My mission president drove a Pontiac Bonneville from 1992-1994 in the southwest USA. I'm sure cruising down Interstate 10 would have been more comfortable in the BMW.
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I read the exactly obedient diatribe on the closed thread earlier today. I poked around the California Fresno mission blog, and saw this: http://fresnomission.blogspot.com/2015/04/april-fools.html Jeff Clark must have not forsaken his "natural man" taste in cars when he accepted the mission call. I can't tell from the pictures, but the car is at least a 5- or 7- series BMW. I
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I saw this quote on my mother’s fridge regarding “Sister Temple Workers”. It is an old example based on when the statement was made, but illustrates how easy it is to change things up: "When we come here- to the Temple- we are doing what we were foreordained to do. I am sure you were foreordained to work in this temple under the hand of the Priesthood to Wash, Annoint, and Clothe
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Just heard a report from a missionary's father about his son's experience in the Albuquerque mission. The surge missionaries are going home, resulting in 11 areas that had to close 2 transfers ago and 20 additional areas closing at the last transfer. 31 areas closed equals at least 62 fewer missionaries in a single mission in the United States. The Dodo's prediction about future missionary cou
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My grandfather was 2nd Q of 70. When he received the call, my grandparents sold their home and property, and those proceeds were banked. The calling expired after 5 years, and so did the living allowance. But, medical insurance was still provided by Deseret Mutual, part of ChurchCo. I know this because I helped take my grandparents to their various doctor visits and often picked up prescriptio
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Our ward will donate over $1.25M USD this year for tithing. We are in the southeast end of the Salt Lake Valley. The cash cow continues to provide ample milk....
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The DesNews posted a story tonight full of missionary stats. Per the article, convert baptisms are up 15%, and when the surge is officially over, the number of full time missionaries will be massively above the pre-surge levels. My favorite quote from the article is this: "The church will ask missionaries in those areas to pay for their iPads, which will be their property during and afte
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I did ask if the ward finance clerk would see my donations, and asked that they could be blocked from his view. The email response I posted above must have answered my request then. And as Templar suggested, I will wait and see before I believe what the corp says.
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I am now set up to pay directly to Corp HQ. From an email exchange to set up my account it says: You will receive monthly statements by email to ensure that your donations were received and allocated correctly. At the end of January a tax valid receipt will also be emailed for your prior years contributions. Please add donations@ldschurch.org to your email address book to ensure that yo
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It looks like IFR stands for In Field Representative. From a LinkedIn profile, I took the following from the job description: Assisted and counseled 30 mission presidents with their major missionary challenges and problems. Daily liaison with the general authorities in the missionary department and the 30 mission presidents assigned to me. Regular correlation with several area presidencies th
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I flew from SLC to Dallas this morning. An Elder got onto the plane carrying a violin case. I assume the violin case had a violin in it. Are FTM now allowed to bring musical instruments into the mission field? A recent thread about sign-twirling missionaries got me thinking a bit more about this. Maybe this elder will be playing his violin on the street, and instead of earning tips i
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Yes- this program is alive and well in my ward. We would assign neighbor visits to members of the EQ when traditional HT was not successful in getting in a home. We had some HT companions that were only assigned neighbor visits. I have not been in the EQP for several years, but I know that there are still several houses in the ward boundaries assigned monthly neighbor visits, not traditional H
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I had lunch today with a few guys I used to work with here in the Morridor. One has a son on a mission currently, and we heard how the work is getting hastened in an area of Washington north of Seattle. The missionary has been out 13 months, and has already had 2 companions that have left the mission to return home early because they just didn't want to be there (one after 3 months, one after 9
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Our stake just sent out a copy of the new quarterly report format that is submitted by each ward. The new format lists the following categories in order under the heading "Indicators of Conversion and Church Growth: 1. Individuals who are sealed to a spouse in the temple 2. Endowed members with a current temple recommend 3. Males Age 18-25 serving or who have served a full-time missi
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There are many LDS owned and operated companies doing work in Las Vegas. I can speak to some in the construction industry: Garth Frehner- Frehner Construction Terry Mendenhall- LV Paving Wes Adams- Western States Contracting Don Ahern- Ahern Rental Frehner sold his company in 2004 for multiple millions. The company is now operated by Aggregate Industries. I'm sure there is a more secu
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My wife is the Primary Pres. In our ward, the bishopric recommends people to her for callings, and that is who she gets. If she asks for someone specific, it is almost always turned down, because those people are put in more important callings (not with children, with youth or adults). Our former Bishop allowed all auxiliaries to select their own people for callings, so you had to be on top of
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As a follow up to my post from Ward Council yesterday, there is one more quick incident to share: During the discussion that ensued after the bishop read the first presidency letter on SSM, one person said that he had heard from a coworker here in the morridor that a friend had just been made EQP, and that when he was called to that position by the SP, the SP told him that his quorum had just
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Meeting is over. 2 hours down, 3 more to go on this day of rest.
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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.
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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.
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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 t
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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 rea
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I picked my name because I no longer consider myself a member in good standing, but a person with great standing since discovering RfM.
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When my close family member was a seventy, he showed me his special temple recommend that did not expire, and at that time, he told me that he also no longer had to pay tithing, since he would not be earning an income. I pressed for clarification, and he did say he would pay tithing on any interest income he earned on his retirement accounts. All of this family member's expenses were paid f
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Executive Secretary and Assistant Scoutmaster. My TBM DW is Primary Pres, so I am the assistant primary pres as well.
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GNPE, Was it a stake HC talk given by Jack Zenger in the Midway UT stake? I opened the link in the OP and it opened a dropbox PDF file. I read the talk, but didn't save it either. I could not find the OP, but I think that is the talk that included the references you cite.
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I watched "Better Off Dead" with my Deacon's Quorum in the 80's. I think that paperboy only wanted $2.
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Our WML spends more than his allotted time to review all the inactive families that he is visiting. New converts? Not so much. And since the hastening, we have one FTM companionship covering our stake only (deep in the heart of the Moridor), instead of 5 stakes as before.
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ChurchCo sent a letter that was reviewed in Bishopric Meetings yesterday advising that beginning shortly, church unit orders from the Distribution Center would start including a $3.00 shipping charge. I have not been responsible for these types of orders, but the tone of the announcement makes it sound like this is a new charge, and that ChurchCo manuals, forms, hymn books, etc, used to be shipp
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I am responsible to approve new pictures uploaded by members via LDS Tools for our ward. This policy has been in place for at least 2 years. After I read the OP, I just logged onto LDS.org and found 6 new pics waiting for approval. Thanks RfM for helping me accomplish my calling!
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