Not Much from Conference?

[Gray]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I disagree with your premises. Sometimes God needs us to do jerky stuff. It sometimes helps others and often helps us as well.

That's why I randomly trip nuns and don't tip at restaurants. 

 

[HappyJackWagon]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

That's why I randomly trip nuns and don't tip at restaurants. 

 

I pay my tithing and fast offerings with Canadian coins. Lots of them. And sometimes when I give food to the homeless I make sure I take a big bite out of it first so they know that it was mine, but that I'm sacrificing on their behalf. Is that jerky?  

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

That's why I randomly trip nuns and don't tip at restaurants. 

If God is telling you to trip nuns I support your choice. If you are tripping nuns in order to make a YouTube video I can support that too. If you are doing it for both reasons then you are awesome and I want you to marry me.  

[Bernard Gui]

6 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I disagree with your premises. Sometimes God needs us to do jerky stuff. It sometimes helps others and often helps us as well.

Like throwing the money changers out of the temple? How insensitive!

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by Bernard Gui

[Gray]

20 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

If God is telling you to trip nuns I support your choice. If you are tripping nuns in order to make a YouTube video I can support that too. If you are doing it for both reasons then you are awesome and I want you to marry me.  

All of the above and more. Let's go to Vegas!

[Rain]

On Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at 9:14 AM, stemelbow said:

I haven't seen many threads from this past conference.  But I have a question and concern based on one talk.

Elder Rasband's talk Let the Holy Spirit Guide

and later:

Did anyone else when they heard this think, "uh...why didn't you say something?  I mean if you felt the spirit and noticed this golden family, why did you just sit back to see if any of the young missionaries would say something?  It seems you missed the opportunity to act on your first prompting and teach these missionaries a more valuable lesson...much more valuable than trying to throw guilt their way."

what do we really learn from these stories? 

edited to add link:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/let-the-holy-spirit-guide?lang=eng

"While serving as a mission president in New York City, I was with some of our missionaries in a restaurant in the Bronx. A young family came in and sat near us. They appeared golden for the gospel. I watched our missionaries as they continued to visit with me, then noticed as the family concluded their meal and slipped out the door. Then I said, “Elders, there’s a lesson here today. You saw a lovely family come into this restaurant. What should we have done?”

"One of the elders spoke up quickly: “I thought about getting up and going over to talk to them. I felt the nudge, but I didn’t respond.”

“Elders,” I said, “we must always act on our first prompting. That nudge you felt was the Holy Ghost!”'

The "we"s suggest that he wasn't looking for the elders to do something. Rather he recognized all of them, including himself, missed the opportunity.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Rain

[Avatar4321]

On ‎4‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 1:06 PM, The Nehor said:

Normally, but I am okay with doing inappropriate things when prompted by the Spirit.

 

On ‎4‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 1:06 PM, The Nehor said:

Normally, but I am okay with doing inappropriate things when prompted by the Spirit.

didn't Ezekiel run around naked because the spirit told him? I may be thinking of another prophet

[The Nehor]

2 minutes ago, Avatar4321 said:

 

didn't Ezekiel run around naked because the spirit told him? I may be thinking of another prophet

Taken literally Ezekiel laid on the ground for over half a year. I think he went around uncovered but last I heard the consensus was that meant underclothed and not nude. Could be misremembering though, I have not touched the Old Testament in my scripture reading for a few years. May have to pick it up again soon.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

More like his advice is designed to create more prigs among us by teaching the general membership that the thoughts that pop into their minds are revelation from God and must be acted upon at once, even if it means usurping someone's agency, acting aggressively, or generally acting as a self-righteous prig.

I often find it refreshing when someone steps outside the accepted rules of conduct and does something which makes our collective jaws drop.  People sometimes say insensitive things, but which need to be said.  You are conveniently ignoring your own tendency to say things which are incendiary and out of line, but which sometimes need to be said.  If so, you must also allow that right for others, instead of making accusations in cases that you don't like.  Tut, tut for your special pleading, good buddy.

You completely miss the point, HappyJack.  Rasband is recommending that we not always practice priggish self-restraint, but on occasion do something considered inappropriate -- but only when prompted to do so by the Holy Spirit.  In the event, it turned out to be the right thing to do, and the police were not called.  You see it only as self-righteous aggression, with no room for any other interpretation.  WWJD?

[probablyHagoth7]

3 hours ago, Avatar4321 said:

 

didn't Ezekiel run around naked because the spirit told him? I may be thinking of another prophet

David did.

[Scott Lloyd]

18 hours ago, Duncan said:

One thing that is bewildering to me from conference and I don't want to offend anybody but why did Utah get another Temple? are they that hard done by and worse than the rest of the world to warrant another Temple? I was excited that Manila is getting another one considering there are over 100 stakes and districts that use the current one. I was hoping Mongolia and India would get one because the closet one is Hong Kong which isn't exactley close by

 

17 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It's more that they get used a lot. Provo has two.

 

17 hours ago, longview said:

Provo temples (and others) require reservations to get a turn at serving there.

It only makes sense.

Mexico has 13 temples because there is the Church membership base in that country to sustain them. There are some countries in the world that don't have any temple yet. Should the Church have waited until every country had a temple before constructing the temples in Mexico that are needed there?

Alberta has three temples (Cardston, Edmonton and Calgary). Should the Church have waited until every province in Canada got a temple before constructing the temples that were needed in Alberta?

At the groundbreaking for the Draper Utah Temple, President Hinckley addressed the question of why another temple in Utah. His plain answer was because it is needed. There was pressure on the Jordan River Temple that had to be relieved by constructing not one but two nearby temples (Draper and Oquiirrh Mountain).

Edited April 14, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

17 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It's more that they get used a lot. Provo has two.

So does South Jordan.

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

 

 

It only makes sense.

Mexico has 13 temples because there is the Church membership base in that country to sustain them. There are some countries in the world that don't have any temple yet. Should the Church have waited until every country had a temple before constructing the temples in Mexico that are needed there?

Alberta has three temples (Cardston, Edmonton and Calgary). Should the Church have waited until every province in Canada got a temple before constructing the temples that were needed in Alberta?

At the groundbreaking for the Draper Utah Temple, President Hinckley addressed the question of why another temple in Utah. His plain answer was because it is needed. There was pressure on the Jordan River Temple that had to be relieved by constructing not one but two nearby temples (Draper and Oquiirrh Mountain).

Yes, the wait for initiatorY on the women's side was sometimes 2 hours just before the Draper and Oquiirrh her completed. That was with limiting the number of names you could go through seriously. (During that time I went to other temples as well and they all allowed more than you could at Jordan River). 

Keep in mind that I understand many had much more travel time than I had wait time. It's just that a LOT of people went to Jordan River because that west side was rapidly expanding.  It would have been increasingly busy at the Jordan River without the other temoles. That west side was also having a dramatic need for new new schools.

The same thing was happening here in Mesa when I moved here, this time with an increase of new move ins and building on the south side.

As someone who has lived in busy temple districts I get REALLY  excited when temples are built in far flung places probably more than most,  but I also understand the need for them to be built in places where they will be used more. 

[stemelbow]

13 hours ago, Rain said:

"While serving as a mission president in New York City, I was with some of our missionaries in a restaurant in the Bronx. A young family came in and sat near us. They appeared golden for the gospel. I watched our missionaries as they continued to visit with me, then noticed as the family concluded their meal and slipped out the door. Then I said, “Elders, there’s a lesson here today. You saw a lovely family come into this restaurant. What should we have done?”

"One of the elders spoke up quickly: “I thought about getting up and going over to talk to them. I felt the nudge, but I didn’t respond.”

“Elders,” I said, “we must always act on our first prompting. That nudge you felt was the Holy Ghost!”'

The "we"s suggest that he wasn't looking for the elders to do something. Rather he recognized all of them, including himself, missed the opportunity.

Sure, it would have been much nicer if he acknowledged his failure and said while this was alesson I taught the missionaries the greater lesson was lost because I failed to act on the prompting myself.  But it didn't go that way.  Instead it comes off as a he waited and waited because he wanted the missionaries to do something but then used it to tell the elders they made a mistake immediately after the family left. 

I acknowledge you think he's saying he failed by using the term we, but it doesn't come off that way to me.  I'm guessing if I brought it up with him now he'd say, "you're right I should have said I failed too". 

[stemelbow]

53 minutes ago, Rain said:

Yes, the wait for initiatorY on the women's side was sometimes 2 hours just before the Draper and Oquiirrh her completed. That was with limiting the number of names you could go through seriously. (During that time I went to other temples as well and they all allowed more than you could at Jordan River). 

Keep in mind that I understand many had much more travel time than I had wait time. It's just that a LOT of people went to Jordan River because that west side was rapidly expanding.  It would have been increasingly busy at the Jordan River without the other temoles. That west side was also having a dramatic need for new new schools.

The same thing was happening here in Mesa when I moved here, this time with an increase of new move ins and building on the south side.

As someone who has lived in busy temple districts I get REALLY  excited when temples are built in far flung places probably more than most,  but I also understand the need for them to be built in places where they will be used more. 

Yes, I recall wife and I waiting in the chapel for a session and being turned away a couple times at the Jordan Temple because it got too late and there was no more room.  We did it a couple of times and as I recall the last time we waited we were there for a good 4 or 5 hours.  I saw many patrons get up in disgust and leave, sometimes giving an earful to the old folks trying to direct traffic (to the complainers credit we did often notice the traffic directors gave preference to some people putting them ahead of everyone else who had been waiting and as I recall all the loud boisterous complainers complained because they were getting pushed back for high preferenced patrons often after many previous explanations and complaints that they kept getting pushed back for other preferred patrons).  We stopped going early in the morning or in the late afternoon or evening after that, though. 

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

 

 

It only makes sense.

Mexico has 13 temples because there is the Church membership base in that country to sustain them. There are some countries in the world that don't have any temple yet. Should the Church have waited until every country had a temple before constructing the temples in Mexico that are needed there?

Alberta has three temples (Cardston, Edmonton and Calgary). Should the Church have waited until every province in Canada got a temple before constructing the temples that were needed in Alberta?

At the groundbreaking for the Draper Utah Temple, President Hinckley addressed the question of why another temple in Utah. His plain answer was because it is needed. There was pressure on the Jordan River Temple that had to be relieved by constructing not one but two nearby temples (Draper and Oquiirrh Mountain).

Alberta is a great place to live.... if you're a horrible person! JK!  They kind of did wait though to fill out the provinces, Calgary is the now second to last city to get a Temple. BC, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Sask all got a Temple before Calgary did-much to their chagrin i'm sure I know people in Raymond and Lethbridge Alberta who want a Temple, but unless some crazy happens will never happen in 4 billion years

I get pressure and who wants to stand outside of anything waiting to get in but is pressure more important that long and expensive travel times?

Edited April 14, 2017 by Duncan

[Rain]

26 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Sure, it would have been much nicer if he acknowledged his failure and said while this was alesson I taught the missionaries the greater lesson was lost because I failed to act on the prompting myself.  But it didn't go that way.  Instead it comes off as a he waited and waited because he wanted the missionaries to do something but then used it to tell the elders they made a mistake immediately after the family left. 

I acknowledge you think he's saying he failed by using the term we, but it doesn't come off that way to me.  I'm guessing if I brought it up with him now he'd say, "you're right I should have said I failed too". 

When he said, "we" then he was including himself in how they should have done better. It's odd to me that you would ignore the inclusion of himself and then to further admit you think he would have said he had failed if you had asked him. Should he have listed every way in his conference talk of how he failed so that it would have "come off that way to" you?

I'm seriously a little frustrated here. I have been trying to share with people that we need to listen to others like you who feel uncomfortable at church. I have been trying to show that sometimes you make some good points. Then I feel like you misunderstand talks like this, I show you where you missed in your understanding and you still criticize him for things you missed? If you want people to assume better of you then you you need to assume better of them as well.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Rain

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, Rain said:

When he said, "we" then he was including himself in how they should have done better. It's odd to me that you would ignore the inclusion of himself and then to further admit you think he would have said he had failed if you had asked him. Should he have listed every way in his conference talk of how he failed so that it would have "come off that way to" you?

I'm seriously a little frustrated here. I have been trying to share with people that we need to listen to others like you who feel uncomfortable at church. I have been trying to show that sometimes you make some good points. Then I feel like you misunderstand talks like this, show you where you missed in your understanding and you still criticize him for things you missed? If you want people to assume better of you then you you need to assue better of them as well.

Rain,

I'm happy to acknowledge that we each see this a little differently, even if the difference is pretty subtle.  Other than that I don't know that it's wise for me to get caught up arguing about this subtle difference amongst us.  I acknowledge Elder Rasband is a good man, right here for you.  I acknowledge that I can get somewhat skeptical about intents, even from leaders.  And I acknowledge that in all my points I'm likely wrong.  But I still like to discuss this stuff at some level.  I didn't like the story and didn't find it helpful.  I also, as I pointed out earlier, didn't really think his point was a valuable one. 

[rodheadlee]

On 4/13/2017 at 6:03 AM, probablyHagoth7 said:

Struggling?

Saw a bumper sticker with a similar message. Coveted it. Repented.

It was my first impression to inject a needed smile into this mental illness tangent. So I went with it. (To cloverleaf that tangent back into the GC topic.)

You can race around those things all day long, back when we were kids it was great fun.

[Scott Lloyd]

35 minutes ago, Duncan said:

Alberta is a great place to live.... if you're a horrible person! JK!  They kind of did wait though to fill out the provinces, Calgary is the now second to last city to get a Temple. BC, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Sask all got a Temple before Calgary did-much to their chagrin i'm sure I know people in Raymond and Lethbridge Alberta who want a Temple, but unless some crazy happens will never happen in 4 billion years

I get pressure and who wants to stand outside of anything waiting to get in but is pressure more important that long and expensive travel times?

I think both considerations need to be weighed in the balance. And both have been addressed.

The need to cut travel times was a driving consideration in President Hinckley's determination 20 years ago to start building some smaller temples that could be constructed less expensively and in more remote areas of the Church.

 

[Rain]

9 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Rain,

I'm happy to acknowledge that we each see this a little differently, even if the difference is pretty subtle.  Other than that I don't know that it's wise for me to get caught up arguing about this subtle difference amongst us.  I acknowledge Elder Rasband is a good man, right here for you.  I acknowledge that I can get somewhat skeptical about intents, even from leaders.  And I acknowledge that in all my points I'm likely wrong.  But I still like to discuss this stuff at some level.  I didn't like the story and didn't find it helpful.  I also, as I pointed out earlier, didn't really think his point was a valuable one. 

I am ok with you not liking his story etc. I'm ok with the discussion. I just feel that when people want to discuss things and really understand both sides then we need to listen to the other side as well. 

I was ok that you missed that he included himself. What frustrated me was when you dug in and said he didn't say it good enough.

Ever been on a curvy road and slightly under turned and almost fly off the road? This point may be a "subtle" difference, but sometimes that difference can have us flying off the road. What if that subtle difference changed the way you understood his talk? 

I, too, don't want to argue about this,  but if you acknowledge to yourself that just maybe it was your understanding of the situation that was wrong, perhaps there are more important things in the talk that you will gain. 

 

[stemelbow]

2 minutes ago, Rain said:

I am ok with you not liking his story etc. I'm ok with the discussion. I just feel that when people want to discuss things and really understand both sides then we need to listen to the other side as well. 

I was ok that you missed that he included himself. What frustrated me was when you dug in and said he didn't say it good enough.

Ever been on a curvy road and slightly under turned and almost fly off the road? This point may be a "subtle" difference, but sometimes that difference can have us flying off the road. What if that subtle difference changed the way you understood his talk? 

I, too, don't want to argue about this,  but if you acknowledge to yourself that just maybe it was your understanding of the situation that was wrong, perhaps there are more important things in the talk that you will gain. 

 

I'm open to considering anything you want to offer from the talk that I should have gotten and missed.

I'm agreeing with you that he said "we" when he framed it.  But it still came off differently for me than you, and with that I acknowledge I'm the one who is probably further from his intent.  But, that acknowledgement doesn't quite get me to where you are. 

Thanks. 

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Duncan said:

Alberta is a great place to live.... if you're a horrible person! JK!  They kind of did wait though to fill out the provinces, Calgary is the now second to last city to get a Temple. BC, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Sask all got a Temple before Calgary did-much to their chagrin i'm sure I know people in Raymond and Lethbridge Alberta who want a Temple, but unless some crazy happens will never happen in 4 billion years

I get pressure and who wants to stand outside of anything waiting to get in but is pressure more important that long and expensive travel times?

It's a pretty short drive from Lethbridge to Cardston. The Halifax temple is only a part time temple. One room is converted to an endowment room as I recall.

[Duncan]

Just now, clarkgoble said:

It's a pretty short drive from Lethbridge to Cardston. The Halifax temple is only a part time temple. One room is converted to an endowment room as I recall.

yeah, so Lethbridgians are going to have to wait! Halifax is a smaller Temple, it only serves 2 stakes and 1 district but the travel for the Newfoundlanders would be a long time. Saint Johns NFLD to Halifax you can fly it but driving is at least 22 hours. I'd say it would be cheaper to fly it but I don't know any members out that way so I don't know what they actually do.

[Rain]

20 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I'm open to considering anything you want to offer from the talk that I should have gotten and missed.

I'm agreeing with you that he said "we" when he framed it.  But it still came off differently for me than you, and with that I acknowledge I'm the one who is probably further from his intent.  But, that acknowledgement doesn't quite get me to where you are. 

Thanks. 

Ok 

Lol on the acknowledgement getting to where I am. While I like conference that was one talk I had my mind wandering to other things. Actually a lot of talks had me doing that. I just struggled to be there this last conference so I have looked forward to reading the talks to see what I missed. With your last post I went back to read it.

After doing so I think that if we separate the stories from the rest of what he says we miss a LOT. More so the foot in door one.

Much of the talk is about learning to recognize the promptings of the Spirit. He gives a lot things that will help us do that. It isn't till near the end that he says that 9/10 times that feeling is a prompting. You have to consider tge whole talk to see the progression.

When I really read the scriptures, pray etc that he talked about I find those "feelings" much more present in my life and they feel different. I think that sometimes people second guess them because they intuitively know something is different even if they couldn't tell you why. I rarely try to second guess things that are not the Spirit. Looking back I see that is the case for me anyway.

So as a missionary he was doing the things to have the Spirit in his life and he intuitively felt that prompting to put his foot in the door. He describes how this was a unique situation. In the context of the rest of the talk it works.

Fifteen years ago I had my son in his carseat in the kitchen. It was a typical kitchen with cupboards etc, but this one also had a cupboard that was put on the wall after the house was built. I had a strong feeling that I should move my son out of his carseat and in to the bedroom. I looked at him and he was sound asleep. I thought to myself, "I don't want to wake him". That impression came again. And then a third time.

Finally, I moved him in to the bedroom, laid him on the bed. Within a minute I heard a loud crash. I ran into the kitchen to discover that the cupboard had fallen off the wall, corner first, into the carseat. There is no doubt in my mind that if I would have left him there, he would have been crushed.

Years ago I learned that if I had a feeling to do something good with little effort  it didn't matter if it was the Spirit or not. I can smile at someone or pick flowers in my yard for a neighbor and that brightened people's day whether it was the Spirit or not. I found though that I began to recognize better through doing that when the Spirit was speaking. Some of those times I recognized were not the Spirit. I continued to do them anyway - we are not to be commanded in all things.

When I moved my son it was not a "good" thing to do thought that came to my head. It was a little odd thing to do, but it is so incredibly obvious to me now that it was the Spirit.

That's kind of how I see Elder Rasband's story. He was doing the things to gain the Spirit. He was told to put his foot in the door. The Spirit prompted him and he intuitively recognized the prompting as the Spirt to do something odd even if his thought process did not. 

But like what I was saying about doing "good" things, if I moved my son and nothing further happened what would I have lost? Ten seconds, maybe. I think the follow the Spirit quickly in these kinds of things means something different than follow the Spirit quickly if you get a feeling to hand over $10,000 to your neighbor without thinking about it. There is much more to be lost so the Spirit expects you to give a little more thought to it. 

I encourage you to read the talk again. Maybe even skip the stories. Ask for what you might be missing.