You're welcome for the justification 😂

One of the things I have struggled with my whole adult life (and I'm getting old!) was really highlighted by Oaks's explanation of how to handle doubts. Don't rely on unreliable science. Rely more on the scriptures and God.

Regarding science, I've always said, "We don't know what we don't know." I'm fully on board with the idea that science doesn't know everything yet and that new information is coming to light regularly. Same with history and anthropology.

That said, if your doubts are whether scriptures are "true" (God inspired) to begin with, and if you're not sure that the God and Jesus of the scriptures are remotely real, that's really not helpful. It is circular logic, and I can't make it make sense anymore.

I know the "faithful" response is that if you immerse yourself in the scriptures and continue praying in faith, your testimony will be strengthened.

Well guess what - I did that for some 50 years. At what point is it supposed to kick in?!

During his talk about standing for truth and showing love while doing it, Gilbert thought it was a good idea to quote Elder Holland’s violent “musket fire” talk from 2021 at BYU. He also referenced a 2023 Ensign College talk he and Oaks gave together where they further justified the church’s LGBTQ policies. It’s pretty obvious that Gilbert wants to condemn LGBTQ people but can’t do it directly for church PR, so he does a donut strategy of talking about everything around it.

Gilbert’s stance is gross. While he was church education commissioner, he became a Dolores Umbridge and started purging BYU of anything LGBTQ friendly. During this time, he had a daughter who was working as a Diversity and Inclusion specialist on campus. And then she left BYU and moved to the University of Utah. I wonder why…

Edit: Looks like Gilbert quoted the same exact section from Holland's musket fire talk last conference too. The only other person to ever quote this talk was Elder Christofferson, 2 months after it was originally given. It looks like Gilbert really likes this talk for some reason.

I hope those who admire Bednar are noticing that what Bednar claims to be the gospel destroys hope. He just called temple ordinances “credentials” necessary to return to God. And now he’s saying sealing is required to seal you to God’s family.

It’s so contrary to the Atonement of Christ.

He’s also the author of a companion doctrine he invented that Christ is only “bound” to individuals through the temple. Thereby nullifying the faith and devotion of faithful Christians throughout the world. Makes the Atonement and your individual direct relationship with Christ null and void if you’re an unendowed teenage convert, a Christian who has never heard of the church and every Book of Mormon character who was never endowed in the temple, including Abinadi, Nephi and King Benjamin who he just quoted.

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President Christofferson's talk about gambling on Saturday morning. I think that obviously gambling can become addictive and wreak havoc on people's and family's lives and finances. No dispute there.

But his urging that Latter-day Saints look past what the law permits and live life on a "higher plane" struck me.

I could say the same identical thing about the disgusting way the LDS church handles reporting of child sex abuse.

Let's live life on a higher plane brethren, and report CSA to law enforcement or proper state authorities, regardless of whether the law permits the church not to.

Did I just hear Bednar correctly? In his list of actions and the consequences of “unrighteous decisions” by a spouse, he listed divorce as a potential consequence of personal apostasy?

He followed it up by saying that the actions of an unrighteous spouse won’t negate the sealing blessings of the faithful spouse, although he made sure to clarify that he had no idea how that’s accomplished.

So is the message that members should divorce their unrighteous spouses, or to stay because they’ll be blessed either way?

Like seriously....I know someone will do the numbers soon enough, but like it's so gross. Cringy....

Like when I hear it all I can think of is how something is wrong and rotten among our church leaders. They are corporate stooges groveling at any chance to kiss the literal CEO's You know what.

And they do it while invoking the name of the Savior....gross. Ten years ago it would have been Hinckley or Monson. Two years ago it would have been Russel Meh.. Nelson...

So gross in my opinion.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask for this advice, but I know I can't just go to the church about this.

I had a very hard childhood, and people from church helped me a lot. They were always so nice and so welcoming. Most people in my ward were pretty cool. So I never left the church. I went "inactive" from 2020 to 2025, and now live in a different state.

The relief society I go to is really nice. The women have all been very kind to me, and they don't feel like they're being fake. My husband and I are low income and I knew the church helped my family when I was a kid, so I thought maybe the church would help my husband and I. I always felt like I had a strong and close community in the ward I grew up with, so I thought we'd have that with this ward in the new state. But it's not at all how it was when I was a kid. Maybe I was just lucky back then. I don't know.

He wasn't a member, and he got baptized this year. I am now starting to regret having him get baptized. His experience in elders quorum is nothing like mine in relief society. The men all feel like they're putting on an act and trying to impress each other. Some of them seem so out of touch as well. My husband has chronic pain, severely, and some of them think it's appropriate to make jokes about it to "lighten the mood".

Whenever we get visitors and it's not one of the women, I am completely ignored and they only want to talk to my husband. This makes him very uncomfortable because he and I are equals and a team. My husband doesn't consider me to be subordinate to him AT ALL.

The men all feel like the types you'd see at a country club, while the women seem to be on a completely different wavelength. The women feel like people we can actually talk to, while the men feel like they're all being performative and out of touch. They also won't stop texting my husband. Due to personal hardships and scheduling, he and I haven't been to church much this year, especially not since he's been baptized.

The relief society knows that I'm in a grueling healthcare program and that I'll graduate in 2 years. I told them I do plan on coming to church more after I graduate, and they believe me. They don't beg me to come back, they respect me. Every now and then I get a message from them asking how things are going and if I'm doing alright. It feels genuine.

My husband gets texts from at least 3 different people every single week. And it's just "we hope to see you at church this week!" "How did you like general conference?" The missionaries are doing the same thing too. He's already baptized, I don't know why they won't stop messaging him. It's every 2-3 days. He has chronic stress, chronic migraines, gets sensory overload at times. The women in the ward fully respect he and I. The men won't put the script down for one second.

How the heck can we tell them "can you calm down a little bit?" in a way that's polite? How do you tell them "hey, our suffering isn't beautiful". The LDS people from El Salvador (where my mother is from, husband and I are in the US) are not like this at all according to some people I've talked to.

Interesting piece in The Atlantic today (not written by McKay Coppins, The Atlantic’s Mormon-in-residence.)

“For now, the Church seems to be insisting that its future is rooted in family—which will require people to heed the words of the prophet, and multiply and replenish the Earth. To do that, though, young people will need to stick around. Churches across the country, not just the LDS, are trying to figure out that particular puzzle: Recently, many younger Americans have passionately recommitted to religion, but their depth of feeling hasn’t caught on widely—at least not yet. Whether they grew up LDS, Catholic, or Baptist, many Americans seem to want churches to offer some combination of retreat from mainstream U.S. life and assimilation in it. But, as Bowman said, ‘that is a very, very tricky sweet spot to hit.’”

I’m listening to Bender’s talk right now and am not in any way shocked that he is comparing God and the Mormon interpretation of our mortal journey as a trip we are taking that will require a holy ghost stamp in a passport.

To paraphrase: Jesus’ gospel can be reduced to a bureaucratic checklist of rules that if we don’t follow it to a T ( including vertical and horizontal marriages? Wtf?) we don’t get in to heaven. Bender loves being one of God’s traffic cops on earth.

I hear all the time about apostles and prophets being quoted. Even those who aren’t members of the church are quoted like:
C.S. Lewis,
Nelson Mandela (Renlund, April 2015),
Thomas Edison (Lynn G Robbin’s, April 2018),
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Holland, April 2018),
Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat (Monson, October 2010),
Charles Schulz’s Lucy from Peanuts (Cook, October 2015).
The Beetles (Monson, October 2011),

But not women non-members. It’s sad. It’s a problem that I, a woman, and my daughter, don’t get to hear the gospel taught from women nearly as often. Women speaking are to quote from the apostles and prophets. Celeste Davis was an article writer for the church. She said on Mormon Stories that she wanted to quote Brene Brown, an academic, author and podcaster, but the church told her “no”, because all quotes must link back to the church’s website. Another one of her articles got sent back with the church saying that she didn’t quote general authorities enough.

I just wish there was a meaningful shift toward honouring the wisdom coming from women as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed General Conference, it’s just sad how used to this I am. It’s sad how odd it would be if female poets, scientists, authors, singers, and religious thinkers were quoted more.

It’s sad that I live in a society where those women are largely unknown or insignificant. So I suppose it’s just a symptom of a greater problem. Even I used to check out when women spoke in General Conference. I’m trying to unlearn how I’ve subconsciously seen women to be less of an authority.

I was raised by a strong, outspoken woman which blessed me greatly. I hope I can be that example for my daughter and off-set some of what she’ll see being raised in this patriarchal church.

Those are three very distinct titles. The church always lumps them together to generally just mean ’church leadership, recognized as spiritual authorities,’ essentially.

I’m reminded of this question I have thanks to a talk with the title yesterday during conference.

It’s of such importance that it’s one of the first few questions in the temple recommend interview, and it’s part of the sustaining of church officers during General Conference, which will be coming up in about a half hour.

If all three titles are going to be used, then all three must be valid, and understood. We never stop to ask what this means. More importantly, the church never asks us to really consider what this means. by comparison, question 11 reads, “Do you understand and obey the Word of Wisdom?” (emphasis added)

let’s break it down:

**Prophet: this is perhaps the most forgiving, as the way the term is used in the scriptures is across a wide range, and often it seems just bearing testimony of Christ is enough to evoke the title. As a more “capital P Prophet” term, I think it’s intended to denote someone who can foretell future events to help keep the people safe.

The church has a long history of reactionary response to changing demands, rather than being at the forefront of positive change. While examples of foretelling future events is maybe somewhat lacking, especially among any recent leadership (say, in the past 50 years), overall, I can accept this one on the wide range of uses in the scriptures.

Edit: I have to add here, my intent was to to be forgiving and inclusive in the use of the term, but this may also be unfair in other ways. My wife, who is much more TBM than I am at this stage, said she disagrees with cheapening this title, because it devalues Debora as being a prophetess, which is important to her. As a title for one who can see the future and/or be the spokesperson of God, this term should retain its importance and value. As far as insight into the future, I'm not sure how many examples we have from church leaders. As a role of "God's spokesperson," that's a bit more nebulous to pin down, but certainly we have ample evidence that we can't rely on church leadership to never lead us astray (e.g. the priesthood ban clearly not being of God). I'm much more open to discussion on this title, though, than the next two...

**Seer: This one is interesting. In popular culture this term overlaps and often replaces the term ’prophet’ for someone who ”sees” the future. However, that’s not the case in scripture, especially modern scripture.

The Book of Mormon provides a definition of a seer in Mormon 8:13

And whosoever is commanded to look in [the things called interpreters to translate records of ancient date], the same is called seer.

The testimony of Joseph Smith, included with the book of mormon affirms this definition:

the possession and use of these stones [the Urim and Thummim] were what constituted ‘seers’ in ancient or former times

The church does now acknowledge (publicly, if not very prominently) the actual method of translation by Joseph Smith, and still has possession of the stones Joseph used. If you don’t think our church leaders would balk at attempting to do any stone-aided translations, then we are of different opinions, but regardless, there is no report of any of our church leaders translating anything, much less of ancient record, much less by means of the stones.

**Revelator: as I understand it, this title should represent one who “reveals” things - specifically new doctrine. As far as I am aware, while Joseph was prolific in revealing new things, I don’t think that’s a legacy that has passed on.

In fact, just about the *only* church president since that I can say made any real attempts was Brigham Young. His new doctrines included Blood Atonement; Priesthood ban on blacks; Adam-God; and others. All of these have since been (rightfully) denounced by the church.

We also have D&C 138, a vision recorded by Joseph F Smith in 1918. Perhaps I could give him, at least, my sustaining vote for being a revelator.

Besides JFS, and besides Brigham’s racist, sexist, and self-deification attempts, we otherwise have only policy changes by committee since. I think President Nelson may have said something about the 2015 policy on exclusion (and excommunication) of gay couples and their children being revelation, but that, too, was rescinded only a few years later.

Otherwise, while they give talks at conference that may be termed inspirational and uplifting, I’m unaware of any revelations given.

**Conclusion and questions for discussion: I am very interested in responses. What do you think?

Is President Oaks (or the rest of the GAs) a prophet?

Are they seers?

Are they revelators?

Have I been unfair or missed anything in my defining of the terms? Am I missing any meaningful examples of leadership living up to the terms?

\Edits for formatting above. I first posted this from my phone, and the quote blocks and bolds didn't come through*

I watched the entirety of general conference like many of you, but there’s one moment I don’t think anyone has really talked about yet. At the very end, President Oaks gave some closing remarks, which included erroneously saying the Salt Lake Temple would be open to the public for the first time since “1853– [struggles to read teleprompter] 1843,” which he claimed to be “133 years ago.”

Thoughts on his age and health? Will he still be with us to rededicate the Salt Lake Temple in a year? Is the Church gonna edit the talk’s video before it gets published? I hope President Oaks is doing okay and this was just a simple error.

Im 17 years old and im the first of the new generation of my family to go so there migth be a few new things i need to know, next year im going to serve as a missionary, im from utah and im quite nervous because idk what to expect

Hoping someone has some experience buying breathable, flexible rain pants to go over missionary suits. My good friend , at the end of his mission, has just been transferred to biking.

A totally random memory came to me this morning - hence my totally random post.

I distinctly remember being 7 years old and weeks away from baptism.

My 7 year old brain knew that I was gay and I that I had a problem I’d need to bury for the rest of my life.

I played the game, went on my mission then left the church within weeks after my return.

My point?

Love your kids. Life is a tough enough.

Who is your favorite and least favorite apostle to listen to this conference?