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I loved primary and wish I could go back (in HP group leadership now). The lessons give some latitude on what you want to present, so I always chose to focus on the areas of teaching that encourage us as people be good to one another. Ultimately, your choice, but I think for people like us it can work well.
I doubt this will come close to changing anytime soon. I just wear whatever dress shirt I want to wear that day. It is white maybe once a month. Of course I had to wear white all the time as the first counselor in the bishopric. I agree that it would take some high ranking people to start wearing color and would add that it would have to be over a length of time.
He makes some very good points and I agree that this could be applied more broadly than just CES. If we could just get people in the church to allow the “issues” to come up and be discussed in the first place, that would go a long way. The definition of tithing at church is so incredibly vague. From LDS.org: The First Presidency gave the following definition of tithing: “The simplest statement we know of is the statement of the Lord himself, namely, that the members of the Church should pay ‘one-tenth of all their interest annually,’ which is understood to mean income. No one is justified in making any other statement than this” (First Presidency letter, 19 Mar. 1970).
It’s between you and the Lord. Sounds like it might help if you and your wife need to decide what the statement above means to you, but tithing in my opinion should not create incredible hardship. I really don’t even like the concept of tithing settlement and feel for the bishops having to do it and for all of us needing to go. It should be sufficient to say you are a full tithe payer in a temple recommend interview based on what your understanding of tithing is to how the spirit speaks to you when pondering the statement above.
All the junk people say about getting more blessings by paying on your gross are totally unfounded.
Welcome Sister Awakening! I am so glad you have posted your story here and that you are getting a lot out of this forum. This is a good group of people here and I personally have learned a lot from them, from being able to distinguish the “Church” from the “gospel” to learning how better to show compassion and understand people who are different than me. I also like that people are generally positive here in spite of challenges they face and I think you will like that as well.
:clap: This one is as likely to appear as one on “The Church and the Gospel”, but I would like to see on on “Personal Revelation and Obedience to Leaders”. I really would like to see them be more public with members encouraged to read them. This doesn’t have to be an all out blitz, but maybe an article in the Church magazines and at least one GA talking about them in General Conference.
We are slated to have the Temporal and Spiritual Self Reliance lesson this Sunday and I am looking forward to it. I hope our discussion goes as well as it sounds yours did – this is a great topic. Welcome Eternity. Ugh, I found that CES letter early on too (I’m all but certain that is the one you are talking about) and it was difficult. I was pretty angry at the time. You are getting good advice here with the “take it slow” counsel. That helps immensely. If you are like me, it did prompt more searching, reading, and pondering and personally, I tried really hard to do that while keeping a very open mind (difficult to do, given what we learn throughout life in Church).
Hope you benefit from participating here. I have found this group both caring and supportive.
I’m in the same court with SD – Truth Restored was the history. That and a handful of other church approved books were the only ones I was allowed to study on my mission (and I faithfully followed the rules). I got loud and clear from leaders and teachers to keep away from the “anti-mormon” stuff (which was virtually anything that talked negatively about the church). And since our leaders will never lead us astray, I towed the line. The sad part is that his post and others like it are the type that encourage people to get all riled up and defensive. I wish that would stop and we could just go forward and work through this. If the Church and its staunch defenders would just back off a bit on the “it’s true no matter what” approach and just focus on the truth and the goodness that we can do now, it would be quite refreshing.
BTW, Loved your explanation, Bill.
Wow, that sounds like a great talk! When you think about it, we really know so little about those around us and the experiences that shaped who they are. I’m sure if we all had a decent understanding of that, we might be a bit more compassionate.
