It was something that my TBM aunt bragged about while my TBM dad and I visited her. That and how she gets to bake the bread for Sacrement meeting! They don't have grocery stores there!?? Strange I saw lots of them everywhere!

Oh my God! It's a Miracle!

You're back! Welcome back to the forum SII.

Do you have any idea how many people here were missing you and worried 'bout you?

Good to see you back. :)

Growing more irrelevant every day.

Welcome back, Bro!! Everyone here's been a little worried. I'm glad you're back to posting. The Utah Boner.

HI SII!!!! You were so missed!!!!

Oh dear Lard, I hope it isn't growing in the Valley. I was born and raised there (Avondale) and the Pioneer Park Ward in Mesa is actually the one that brought on my faith crisis/enlightenment that I was in a cult. We moved out of the Mo Corridor for job reasons 11 years ago.

At my husband's last performance evaluation his boss suggested the door was open for him to advance to an exec position at their HQ in Scottsdale, so it looks like we're headed back that way once the last kiddo graduates high school here.

UUUGGGH, the idea of returning to a larger Mo presence than there was before is pretty nauseating. Maybe it's just the generation expansion of more and more babies, and not "growth" as in the faith is spreading beyond its usual reservoir of highly reproductive zealots.

My TBM aunt lives in El Mirage( in suburbia) and my disabled TBM sister lives in Glendale( also suburbia). Somehow I doubt that a lot of their neighbours are TBM.

You should be good in Scottsdale.

My sister's old bishop demanded that sacrament bread should only be bread baked by RS women. He insisted--speaking for the prophet, of course--that that was "how the Lord intended it ." RS women were put on lists to bake the bread weekly. It had to be white bread, and delivered with the crust removed. Because, ... Well, you know. Evil crust. The devil trying to insinuate himself into our lives through bread crust, I suppose.

What is weird is that my sister thought that the bishop's demand was so naturally true back then and believed that he was inspired, and it doesn't even occur to her that it is not weird now that her current bishop does NOT demand this. So I asked her about it not very long ago, and she claims to have no memory of home-baking bread for sacrament meeting. I think that all well-invested Mormons are prone to do the occasional memory dump.

"We have always baked the bread."
"We have never baked the bread."
"We have always been at war with East Asia."

-ptbarnum not logged in

I live and belong to a stake in PHX. Here's what's happened with us in the past year. Us, meaning the ward my home belongs to and the ward my wife goes to. Beginning of last year, we belonged to the scottsdale north stake. We got an announcement that through divine intervention, we were going to be joining the paradise valley stake. It was because the stake pres of paradise valley was concerned because ALL attendance was down in the stake, and had been for years. It was steadily declining. So, what did God recommend? He took two struggling wards from paradise valley and combined pieces of those wards and our current one and formed 2 wards; simply put, take 3 wards and make 2. Numbers went up from there! Obviously because one ward was eliminated. Plus, it took people from my ward (in a very prominent area) and combined it with folks that can barely pay for food and their homes. What sparked my exmo flame was when I found out that a member of our new ward was going to put her last daughter up for adoption because she simply couldnt afford another child. But, to keep up with Mormonism, she had to have a large family and pay tithing to keep up. Her family couldn't. And the church offered nothing to help; except a warning not to put her child up for adoption as it was a sin. Anyway, it's not growing in phoenix. I haven't seen a convert baptism in this ward since even before the 'split'. We're talking at least 2 years. It's not happening. It's declining big time.