I thought the quote in this topic's subject funny.

http://www.ysa-leaders.org/y/d/ysa_challenges

I'm still trying to lose the grasp of an iron rod used to beat me down most of my life.

And reading this link makes me wonder about this site? It this legit? There really is a site out on The Internet talking about a problem in Church governance so openly?

http://www.ysa-leaders.org/y/d/motivating_observations

And this sounds like criticism of leaders via their policies.

"The Church’s records policy for singles units exacerbates this problem: it requires YSAs who choose to attend a YSA ward or branch to opt in, and then they must ask for their records to be transferred into the singles unit. This constitutes a de facto policy of allowing most of the YSAs who do not opt into the singles ward to opt out of the Church unnoticed. "

I've found being a single and mormon to be extremely difficult. YOur treated like a 30 year old teenager. No one says hurtful
things, per say, but your just not in the club either. YOu just don't relate to the topics of conversation. you sit alone while everyone else has support, you have none. It's uncomfortable. And every meeting is in essence a testimony meeting about how belssed they are because of their family. The gospel is never really brought up in Mormonism. It's all a bunch of ramiumptuns, if you ask me. Vanities of Vanities, all is Vanity.

poopstone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's all a bunch of ramiumptuns,
> if you ask me. Vanities of Vanities, all is
> Vanity.


Mormon Singles are these tempting Satan to lead them to Hell with their singlehood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_Vanities

Mormons are an odd bunch. Marrieds are the interesting people with all their kids. The Singles are boring. Usually it's the other way around.

I had a few young women try to grasp my iron rod before I left on my mission. One of them even succeeded.
Somehow I doubt today's TBM young women are any worse at it...

:)

Thank you.

Shennanigans called off!

I call shenannigans on this thread.

You can't use iron rod in your title without talking at least a little bit about masturbation.

It was a quote!

Yeah, sorry but that title always reminds me of this LDS approved pin:

http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/35058187/aview/J1.jpg

Mormons - naïve since 1820.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2015 03:46PM by CA girl.

Because opting out of the morg unnoticed apparently is a major crime.
Priceless.

I liked that. Because you never marry, you're just opting out of Mormonism.

This won't be an official church website. As the OP said, the church would never publicly acknowledge it has problems like this.

It's probably some well-meaning TBM Stake President who's started it or something. I wouldn't be too surprised if the church finds out who started the site and asks them to take it down. They can't do much about ex-mormon sites, but having sites by TBMs which essentially criticize an aspect of the church is a big problem for the church leaders. Once a few members criticize the church and get away with it, more will feel the courage to voice their concerns too, and it'll escalate.

"About 20% of our young men of record, aged 19-24, have served or are serving missions."

Could that be accurate?

Did you think it would be higher or lower? 20% sounds about right if over half are inactive or don't even self-identify as Mormons. I live in Utah and the SP here has said in multiple "hastening the work" meetings that over half of the members in the stake are inactive. There isn't a ward in the stake that has anywhere near 50% of the members at SM each week.

Vanity of the bonfires.

Holding to the rod kept me out of the LTM (mtc).

Thanks again Captain Gordo.

And then I had the draft to worry about but yet I managed to duck another bullet with that.

Like Dad always said, hold to the rod.

Too much lube?

I've been singing this song for eight years since I was in a stake calling were I saw numbers for TSCC YSA activity in comparison to other denominations. Btw, TSCC does not stack up so well in the comparison. If this is a legit site then things must be on a downward trajectory.

Many of their old married adult leaders are losing their grasp.

It's my understanding that LD$ Inc. stopped referencing the "iron rod" in materials because it was used by Joseph Smith as a device to find treasures.

Or perhaps everyone in deacons class made a penis comment anytime someone mentioned the iron rod. Maybe the latter.

montanadude Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's my understanding that LD$ Inc. stopped
> referencing the "iron rod" in materials because it
> was used by Joseph Smith as a device to find
> treasures.



True.

Men who practised that particular craft were known as rodsmen.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Men who practised that particular craft were known
> as rodsmen.

Oh, stop! You're killing me! :)

It would appear the problem is actually a shortage of iron rods...along with some rod-abuse...

"Our young single adults face significant challenges. An alarming proportion are falling away from faithful activity in the Church, and for those that remain, the difficulties are real: unmarried sisters often deal with depression, a three-to-one gender imbalance causes organizational and social difficulties, and our young men often struggle to cope with addiction and pornography."

Gosh, three to one imbalance and the boys still turn to porn, those YSA girls must be real munters....



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2015 05:26PM by pettigrew.

Iron is so... Iron Age. The carbon fibre rod is stronger and lighter and won't rust.

C'mon, ChurchCo, update your metaphors.

I think I would consider a YSA that leaves Mormonism for the reason mentioned on that website as more disillusioned Mormons as opposed to former Mormons.

The consequences of not being able to mate with an acceptable Mormon because of mission status is an entirely fabricated reason.

Choosing to marry in a place over marrying the best match possible is a religious construction. I consider it an unhealthy culture and community that emphasizes where you are married over with whom you marry. Mormons maintain that is one of the same, that illustrates the dysfunction of Mormon labeling.

Regrettably the website suggest that Mormon Young Women are programmed by their leaders that the Mormon temple is the standard. There is no non-Mormon male that can meet her eternal needs better than a faithful Mormon male.

This is the illness that is fundamentalist Mormonism. Marry the Church, the rest will sort itself out. Former Mormons and Mormons that taught Mormon youth may not recall saying these words, but if you ever taught screening for temple marriage and look for the Mormon label as opposed to dating skills and differentiating compatible partner qualities have participated in the alienation of otherwise healthy young adults.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2015 05:49PM by gentlestrength.

It is the consequence of so much conditioning from such a young age. The all-in or all-out pressure is beyond dysfunctional.

And then tossing in the whole problems with 'addiction to porn' thing. Yeah, nothing like a good extra helping of shame and guilt to keep them coming back.

The more they define 'what is acceptable' behavior the more homogenous and likewise less interesting those that attend YSA will become. Interesting young adults usually like to meet and date other interesting adults...no some sort of 'ideal' plain white toast person.

Healthy adults should be seeking a mate that makes the most sense for them, not their "community". Also the failure to allow reasonable mistakes during adolescence and young adulthood make for more of a fabricated sense of pairing over a genuine effort to fulfill oneself through mating.

I would not be surprised if a survey of faithful Mormon adolescents would produce an almost homogeneous response into a desirable prospective mate. Bizarre in a healthy community. I trust normal for a cult.

We hear here often the extreme of trying to force an adolescent with homosexual orientation towards the Mormon ideal with occasionally horrifying outcomes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2015 08:08PM by gentlestrength.

As an aside, whenever DW and I hear the "hold to the iron rod" song we just 'giggle'. Alas, "for some must push and some must pull..." 'giggle giggle'. Real life is just too much fun.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And this sounds like criticism of leaders via
> their policies.
>
> "The Church’s records policy for singles units
> exacerbates this problem: it requires YSAs who
> choose to attend a YSA ward or branch to opt in,
> and then they must ask for their records to be
> transferred into the singles unit. This
> constitutes a de facto policy of allowing most of
> the YSAs who do not opt into the singles ward to
> opt out of the Church unnoticed. "



I took advantage of this loophole for years, but they did eventually hunt me down anyway, a name-change and 3 moves later...

"And for this employee of the week award, this inanimate carbon rod."

Anyone remember the episode of the Simpsons, where Homer goes into Space, and saves all of them on reentry by Jamming the hatch with a carbon rod? "In Rod We Trust." It's a classic.

What a stupid list. He forgot the main major reason YSA's are leaving in droves; concerns about the doctrinal veracity of the BoM, Joseph Smith, and TSCC and the leaders in general. When people go inactive, more than half the time it's their way of saying 'I don't care about church anymore, I just don't want to bother with resigning officially.' Apparently those people can withstand the harassment of unannounced visits and phone calls. At least until they tell someone at the door to fuck off and never come back.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2015 06:16PM by midwestanon.

I just took a gander at some of the tabs on the web page. Of particular interest was the link through to ARP (addiction recovery).

Pretty much the only addiction discussed, after the first sentance, is addition to porn. And it goes on with narrative like if you do porn, you'll do more of it, if you do more of it, you'll transgress, if you transgress and are a women it could even lead to assault and rape!

I especially like how one of the positive outcomes of dealing with 'porn and related transgressions' is marriage. Go figure.

Here is the link to that page.

http://www.ysa-leaders.org/y/d/bishop_arp



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2015 09:24PM by mannaz.

This site if freakin unbelievable! There are even 'PPTs' and 'interview scenarios' for training.

Here is a part of one of the guides for bishop interview.

"Key Discovery Questions:
Brothers - When is the last time you viewed pornography?
Sisters - When is the last time you viewed any inappropriate or indecent material in any form?
Is there a question that I should have asked you that I did not?
In the event of sexual intercourse – “Were you afraid of getting pregnant?” This question helps you know if the situation was planned, if contraception was used and if the girl needs to have treatment for possible venereal disease."

Notice the "when was the last time" question. Gee, I don't know, when was the last time you beat your wife!

And of course "...in the event of sexual intercourse..." it is all about young women involved!

At first I was wondering if the site was a 'spoof' of some sort. But nooooo. the damn thing is the real deal.

Makes me want to huddle in a corner and cringe just thinking about how the whole guilt and shame process has been turned a systematized and really fucked up assembly line (yes, I decided to utter a word in tongues...)

http://www.ysa-leaders.org/y/d/training_bishops

OK, now I need to step away from the computer.

After perusing the many pages of YSA correlated leader instruction materials I think I just need to simply scream into my pillow and move on.

A repost of the link above.

http://www.ysa-leaders.org/y/d/home

I keep envisioning superman doing a skin flick.