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Matt, welcome! Tell us more about your Navy career. What did you do in the Navy, where stationed, how long, etc. I’m a Navy civilian employee for almost 40 years, and wonder if our paths have crossed. Arrakeen wrote:
I wish instead of these generic talks we could have a “reverse devotional” where the YSA could teach the general authorities about their concerns and give advice about how to relate better to the younger generation.
No No No!. Elder Packer taught that a General Authority faces the Prophet, with his back to the people, not the other way around. He represents the Prophet to the people, and does not represent the members to the Prophet.
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“Which way do you face?” President Boyd K. Packer surprised me with this puzzling question while we were traveling together on my very first assignment as a new Seventy. Without an explanation to put the question in context, I was baffled. “A Seventy,” he continued, “does not represent the people to the prophet but the prophet to the people. Never forget which way you face!” It was a powerful lesson.
You fell for the old ‘bate and switch” routine. The missionaries teach you one thing, and the reality of “church” is much different. You are an adult, and you need to set boundaries. They are thinking you will stop coming to church if they don’t load you up with activities. But as I’ve seen, sometime it will drive people out. Tell anybody that will listen what you feel comfortable doing, and remember that “No” is a complete sentence and needs no explanation.
I once heard of a MP who told his missionaries that they should never set a goal that took away the free agency of somebody else. So NO baptismal goals. You could set goals for hours tracting, or hours studying, but never number of lessons or baptisms. I’m pretty sure this MP was not promoted up the ranks when he got home!
Check out This Reddit postBest comment: I haven’t had a bad come follow me lesson all month, no one’s said anything racist or preached false doctrine over the pulpit, and it’s been a real boost to my testimony seeing all these people do wonderful things in a time of absolute mayhem.
BYU as an institution is under pressure to have an official non-discrimination policy. (BYU-I, BYU-H, and Ensign College haven’t felt this pressure, yet.) This pressure is coming from accreditation bodies as well as grad schools and employers who discount the value of a BYU undergraduate degree. Therefore, the institution is now “officially” non-discriminatory. However, every student still has to get an ecclesiastical endorsement every year from their respective bishops. In effect, the university has delegated the policing of LGBTQ students from the honor code office to the bishops of student wards. Some of those bishops will be decent human beings and others will be complete jerks. Leadership roulette at its finest.
Old Timer wrote:
Honestly, I have never had a MP or SP show up unannounced and ask to speak. Is that common where you live?
While Bishop I had a 70 (Lawrence) show up (with SP in tow), unannounced 10 min before church was to start. He wanted to speak. I remember it because I got in trouble for telling a joke while introducing him (he had been MP in Siberia, so you can guess where that went).
After the meeting he told my SP that it was inappropriate to tell jokes in Sacrament meeting, only the prophet could do that (Hinckley at the time) My SP relayed the information to me. Because I liked my SP, I didn’t tell him to tell the 70 get that stick out of his %$5#@$%$^.
They are having to rename all the “I’m a Mormon” entries to “I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. This is taking much longer than anticipated. They also have to scrub the text to do the replacement of the word Mormon, but not if they are talking about the Mormon Pioneers. It has the IT nerds at the COB working overtime! California just changed the law removing the statute of limitation on reporting child molestation. There have been many lawyer commercials on TV advertising their services. They don’t mention any particular organization, but you get the idea that BSA and the Catholic church are who they are after. felixfabulous wrote:
I read the DesNews article this morning and was struck by this line: “As an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, I have a solemn duty to face the Lord and deliver his message,” said President Ballard. “His words often include words of encouragement and expressions of love. They also include words of warning.”Maybe what Ballard was saying is that he faces the Lord, and not the members of the church. His role is to deliver top down information, never bottom up to the Lord what the members are thinking. This is an old Packer talk.
Quote:Elder Lee had agreed to give me counsel and some direction. He didn’t say much, nothing really in detail, but what he told me has saved me time and time again. “You must decide now which way you face,” he said. “Either you represent the teachers and students and champion their causes or you represent the Brethren who appointed you. You need to decide now which way you face.” then he added, “some of your predecessors faced the wrong way.” It took some hard and painful lessons before I understood his counsel. In time, I did understand, and my resolve to face the right way became irreversible.
