I am sitting in a crowded bishop's office attending Ward Council this morning. The only noteworthy items so far are more lower age rules for specific meetings:
General Women's Meeting- this was previously announced, but now girls age 8 and up are encouraged to attend
Saturday Evening Session of Stake Conference- all stake members age 12 and up are invited to this meeting
Maybe Churchco is realizing that they have to get their hooks into the kids deeper than before to make sure a future tithing revenue stream is realized.

Secret Agent Man

them as men and women

Now we just received a goal from our stake that each young man/woman should index 150,000 names this year. For my own son to accomplish this, he would have to give up one of the sports he loves, and would only be able to do indexing in the free time created by giving up his sport. Fat chance that this goal will be accomplished at my house.
And why not start with a reasonable goal? No one in the room balked at the number publicly, because you can't question these inspired goals.

For those that don't know what is meant by indexing, I found this with a google search.

https://www.lds.org/youth/article/getting-into-indexing?lang=eng

Little scary.

"Because it protects you from the influence of Satan." *sigh*

It's like sweatshop labor to populate genealogy databases. With **no** wages earned **at all**

Diabolical!

Dear Holy Gawd . . . I've raised a houseful of teenagers (both in the church and out). I simply cannot imagine how any parent could enforce this activity. This has got to be the most mind-numbingly, stupid decree I've ever heard given to the youth.

How long do you think a kid would actually last researching/typing such drivel online? I'd give them about 9 seconds before they hit up twitter or facebook, or started texting.

I honestly wonder if TSCC is getting alzheimers, in a collective sort of way. The church is sure spouting off some bizarre stuff. Do they have any idea how weird they look to the rest of the world?

So this is a "normal" teenaged activity? To spend months of free time online digging up dead people? And not even your own freaking RELATIVES?! wth.

;o)

This is a colossal waste of time. Don't let him do it.

There is nothing going on in any Mormon church meeting that requires more intelligence than that of a 2-year old anyway, so why bother with age limits at all?

The bishop just read a new letter from the top 3 regarding same sex marriage. The discussion after was fairly appalling. Most comments focused on tolerating the opposition. I reminded the group that Jesus taught that we should love, not just tolerate.

Ward temple day discussion is now taking place. Very few of the 20-45 year olds attend, and the bishop is concerned. There are only 12 couples in our ward deep in the heart of the morridor that attend regularly. If temple recommend=temple attendance= tithing, the message is falling on deaf ears, at least in our ward.

That probably bounced off their foreheads. And, where do you get off quoting Jesus like that?

Yes, secret agent man...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iaR3WO71j4

Keep us posted

As a grown women to have meeting with 8 year old girls would not be fun for me. I would have to leave my 3 kids under 6 at home to be with a bunch of 8 year olds haha.

Indexing-associated with FamilySearch website, which I always get confused with Ancestry.com


On the indexing above, one of the reasons to get the youth to participate in Indexing is to
"Because it protects you from the influence of Satan."

What a crock.

All the reasons are to first take ADVANTAGE of the young person to benefit the church.

(Flips the bird towards SLC)

RMM

This may explain why so much from my family is wrong on FamilySearch. My grandparents' names were listed multiple times with so many errors that they looked like completely different people.

If this kind of busy work was forced on me at such a young age I'd have avoided church as much as possible. And if I couldn't avoid it I'd certainly be entering bogus info just to get it over with and keep the parents and bishop smiling. Kids can be very creative that way. A couple of members of my family really took to Family History. I did not. It wasn't forced on me but if it had been I'd have gone inactive a lot sooner. Let's hope it has that effect on today's youth.

Kids need time to play, explore, read, and express their interests. Meetings are counter productive to their development.

Meetings are counter productive to everyone's development!

Cheryl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Kids need time to play, explore, read, and express
> their interests. Meetings are counter productive
> to their development.

Which is one reason school, any kind of school, ruins them in many ways.

12 year olds, who's supposed to babysit?

Who babysits?

Inspiration sometimes clouds details, like who stays home with the under age 12 group.

I agree with greatstanding. I remember when Saturday stake conference was PH and RS leadership only. Then it became all adults only. Now it is > 12. They are trying to get to the kids as early as they can. What teenager wants to go to church on Saturday evening? TSCC already steals half of their weekend.

When I was 12 (back in the Stone Age), information/truth was if not hidden, very difficult to discover. TSCC didn't mess with us as much in those days.

Meeting is over. 2 hours down, 3 more to go on this day of rest.

wow, 12 yr olds at the adult meeting. must be nice for them on top of mutual and seminary.

1. Waste everybody's time by making announcements that could just be made over the pulpit.

2. Set goals for OTHER people to carry out: Gotta say, that irritates the hell out of me. Whether it's trying to get other people to do genealogy, convert to the church, attend the temple, or whatever, this usually fails miserably. Heck, setting your OWN goals usually fails miserably.

150,000 names, divided by 300 days in a year (assuming that kids might take a day off of their name submissions every week)? 500. 500 names per day. If they spend only 1 minute on each--which is also highly unlikely--that would take between 8 and 9 hours per day, which obviously isn't possible. They must have meant per ALL of the youth in the stake.

But still, they are really out of touch if they think kids these days have extra time. Most of the youth I know are over scheduled. They can't even do all the stuff they WANT to do, and still get their sleep.

3. Judging others (the gay letter). Yeah. Nothing brings people together better than finding someone they can all point the finger at. I bet they are all so glad they are all better than THAT.

If you want something important done right have a child do it....

Oh wait that does not sound right...lol

What a bunch of busy work nonsense

I doubt any 8yr old will want to go get all dressed up to sit at another meeting. Can't see the parents wanting to babysit their kid in the meeting either.

Thus, I prophesy that this will not work out and will fall by the wayside.

Another reason for the youth to participate:

"But this isn’t your typical data entry—this work is filled with the Spirit of Elijah. The Lord promised that Elijah would return and turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers (see Malachi 4:5–6). As you do this work, you’ll be able to feel the Spirit of Elijah (which is the Holy Ghost). It will bring greater peace, joy, and purpose into your life because it’s a work with eternal importance."