A long long time ago in a country far far away, I was a bit down, my Mission President told me a story as an analogy, as Mormons tend to do (and I still do haha), as a way to get me back to feeling the joy that missionary work brings--like that was a possibility.



MP asked me, "Do you know why the Great Salt Lake is salty?" I refrained from my only thought, "Because it has a lot of salt in it?" and settled on, "I have no idea."

"Because it has only tributaries running in and no outlet. What goes in stays and thus the salt buildup. And, thus, the stinky brine shrimp. And thus, those who go for a swim to see if they really float on top of the water like the legend says are only rewarded with burning eyes and itchy skin as they tromp out of the muck to the shore." His message: "Open your outlets and start preaching the gospel, Elder Done." (His phraseology was a little duller than that though.)

I have thought of the MP's advice many times over the years as I find the analogy flawed.

Bear Lake was our favorite place to go as a family. Back in those days we were often the only ones and I remember a little skunk making the rounds past my sleeping bag every morning at 5 am as I lay on the ground with the sun coming up. Bear Lake was sweet and wonderful. Trees could actually grow on this lake's edge. I don't even remember if it had an outlet. What I do know is that water flowing in from the mountains was pure. And now when I think of what the MP said, I think that it isn't what is going out but what is coming in that is the most important, as, what is going out depends on what is coming in.

Mormons basically have a single pipeline from church to brain. Exmo's on the other hand now have many tributaries flowing in.
One has the equivalent of brine shrimp lurking at the edges and the other has raspberry patches on the hillside.

Which one to choose? . . . Well, it's not rocket science.

You can make a lot of money off the salt though.

Done & Done Wrote:
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> Mormons basically have a single pipeline from
> church to brain.

I can think of something else with a single pipeline connected to the brain that produces something salty.

I known. Potato chips.

Close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2xwLJQGdho

You made me laugh a little too hard.

This was a serious post you know! (Stamps foot.)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 02:08PM by Phil in Roy.

Would I rather have a salty woman or a sweet woman ? Hmmmmm ...

Say, "Oh God, taste the women on my mind" repeated 3 times.










That will do.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 02:08PM by Phil in Roy.

the the Q15 go to sunbathe in the nude.

It's called Bare Bum Beach*.














*an actual place on Great Salt Lake.

And you would know this because . . . ?

Yes.... It's true. I've been there.

Eeeewwwwww ! ! ! ! !

Actually, the MP had it right. All flowing water, especially mountain spring water, has dissolved salts in it. There may or may not be very much, but there is always some. If it flows into a lake with no outlet, or into the oceans, which pretty much by definition have no outlet, the water evaporates, but the salts stay behind.

If there is an outlet, the water flowing out of the lake is slightly saltier than the water flowing in, and the lake salinity stays the same as the salinity of the inflow, which is usually quite low.

Bear Lake does have an outlet at the north end. The Bear River, somewhat surprisingly, does not start at Bear Lake, nor does it flow through Bear Lake. It starts in the Uintahs not too far from Mirror Lake, and flows through Evanston, and near the northern end of Bear Lake. The lake outlet flows into the Bear River, which loops farther north and curves south to flow into the NE corner of Great Salt Lake.

All lakes have salts coming in. It is the outlets that keep the salt from building up.

Granted, "you need an outlet to let the gospel flow out to the world" is a pretty lame analogy!

You make that outlet with an iron rod.

I had forgotten. We used to go Mirror lake during hunting season--half our little country town. My Dad the bishop, both counselors included. And we were usually the only ones there. And everybody was fun. Can you imagine camping with half your ward nowadays? OMG. I' have to kill myself. I wonder what the lake is like now? So beautiful then---must have had an outlet.

Done & Done Wrote:
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> Can you imagine camping with half your
> ward nowadays?

Yes, some of my fondest memories as a kid.

Or an outlet to the local sewer system. Not the storm drain, we’re not Cousin Eddie.

And the rocket's red glare...

If by saying you need an "outlet to let mormonism out into the world" and he was referring to a toilet, then it would make more sense.

My mormonism outlet ends up in my septic tank.

But speaking of salty vs. Sweet....I'll be making some chocolate covered bacon with sea salt sprinkles one weekend soon!

I love that lake. Too bad so many people have now discovered it. I have pictures of myself over labor day in about 1979 where there is nobody there except myself and my friend.

The Bear River is the water that irrigated my father's farm which is I assume at the NE corner of the Great Salt Lake as it borders the Great Salt Lake, although we had to sell it after my dad died. It was in the family for a long, long time. I didn't like working on it, but I can't bear to go out there as it makes me so sad. My 2 brothers drive out there almost daily just to look. It rips our hearts out.

And I'm completely off topic. I have actually never been to the Great Salt Lake to swim. I just spent most of my childhood at the edges of it. There were places in the fields that would bubble up and nothing would grow there. We liked getting those rows of sugar beets as we could just walk and still earn the money for the row. We actually still own the mineral rights. They've talked many times about drilling out there.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 03:57PM by cl2.

if you have too much of something coming in and not enough going out, you have problems.

But Great Salt Lake is not salty because too much is coming in and not enough is going out. It's salty because it's full of leftover salts from Lake Bonneville and much of the limited amount of water that comes in goes out by way of evaporation. It goes out as vapor. That's the way the Gospel goes out of missionaries...as vapor and hot air. The Gospel is mostly just a lot of gas, and what is left behind is the true substance of the Gospel, a stinky, salty soup of brine shrimp and undrinkable water, which symbolizes some amount of truth mingled and adulterated with lies and falsehoods. I like to collect brine shrimp, dry them out and then sprinkle them on pizza as a kind of seasoning.

But, verily, I say unto you the Gospel is more like pumping hot air into something until it explodes from too much hot air being held under excessive pressure. There will be an outlet, but it will not be pretty.

Haha.

What's in the Mormon pipeline is nothing but hot air pressurized into the Mormons.

What goes up must come down, and also, what goes in is all you have to put out. And that is why reading anything and everything once I got out of that church changed my life.

The Bonneville salt flats are salty because of the salinization from the massive saline lake that evaporated, of which all that remains is the Great Salt Lake. The massive lake was salty because it had no outlets.

They are a giant salt cake by an ancient ocean.