 at 11:50 AM, Rain said:

Technically, seminary teachers do, or at least did, get paid. This was quite a few years ago, so things may have changed, but my mom was called in to the bishop, similar to a calling, and asked to apply for the position.  She got paid a very small amount, so small it was probably called something else rather than pay. Expense reimbursement was separate from that.

If I remember right, they were also formal employees of the Church Educational System.

[BlipBlap]

On 8/18/2026 at 8:39 PM, Notatbm said:

It wouldnt matter if my commander had been in Vietnam or Desert storm.. he still wasnt involved in the fight we were in and was safely ensconced behind the wire, sandbags and bunkers and did not participate in any combat. He wasnt part of the we. We were a unit with divisible assets who would be attached to other organizations for missions. Our commander didnt even plan missions, he was working part time for a higher guy and part time being our commander. Our missions were strictly Company size (~120 troops) down to platoon size (~30-60 troop) which is what I was leading at the time.

He didnt come under fire, he didnt lead missions, he didnt engage in combat, we wasnt wounded. He did not participate in the combat missions "WE" were on. My own company suffered 48% casualties and the fact his existence somewhere at HQ where no one could find him made him definitely not part of the "WE." Granted his job wasnt to be out with us, but to take credit for what "we" did as if he was a participating team member is irritating.

My platoon was routinely parted out to go augment other missions and I wasnt with some of the squads who went out. Many times they came back with some crazy stories. In one engagement they killed ~35 AQI. They kicked butt and were my troops but I wasnt on the mission with them and there is no way I would have told them ... "we kicked butt tonite."

Best idea is for these guys to quit saying we have no paid clergy. It isnt true and it rarely adds anything of value to the talk or conversation unless they want to virtue signal which is probably a majority of the motivation IMHO.

Yet he still would've gotten an Overseas Service Bar, a ribbon, and the deployment pay.  His direct participation in combat missions is irrelevant.  If the only people that counted were the people "outside the wire", then what's to stop the purity spiral from getting even more stringent?  Sorry man, only those who actually got into firefights count.  Sorry man, only those who got shot count.  It's a pointless exercise in nitpickery based on willful ignorance.

The statement "we have no paid clergy" is entirely true, as the idea is wholly based on the concept of clergy as a vocation.  If you're a Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, etc., you choose to become clergy.  You choose to pursue the educational requirements just like any other profession, this education must take place at approved institutions, and you will attain a position as long as you pass these requirements.  Upon attaining this position, you will in turn be paid for services rendered at a rate commensurate with market value (i.e. more experienced/educated clergy will get paid more, pay will be adjusted based on location, etc.).  Such is not the case for the LDS church.

[Rain]

6 minutes ago, BlipBlap said:

If I remember right, they were also formal employees of the Church Educational System.

There are.  It's different though.  At least at one time (30+ years ago when I looked into it because it was offered at my institute) there was some training for full time teachers.  I assume that is still the case.  You went into it like a job, getting the training and were hired that way.  So it was different than the sort of calling that happened with my mom. My sister-in-law was also called  to teach her ward youth a couple of years ago, but I don't know if they had her apply like happened with my mom. 

Interestingly, the institute wouldn't allow me to do the training.  I was newly married and had no children and the church didn't allow women to be full time teachers before their children were raised. Years later, that must have changed because my friend became a teacher while she still had children at home.

[BlipBlap]

On 8/18/2026 at 9:13 AM, Navidad said:

Well, I may be the only person on this forum who has actually pastored and who has received a housing allowance and/or parsonage for my ministry. What the LDS do is what virtually all denominations or churches do regarding clergy compensation. It is a bit complex, but not overly complicated. One must distinguish between income tax and self-employment tax (for social security purposes). This IRS rule is for ordained ministers regardless of faith affiliation. A church or denomination may provide a church-owned parsonage for their minister. The church may pay utilities and grass cutting, and even furnish the house. The value of this each year must be claimed by the minister for social security tax purposes. There are three formulas for calculating the amount of this "housing allowance." In the absence of a parsonage, the church may declare in advance (key concept) how much of a pastor's compensation is paid in housing allowance and how much in salary, if any. The salary is fully taxed for social security and for income tax. The amount of housing allowance is only taxed for social security. Some pastors don't pay into social security and usually (those who I know) have regretted that upon retirement. I spent some time as the director of a church owned retirement center. I was ordained in that church. I often spoke in chapel services and did counseling with the residents. The IRS will decide on an individual basis of the role of the minister meets that intended by the law. Ditto for an ordained professor teaching in a church university. The value of the housing allowance may not and should not exceed the actual cost of the housing, including everything from repairs, lawn maintenance, utilities, etc. It also may not exceed the amount designated “in advance” by the church or religious organization. I have no knowledge if an LDS bishop as an ordained minister is paid a housing allowance by the LDS or not. I have never been a bishop. It also could be up to the individual bishop whether to go that route, just as it is for any other minister of any other church. In addition, the minister can deduct his expenses in his ministry, just like any business or self-employed person can. It is not honest for any minister of any church to claim they have no income for their service if they accept any form of housing allowance. It also is not correct to simply say that housing allowance is not taxed. The only way it is not taxed is if the minister does not pay into social security, which is a possibility. I hope this helps. I once pastored in northern New Jersey; I lived in a church owned parsonage. I never could have afforded to rent or buy a house there. It was a blessing to have a nice (not fancy—but nice) home in which to live. When I moved on of course, I lost that benefit. Take care all.  

LDS bishops/branch presidents aren't paid a housing allowance as they aren't employees of the church.  They aren't vocational bishops, as being a clergyman in the LDS church isn't a career.  There are no formal educational requirements, no guaranteed positions after attaining said requirements, etc.

[BlipBlap]

3 minutes ago, Rain said:

There are.  It's different though.  At least at one time (30+ years ago when I looked into it because it was offered at my institute) there was some training for full time teachers.  I assume that is still the case.  You went into it like a job, getting the training and were hired that way.  So it was different than the sort of calling that happened with my mom. My sister-in-law was also called  to teach her ward youth a couple of years ago, but I don't know if they had her apply like happened with my mom. 

Interestingly, the institute wouldn't allow me to do the training.  I was newly married and had no children and the church didn't allow women to be full time teachers before their children were raised. Years later, that must have changed because my friend became a teacher while she still had children at home.

Their calling requires them to adhere to a set schedule that extends beyond Sunday meeting times, so the church feels it appropriate to pay them for their time.