Why so many new temples, up 70 under pres nelson 3.5 year tenure when membership flat. Why?

[secondclasscitizen]

10 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Oh, but you forgot to say "Mother, may I?" 

Oh yea forgot that part 

[Kenngo1969]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:40 AM, secondclasscitizen said:

The prophet will declare the church to be false before they publish temple attendance numbers which are progressively lower. You will never get that information without it being a leak. 

Speaking of which, I haven't heard much from the purveyor of LormonMeaks lately.  Have I just not been paying enough attention, have people started treating him like the boy who cried wolf, or is there simply not that much interest in, say, the blockbuster leak of the budget for the Relief Society Luncheon of the Podunk 112th Ward held on September 31, 1978?   (I wonder, have the powers-that-be in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tightened things up in an attempt to starve him of material?)

[mgy401]

On 5/21/2021 at 11:40 PM, secondclasscitizen said:

Our old building was always filthy and smelled. The one we are in now is generally clean except the restrooms always stink to high heaven... well the men’s does. Whoever cleans it does a decent job .. except for the restrooms 

It’s so hard to find good help these days . . .

[The Nehor]

On 5/22/2021 at 11:07 AM, gopher said:

I've heard Norwegians claim there would be close to 50,000 members in Norway today if so many didn't come to the U.S. after WWII.  Maybe having a temple in Oslo will help bring some members back home.

When I was in England someone said that if the Saints had not encouraged migration to Nauvoo and Salt Lake that the British Isles would be over half members by now. He told me to tell the people of Utah to be nice to the European saints who have trouble finding converts and growing after the Woodruffs of the church came through and took everyone.

[The Nehor]

On 5/22/2021 at 4:39 PM, sheilauk said:

I'm sure it's wrong of me,  but a part of me kinda wishes this were true! 😁

Yep, that's probably what would happen! ☺

It could be true. I mean temples can have more than one purpose. Great are the mysteries of God and the cthonian terrors that dwell beyond space and time.

[gopher]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

When I was in England someone said that if the Saints had not encouraged migration to Nauvoo and Salt Lake that the British Isles would be over half members by now. He told me to tell the people of Utah to be nice to the European saints who have trouble finding converts and growing after the Woodruffs of the church came through and took everyone.

I realize it's not practical to send back Saints to their home countries, but it's probably even more difficult with Norway.  This year Bing.com posted a photo of Ålesund for Norway's May 17th national holiday.  I stayed in this hellhole for two weeks - who would ever want to live here?

 

[Scott Lloyd]

15 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Speaking of which, I haven't heard much from the purveyor of LormonMeaks lately.  Have I just not been paying enough attention, have people started treating him like the boy who cried wolf, or is there simply not that much interest in, say, the blockbuster leak of the budget for the Relief Society Luncheon of the Podunk 112th Ward held on September 31, 1978?   (I wonder, have the powers-that-be in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tightened things up in an attempt to starve him of material?)

According to his website the last posting was well over a year ago — in early March of 2020. He seemed to go radio-silent concomitantly with the onset of the pandemic surge. Don’t know whether correlation is causation in this instance. 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

12 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

According to his website the last posting was well over a year ago — in early March of 2020. He seemed to go radio-silent concomitantly with the onset of the pandemic surge. Don’t know whether correlation in causation in this instance. 

Maybe it had more to do with the lawsuit:

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/07/20/mormonleaks-founders-pay/

Quote

In late April 2020, Watch Tower, the governing organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, filed a lawsuit against Truth & Transparency for copyright infringement. After securing legal counsel, we announced our intention to fight the suit on the basis of the First Amendment. It is with great difficulty that we announce that our fundraising efforts have come up short and we were forced to settle the suit.

As can be seen from publicly filed documentation with the court, the following were the basis of the settlement agreement in exchange for the case to be dropped:

Truth & Transparency would remove all documents owned by Watch Tower from all our websites.

Truth & Transparency, and it’s founders, Ryan McKnight and Ethan Gregory Dodge, will never again publish copyrighted material owned by Watch Tower.

Truth & Transparency will pay Watch Tower a total of $15,000 in damages.

The result is absolutely agonizing and has been emotionally, mentally, and physically taxing on us, as it goes against our core values. Additionally, the irony that we have not been able to say anything publicly until now, causing tremendous frustration for our supporters, is not lost on us. We simply were not at liberty to do so while the settlement was being negotiated, which added to the stress and agony of the situation.

We deeply appreciate the generosity of our supporters who helped us raise over $13,000 to fight this legal battle. But, as stated in our original press release, we realistically could not fight this with anything short of $40,000. The result of not meeting this goal was that we had to engage in settlement negotiations with the extremely well-funded Watch Tower. The majority of the funds raised were used to pay our attorney for representation during the settlement process, thus far amounting to $10,000. These discussions can be lengthy and representation is not cheap.

To be clear, Truth & Transparency maintains that we did not violate any of Watch Tower’s copyright, however, without the funds to make our arguments in court, we had no choice but to settle.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.truthandtransparency.org/press/2020/07/20/truth-transparency-settles-with-watch-tower/amp/

Edited May 24, 2021 by Calm

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Maybe it had more to do with the lawsuit:

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/07/20/mormonleaks-founders-pay/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.truthandtransparency.org/press/2020/07/20/truth-transparency-settles-with-watch-tower/amp/

Karma. 
 

I wonder if this could now serve as a precedent favoring the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in similar actions the Church might bring. T&T seems very vulnerable indeed if it is too weak to fight such reprisals. 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[Kenngo1969]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

Maybe it had more to do with the lawsuit:

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/07/20/mormonleaks-founders-pay/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.truthandtransparency.org/press/2020/07/20/truth-transparency-settles-with-watch-tower/amp/

Awww.  Gee.  That's too bad.

[mfbukowski]

On 5/23/2021 at 3:43 PM, The Nehor said:

When I was in England someone said that if the Saints had not encouraged migration to Nauvoo and Salt Lake that the British Isles would be over half members by now. He told me to tell the people of Utah to be nice to the European saints who have trouble finding converts and growing after the Woodruffs of the church came through and took everyone.

I can't make any sense of that at all.  The presumption has to be that all those who accepted the gospel in the Isles were predestined by their geneological line to join the church and then all those perfect predestined folk's genetic lines, since they left, caused there to be fewer converts from the families NOT predestined to accept the gospel?

I can't understand the logic of that

[mfbukowski]

On 5/23/2021 at 7:15 PM, gopher said:

I realize it's not practical to send back Saints to their home countries, but it's probably even more difficult with Norway.  This year Bing.com posted a photo of Ålesund for Norway's May 17th national holiday.  I stayed in this hellhole for two weeks - who would ever want to live here?

 

Yeah but this could be at 3 AM - in the summer right?  Better pull down that sleep mask....

And darkness all winter?

I mean we have to look at the negative side here too right?  

[The Nehor]

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I can't make any sense of that at all.  The presumption has to be that all those who accepted the gospel in the Isles were predestined by their geneological line to join the church and then all those perfect predestined folk's genetic lines, since they left, caused there to be fewer converts from the families NOT predestined to accept the gospel?

I can't understand the logic of that

It was more of a half-joke.

[pogi]

On 5/22/2021 at 2:12 PM, pogi said:

The way I read it, there are 2 criteria that need to be met:

1) "When local government regulations allow it."

2) "When the incidence of COVID-19 in your area is within safe limits."

@rongo this confirms what I said about 2 criteria:

"Since May 2020, temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been reopening in a cautious, careful way, in four phases and based on local circumstances and governmental restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic," 

https://www.ksl.com/article/50173291/utah-latter-day-saint-temples-to-move-to-next-phase-of-opening

Good news is that we are moving to phase 3 in Utah and many other locations (60 temples in total).

Edited May 26, 2021 by pogi

[Scott Lloyd]

On 5/23/2021 at 4:43 PM, The Nehor said:

When I was in England someone said that if the Saints had not encouraged migration to Nauvoo and Salt Lake that the British Isles would be over half members by now. He told me to tell the people of Utah to be nice to the European saints who have trouble finding converts and growing after the Woodruffs of the church came through and took everyone.

 

On 5/25/2021 at 12:42 AM, mfbukowski said:

I can't make any sense of that at all.  The presumption has to be that all those who accepted the gospel in the Isles were predestined by their geneological line to join the church and then all those perfect predestined folk's genetic lines, since they left, caused there to be fewer converts from the families NOT predestined to accept the gospel?

I can't understand the logic of that

 

13 hours ago, The Nehor said:

It was more of a half-joke.

I agree with Mark here. 
 

But maybe what was meant was that sometimes, after the Church has first entered a country, there is a surge in convert baptisms there, indicative of the harvest of low-hanging fruit, as it were. Thereafter, we are obliged to glean what is left, and the harvest progresses much more slowly. That has apparently happened in the British Isles and Europe and, much later, on the continent of Africa and in Asia and the Philippines. 
 

In the case of the British Isles and Europe, the low-hanging fruit was largely “gathered to Zion,” which, prior to the 20th Century, meant the Intermountain West. So we have people like me, with my Swedish, English, Welsh and Scottish roots, who are living in Utah today as descendants of that initial gathering. We go to our ancestral countries as missionaries (my eldest son, like me, was sent to Sweden) and, alas, unlike the missionaries in the early part of this gospel dispensation, find the people there largely unresponsive to the message of the restored gospel. 
 

Of course, that seems to be happening to one degree or another all over the world these days. That, to me, is indicative of what Nephi beheld in vision: that the church of the Lamb of God would be over all the face of the earth (a global reach) but that its numbers would be few (comparatively speaking) by reason of the influence of Satan and his “church” (collectively meaning all tenets, theories, ideologies, philosophies, social forces, indolence, wickedness, etc., that work in opposition to the Lamb of God, the Savior of the world). 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

 

 

I agree with Mark here. 
 

But maybe what was meant was that sometimes, after the Church has first entered a country, there is a surge in convert baptisms there, indicative of the harvest of low-hanging fruit, as it were. Thereafter, we are obliged to glean what is left, and the harvest progresses much more slowly. That has apparently happened in the British Isles and Europe and, much later, on the continent of Africa and in Asia and the Philippines. 
 

In the case of the British Isles and Europe, the low-hanging fruit was largely “gathered to Zion,” which, prior to the 20th Century, meant the Intermountain West. So we have people like me, with my Swedish, English, Welsh and Scottish roots, who are living in Utah today as descendants of that initial gathering. We go to our ancestral countries as missionaries (my eldest son, like me, was sent to Sweden) and, alas, unlike the missionaries in the early part of this gospel dispensation, find the people there largely unresponsive to the message of the restored gospel. 
 

Of course, that seems to be happening to one degree or another all over the world these days. That, to me, is indicative of what Nephi beheld in vision: that the church of the Lamb of God would be over all the face of the earth (a global reach) but that its numbers would be few (comparatively speaking) by reason of the influence of Satan and his “church” (collectively meaning all tenets, theories, ideologies, philosophies, social forces, indolence, wickedness, etc., that work in opposition to the Lamb of God, the Savior of the world). 

Good points!

Possibly the surge is also self fulfilling- it presents a new idea and others think "Wow- everyone is joining this group, maybe I should check it out". 

When they experience the fruits, they join.

But when they leave, they are no longer the "new thing" they become, in the popular mind, just a passing fad.

It's a sad comment on the popular mind.

 

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Good points!

Possibly the surge is also self fulfilling- it presents a new idea and others think "Wow- everyone is joining this group, maybe I should check it out". 

When they experience the fruits, they join.

But when they leave, they are no longer the "new thing" they become, in the popular mind, just a passing fad.

It's a sad comment on the popular mind.

 

Yes. After the collapse of Communism in the former Soviet Union and it was opened to Christian groups, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not the fastest growing there, notwithstanding pent-up demand. I think the Seventh Day Adventists and possibly the Jehovah’s Witnesses were faster. 

[Stargazer]

On 5/21/2021 at 6:34 AM, Duncan said:

Now that the subject has come up, The Toronto Ontario Temple, is not really even in Toronto, it's in Brampton but it's not used much so while it would be nice to have another one there I doubt it. I found out that the temple president here is going to be helping with the vaccination effort, he's a retired dentist so that is what he'll be doing until whenever whatever happens I guess!

The Seattle Temple isn't in Seattle; it's in Bellevue. The London Temple isn't in London; it's in Newchapel. The Preston Temple isn't in Preston; it's in Chorley. The Frankfurt Temple isn't in Frankfurt; it's in Friedrichsdorf. The Portland Temple isn't in Portland; it's in Lake Oswego. I think most temples aren't actually located where their names suggest they're located.  

[Scott Lloyd]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

The Seattle Temple isn't in Seattle; it's in Bellevue. The London Temple isn't in London; it's in Newchapel. The Preston Temple isn't in Preston; it's in Chorley. The Frankfurt Temple isn't in Frankfurt; it's in Friedrichsdorf. The Portland Temple isn't in Portland; it's in Lake Oswego. I think most temples aren't actually located where their names suggest they're located.  

The St. Louis Temple is not in St. Louis; it’s in Town and Country. And so it goes. 

Edited July 16, 2021 by Scott Lloyd