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Reuben wrote:
Old Timer wrote:
Joni, please listen to the rest of the talk. It is powerful, and that story didn’t end how you probably assumed it would.
Yes, this. I almost tuned out at the same time Joni did. Honestly, I only paid attention after that to see how much deeper he’d dig himself, and ended up pleasantly surprised.
Every leader needs to understand the value of listening, and the consequences of not listening. I loved that he compared his previous actions to a wrecking ball.
We need more examples of leaders talking about mistakes they have made, real, serious impactful mistakes. Otherwise, the message we send is that these human beings think they are perfect, and we should all hide our flaws.
Joni wrote:
Last words from Elder Hales, that’s sweet. He was a good egg.
I was mixed on Hales. He gave a fairly nationalist talk himself not long ago. The older they get, sometimes the weirder they get.
It’s been 4 hours and I am still bleh about Conference. Normally I can find a few nuggets and go, but not this time. Yes there were definitely better talks than some. No names mentioned. But even those few didn’t light me up.
Where were the Women Speakers? – The Women’s Session doesn’t count.
Uchtdorf was off his game for me this time. That bums me out.
The hymns didn’t grab me. No riveting addresses like Kearon’s a few sessions ago. The one conveniently forgotten as time rolled on.
Thankfully my garden looks better. My Halloween and Fall decorations are up. And I made a ton of muffins.
I am hurting for our religious community – in a serious way.
That’s all – good night.
DancingCarrot wrote:
I think it’s high time for the church to consider how they can foster a welcome and meaningful place for singles, whether they’re single by choice or not.
So much yes. Singles wards are only a patch job, not a solution. It’s nice to be with people who are in the same boat as me, but I don’t like the hidden agenda at church to pair us all up. It doesn’t work like that. I’d say keep YSA activities, keep YSAs in conventional wards where they can learn from people in different stages of life, and address the cultural problems that alienate singles.I disagree completely Beefster. I got married at age 32, and attended lots of singles wards from North Ogden to Provo. Living in Davis County, our singles ward was dissolved by our stake president (which was against the rules, because even though we didn’t meet, our bishop wasn’t officially released for about 6-9 months.) Anyway, I attended a conventional ward for 9 months. I hated it. I went to my bishop, told him that I was going to pay tithing to the ward, but I was going to ward hop and find a singles ward to attend. He was totally cool, admitted he didn’t know what to do with me (at the time I was the Single Adult Sunday School teacher for 3 people) and wished me luck. I met my wife soon after that, in Moab on a singles ward activity in which neither one of us were actually in the ward. I have a testimony of ward-hopping.
After I got married, I returned to the ward, now with a new bishop. My wife liked the ward better than I did–perhaps I was too jaded from my previous experience. Funny thing was, I was put in as Activities Committee Director (again!!! I had 2 stints in singles’ wards) and my conventional bishop had a much heavier hand in planning than either of my 2 previous singles’ ward bishops. In my singles ward, we had overnighters up to the Snake River. Conventional bishop did an overnighter to Fort Laramie, which was ok, but he wanted to get much more involved in planning than singles ward bishops did. I found that VERY strange.
We had a newborn and discovered they had a few small cabins, so we picked that. My son cried all night long. I can’t imagine it being in a tent which would have been way worse. Anyway, I’ve often said that I wished I could go back to the singles wards. Lessons were better prepared. Sacrament meeting was more reverent. I love my wife, and I’m glad I don’t have to date anymore, but I miss being in a singles ward. I really enjoyed it.
I don’t know your experiences, but perhaps you wouldn’t have hated the conventional ward if there weren’t so many pervasive cultural issues that alienate singles… Then again, this is coming from a hypocrite, as I go to the singles ward.
:shifty: I only went to my parents’ ward for a while because it was the same ward I grew up in and I needed a break from YSA wards. You definitely face less alienation in and get more support from the singles ward vs a random conventional ward with no personal ties, even though you get bombarded by marriage talks. I guess, in some ways, that’s better than the constant reminders you get of your singleness every time a guy in EQ talks about his wife and kids.bridget_night wrote:
Quote:I also understand the impact on vulnerable people enough to know that hearing, “We will never accept you as you are,” is brutal and soul-shattering.
Thanks for saying this Ray. A man named, John Bonner posted this today on Mormons Building Bridges and said I could share it on any group. I think this should be a conference talk.
Wow! I loved that, Bridget! Thank you so much for posting it.
:clap: mom3 wrote:
It’s been 4 hours and I am still bleh about Conference. Normally I can find a few nuggets and go, but not this time. Yes there were definitely better talks than some. No names mentioned.But even those few didn’t light me up.
Where were the Women Speakers? – The Women’s Session doesn’t count.
Uchtdorf was off his game for me this time. That bums me out.
The hymns didn’t grab me. No riveting addresses like Kearon’s a few sessions ago. The one conveniently forgotten as time rolled on.
Thankfully my garden looks better. My Halloween and Fall decorations are up. And I made a ton of muffins.
I am hurting for our religious community – in a serious way.
That’s all – good night.
Bummer. I went to lds.org and did a quick visual scan of the countenances of the speakers for the last 10 general conferences. It’s easy to spot the women. Dark suit, dark suit, dark suit, dark suit, dark suit, dark suit, some color, dark suit, dark suit, dark suit, dark suit, dark suit, dark suit.
All of the 10 sessions I checked had 5 women speakers except April 17 where there were only four. There were always 3 women speakers during the women’s session, meaning there were only two women speakers for the rest of general conference… except in April ’17 when there was only
one. But my (sad) point is that this conference was average as far as quantity of women speakers go. Heck it was a 25% increase over the previous general conference.
😯 🙄 I felt that the conference had more of a focus on Christ than what is usual (another sad commentary) but the very last session left a sour taste in my mouth.
Since I’m talking numbers. There are on average 5 women speakers during general conference. There are only 9 general officers of the church that are women, 55% of all women authorities speak during conference. Compare that with the men. Providing they are healthy 100% of the Q15 usually give talks… but they are the stars of the show. There are… I think 98 other general authorities that are men, maybe more, that serve as a pool of potential speakers during GC. So if there are (me estimating) 15 talks given by males that are not in the Q15 per conference, that’s representing nearly 15% of all non-Q15 men.
I think the real problem is that there aren’t enough women general authorities.
That and it would be nice if we asked non-GA people to give talks during general conference… but I’d rather address the problem right now by having more women GAs.
I’m disgusted with the lack of women’s voices, and Oaks’ talk (as reported on Twitter) made me feel perfectly fine about walking away. I didn’t watch even one second of conference, but that’s fine because it’s going to be our upcoming lesson fodder for RS/PH anyway. Apparently quoting leaders is now what passes for spiritual food. 
But this also means I don’t have a GIF recap this time. I could probably cobble something together if I decide I want to, but I haven’t got one.
hawkgrrrl wrote:
But this also means I don’t have a GIF recap this time. I could probably cobble something together if I decide I want to, but I haven’t got one.
What???? but that is my favorite part of conference!
Grumble, grumble. I’ll think about it . . . I mean it’s not that hard to do, really. I will miss the GIF recap.
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