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I’m going back. It’s been since mid-September since I’ve been to church really. As far as I know, I haven’t been released from any callings. Interesting, I haven’t even been contacted by a member of the church in almost two months. I am not complaining – in fact, I give the branch kudos for leaving me alone. 
If I still have a job on Sunday, I was thinking of being proactive, and instead of waiting for the BP to assign the conference talks to cover in priesthood meeting, I would give him a list of the ones I think we should go through. With the obvious exception of Urtchdorf and Monson, are there any that are a bit more benign and uplifting? I pretty well lost focus after Oaks, Costa and Packer talks and really couldn’t tell you if any of the others are “good” so to speak.
Suggestions welcome.
Elder Cook’s “We Follow Jesus Christ”. I liked particularly that he said explicitly: Quote:It is appropriate to disagree, but it is not appropriate to be disagreeable.
I believe that applies INSIDE the Church every bit as much as outside of it.
I’d steer clear of making any suggestions until the dust settles after the rocky experience you had at Church a while ago. If they start talking about one of the objectionable talks, you might consider just getting up and leaving for a minute if it bothers you. I have been known to leave my bag/briefcase at my chair so as not to appear to be grandstanding, and then arriving again near the end of the meeting for the prayer. Sometimes I just “up and leave” checking my phone or such. If you stay for the meeting, I have also at times qualified some of the grandiose statements being made by the teacher, quoting other GA’s and such. Counter-act Costa’s talk with talks of other GA’s that aren’t so hardline. That might serve to temper the objectionable talks, which are bound to surface in other places; if the objectionable talks are never counterpointed, then this only strengthens them, in my view. So, as far as Costa’s talk goes — bring it on….
http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1298-31,00.html Rest unto Your Souls – Elder Per G. Malm
Elder Malm is talking about morality here, and uses a hollow tree as a metaphor. I liked the imagery, and I don’t think it necessarily goes into specifics such as WoW so much about general decisions and being a good person.
Cwald — I would also go in prepared to do gentlemans “battle” if the talks by Costa and others come up. Go in prepared with some gentle arguments that make people think. Or statements like “I know that GA So and So says we should have such obedience, however, I’m trying to reconcile this with what Elder So and So said, which seems to place greater responsbility on the individual to work this out on a personal level, with the Lord. In fact, taken with GA So and So’s statement that we are all prophets to our own personal affairs, I’m wondering if Elder Costa’s talk provides only one shade of the issue”. I’ve been doing this in Church a lot lately and I haven’t been kicked out, reprimanded or even corrected by anyone. In fact, I noticed a bunch of TBM’s actually nodding their heads, which surprised the starch out of me. In fact, there are times I wish they WOULD give those hardline talks just so there’s an opportunity to soften them through my own input.
Fwiw, I like the following interpretation of the 14 Fundamentals: Pres. Benson wrote a list of “fundamentals” to give in a talk. He had eight of them – but then he thought,
Quote:“You know, ten is a nice round number, and everyone understands a Top Ten list”
– so he added two more.
Then he thought,
Quote:“Actually, a Top Ten list isn’t the right tone for General Conference, and it would be good to have a full dozen”
– so he added two more.
Then he thought,
Quote:“‘Fourteen Fundamentals’ sounds better than ‘Twelve Fundamentals’, and eveyone loves Neal’s alliteration” (Neal A. Maxwell)
– so he added two more.
So, really, it’s the Eight Fundamentals– and Six Supplemental Suggestions that sounded good at the time.😆 
😆 Turned out okay. I had my ensign, the BP asked if I had given any thought to which articles we should go over (Oh boy have I 
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