NOM

Great to see you come up for air, Bishop! You and your wife hang in there. Not too many of us having-to-hold-calling NOM's left, it's a unique form of self-flagellation that only a rare few can survive intact. I feel your pain, dude! Keep on truckin' and keep blessing the lives of your ward members!

So I found this interesting, so I went on my donations page to take a look. It looks like what is disappearing is your official tax receipt - not the actual record of your donations, that seems to be intact, at least in a ten year interval. I was able to go back as far 2013 and have a look. Thanks a...

I was wondering what Sam Brunson, the usual financial apologist for the church was going to say about this, and I must say I'm impressed: https://bycommonconsent.com/2023/02/21/the-church-the-investment-advisor-and-the-sec/#more-120243 Here's the lines that will make things for Dr. Brunson very inte...

Here's the church's response: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-issues-statement-on-sec-settlement TLDR: We relied on legal counsel, regret the mistakes we made, and the matter is closed. "The matter is closed?!!" Do these people still have no idea how the internet works? It's...

Jana Reiss has an article up about the temple changes, and this seems to be in line with the things I've heard: https://religionnews.com/2023/02/10/more-jesus-less-touching-14-changes-to-the-mormon-temple-endowment-ceremony/ I will go soon, and just clarify if Jana's sources are accurate. It's a lit...

I haven't been yet, had a busy week and next week will be worse, but sometime in the next month I will go, and then return and report. I have heard a couple of things, though, through the grapevine of people who have been to a session. One is that the session is now about 12-15 minutes longer than i...

I read that article too, and I'm with y'all that I don't think it will go anywhere either. It doesn't seem that lying about anything will get you much of a punishment anywhere anymore, and I would think the church has enough political and financial clout that they will get away with it. Old man yell...

I fear the in laws who are church broke, two time temple attending temple workers who stay a second session just to be participants after their “worker shift” is over are planning an intervention. We have a niece getting married in March so so Ryder is struggling with the need to maintain a recomme...

I've told this story before, but I haven't been to tithing settlement/declaration in nearly a decade. Now, they still want to know my status, so every year I email or text the bishop my status. That's it. It's pretty easy to say why. Got a new bishop who wanted to know why I don't go. I simply say,...

One of my early shelf items was a graduate course I took while I was doing my master's degree in history. It was a course on early Christianity, to about 400 CE where we ended with a few lectures/discussions on the age of Augustine. I was blown away with how vibrant early Christianity was, the theol...

I've told this story before, but I haven't been to tithing settlement/declaration in nearly a decade. Now, they still want to know my status, so every year I email or text the bishop my status. That's it. It's pretty easy to say why. Got a new bishop who wanted to know why I don't go. I simply say, ...

Wow. How long is it going to take before the outlaws are "quick to observe" that there are more than one hole in Sis. RR's ears and give her grief over it? I will never forget Lord Bednar's talk on this subject, and how much it's contributed to Mormon judgy culture. In any event, exciting news! I ha...

OK. I have reached nirvana with my calling, and I have never been so excited about this new relationship the church and I have. I recently received an email that a member of the stake presidency asked me very nicely to do an audit in the stake, and actually apologized for having me do it, knowing ho...

I'm with everyone else here - technology was the dagger, and the pandemic was the coup de grace. I think sitting at home made SO MANY people realize the uselessness of high demand religiosity. And the very nature of the internet has changed how the church is viewed. In my day, "anti-Mormon" material...

I remember the Dark Times. When we just couldn't get back on the old board, tried to reddit it for a while, and then Captain Salty saved the day. Like everyone else, I sure wish I had a record of my changing views about the church, but so glad that NOM 2.0 returned.

Thanks to all involved!

My God. I just came to the realization that I'M the ward weirdo. I'm the guy with all the esoteric church history knowledge and is not shy to share it.

Oh well. I guess I'll just embrace my role.

Hey Mormorrisey, What happens after you get released? Will you accept another calling? If so, which ones are you willing to do? I maintained a primary calling with the wife for a few years and then post covid haven’t been back so currently don’t have one. That's a great question. I have a feeling t...

I think younger folks are also less superstitious about things like wearing garments as some kind magic protection from injury as well as sin, and that is also following the science. So, the church will start to be less dogmatic on many issues because they want to keep the younger people. I'm hopef...

I know we're all waiting with baited breath for the next instalment of Bishop Graey's latest adventures (here's hoping that all's well, bishop!), and hopefully my humble report on my HC experiences will satisfy some of that need. I have made a startling realization over the last few weeks - I am now...

I think this is a shrewd move by the church. They get some good PR headlines and optics by breaking away from the coalition but this does absolutely nothing for LGBTQ+ LDS children, youth and adults. It protects the LDS church (and other churches that are anti-LGBTQ+ from the government even though...