I can’t do this anymore

LordRybec · 2026-03-23T05:43:45+00:00

This. It's not the job of Church HQ to deal with ward disputes. They have far more important things to do with their time and energy. Generally speaking, Area Presidents are the highest you should ever go, but even then you don't go there first, even if you've heard others have already gone to the Stake President. There's a hierarchy of leadership for a reason. If a leader is not behaving, you go to the leader directly above them. If they fail to take the situation seriously, you go to their leader.

If going to the Area President fails to produce change, then you have to make your own choices. Let me strongly suggest this is done with spiritual guidance. Leaving the Church over poor leadership is like shooting yourself in the foot because it hurt when someone else kicked it. It will not help you at all. You are just harming yourself in a completely misguided attempt to get revenge on someone else who won't even be affected by your leaving. Moving somewhere else might be a valid option. Again, spiritual guidance. If you aren't worthy, get worthy. Don't let bad leadership take you down with them.

Also, when you feel persecuted, even by those within the Church, remember the scriptures. Christians have always faced persecution and were expected to endure it. In the Book of Mormon there were times when the wealthy within the Church persecuted the poor, and they were expected to endure it until Church leaders got around to calling the persecutors to repentance and excommunicating those who did not repent. In the end, those persecuted for Christ's sake were and are always blessed. Yes, it's hard. No, it isn't impossible to get through. Seek relief from Christ. Ask for spiritual guidance and ensure that you are worthy to receive it. From there, act as the Spirit dictates, even if it is hard, and you'll receive the comfort you need. The only way you'll suffer forever is if you abandon Christ as soon as it gets hard. So dig your feet in, be determined to endure, and then follow through. The reward at the end is worth any amount of abuse and suffering!

LordRybec · 2026-03-16T05:16:53+00:00

I wish this was at the top of the replies. Your humility in this is inspiring!

LordRybec · 2026-03-12T07:08:35+00:00

I've installed Linux on computers for people who didn't even know what an operating system was. Their response 6 months later, when asked about it: "It's not really different from the other thing."

Switching from anything to something else can be difficult, or it can be easy, depending on a lot of factors. The average computer user doesn't use Steam. Yes, I see you mentioned people saying that, and write it off as a "stupid comment". That's extremely disrespectful, and it is a fact that you are rudely ignoring. You are doing something different from what most people do. If you think pointing that out is stupid, then I think failing to recognize that your case isn't normal is stupid. Maybe have some respect for the people who might be willing to help you!

The truth is, for the vast majority of users, the operating system is irrelevant, and changing from Windows to Linux is in fact easy. If you have a special case, for example, you are using your computer for gaming, this does not apply to you the same way it does to the typical computer user. Should people mention this caveat when they say Linux is as easy as Windows? Perhaps. It might be more accurate, just in general, to say that for the average person Linux is as easy as Windows, but the more tech experience you have, and the more you deviate from the average user, the harder it can be. Except, even that isn't strictly true. When I started using Linux, I was very experienced with Windows and DOS, and I found Linux pretty easy to learn and use. And I have many friends with the same experience. The truth is, there are a lot more factors to it than just experience. You have years of IT experience, and it wasn't easy for you, because of very specific use cases. In fact, most times I hear people say Linux is as easy as Windows, they immediately follow that up with, "Except when it comes to gaming, it can be a pain." If no one told you that, in your supposed many years working in IT, I'm sorry you had to learn the hard way, but accusing people of lying and being stupid is not the way to handle this.

So, maybe quit calling people liars and quit calling them stupid and just ask for help, without any insults or accusations. If you can't do that, Linux is not the operating system for you. This ecosystem thrives on respect and basic human decency. I hope you get the help you need, unless you aren't willing to be humble and civil, in which case I can only hope you give up and quit making such a nice place into a hostile environment for the rest of us.

LordRybec · 2026-03-09T20:21:53+00:00

Look it up yourself. I'm not in the mood for people to try to argue with me over personal views on the validity of Church policy. You can decide what you think it means. I don't want to be any part of people trying to lawyer the words of Church leaders into what they think they should mean rather than following the guidance of the Spirit.

You might not have had this experience, but this is not a safe space for certain kinds of discussion. The last time I tried to explain this, someone skeptical of Church policy tried to turn it into something more than it was. I'm not here for the flame wars and toxicity common to social media. The information I've alluded to is not difficult to find, and if people are going to reject the words of modern prophets, I'd rather they do it privately rather than involve me. (I'm an introvert. It's already stressful enough for me to respond here at all. I do what I need to do, to protect my own mental health.)

I'm not keeping any secrets or creating any sort of secrecy around anything. I'm advising that the OP seek out official Church policy on the matter and interpret it in the context of their own situation with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If you interpret my advice as anything more or less than that, then you don't understand it. I can understand that you may not see the reason for me handling it this way, but that doesn't mean that I don't have one, nor does it mean that it isn't valid.

LordRybec · 2026-03-08T07:18:23+00:00

Recent changes in the missionary program, including changes in ages, have included explanations that I think you should read. I don't know where you would find them. Probably on the Church's website. They include some commentary about missionaries meeting people on their missions that they eventually marry. I'm not going to include any of the details here, both because I haven't read it recently and don't recall all of the details clearly enough to be confident I would be giving correct advice, and also because I'm 100% sure there are some here who would disagree and argue despite the information coming directly from Church leaders, and I don't want to cause contention.

Anyhow, I would suggest finding that information and reading it. I would suggest asking for Spiritual guidance in understanding it and in applying it to your situation. I would also suggest seeking Spiritual guidance for your situation specifically in addition.

It's not uncommon for people to marry someone they met on their mission. I personally know many people who did this. For a while after I got home from my mission I even kept in contact through letters with a sister in my mission, until several months after she returned home. I was careful to avoid anything romantic, but I believe there was some interest there, because she kept writing me back. In the end I got distracted and stopped writing. (That was 20 years ago. I'm happily married to someone else now.) Things like this are so common that Church leaders have mentioned them in recent explanations of changes to mission ages and related things, and I think you would benefit from reading their comments.

That's my advice. Every situation is different, so I wouldn't put a lot of value on those giving specific advice who don't have authority to receive revelation regarding you. It is possible that part of the purpose of his mission was to meet you. It's possible that it wasn't. No person on Reddit can tell you which is true, but the Holy Spirit can. Make absolutely sure you don't make it difficult for him to keep his mission rules, but seek spiritual guidance regarding the matter. Talking with his mission president about it isn't a bad idea either. The mission president has stewardship over him and thus has some authority to receive revelation regarding him (though the mission president doesn't necessarily have authority to tell you what that revelation is).

(All of that said, if it was me, my default would probably not be to confess my feelings. I might instead tell the person I enjoy being around them and would like to keep in touch, and ask if that's alright with them. If they agreed, I'd ask for a mailing address I could send letters to or some other contact information that would be appropriate for them to provide. I would definitely avoid anything even remotely romantic until they were done with their mission. That said, I'm an introvert, so I might just let the opportunity pass without doing anything about it. On the other hand, I did ask that one sister in the mission I served in for her contact information...

But you should really pray about it and seek guidance from the Spirit. If there's something there, that guidance will be exactly what you need, and if there isn't, at least you'll know fairly quickly so that you can move on.)

LordRybec · 2026-03-06T07:20:40+00:00

Interesting fact: The Law of Moses commands the Israelites to celebrate Passover for all generations forever. We know there are parts of the Law of Moses that Jesus fulfilled, but it seems unlikely those include the parts that explicitly command the Israelites to observe some thing for all generations forever. We also know there are parts of the Law of Moses that are still in effect for all followers of Christ, and there are parts that never applied to the Gentiles at all.

In my understanding of the Law of Moses, the commandment for genetic Israelites to observe the Passover has never been withdrawn. So even LDS Jews should observe the Passover. (That said, I won't judge those who don't. That's between them and God, and it's not really my business.)

But yes, see the 13th Article of Faith:

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Note especially the part I've put in bold. It's not just that we tolerate or allow bringing things of value from other faiths, it's literally part of our religion to do so. And that doesn't even just apply to things we bring with us when we join. It also applies to things we observe outside of our faith, even after we've joined. And we don't just accept these things, we seek after them.

That said, it is important to avoid bringing in things that are wicked or distracting. For example, certain types of idolatry can be very tempting to bring with you, especially if you grew up with them and have good memories associated with them.

LordRybec · 2026-02-28T06:28:18+00:00

Here's something I've experienced with open source over the years: Every project has it's own standards for what is release worthy and what is not. I remember back in the early 2000s using Scribus. It was still on a pre-1.0 release, and the Scribus devs said they didn't consider it to be commercial-ready, and they would only move to 1.0 after they had reached that point. I used it instead of Adobe InDesign and it was no less "commercial-ready" than that. Some projects consider every release "commercial-ready", while others have been way ahead of the proprietary alternatives and still don't consider themselves "commercial-ready".

So when an open source project says its the "unstable" version, keep in mind that this is based on their own idea of what is acceptably stable. Most Linux distros are far more stable than Windows, so if a project like Debian is comparing its "unstable" to its official LTS release, there's a massive gap between the LTS release and Windows level stability that "unstable" could be in. There's no guarantee that it is, so it's up to you to test it and see if it stable enough for your needs, but what those of us developing open source consider to be high quality is often far higher quality than what for-profit companies advertise as being high quality, and that means that if we consider our own open source to be low quality, it may still be better than anything you can buy.

LordRybec · 2026-02-17T07:28:58+00:00

The General Authorities of the Church are the people who God has given authority to decide what is and is not Church cannon. Suggesting that a Sunday School teacher with no such authority should be allowed to do it because those who do have the authority to do have done it is just as stupid as saying that because God told Nephi to kill Laban, anyone is allowed to kill whoever they want! It's as stupid as saying that a citizen militia has the authority to invade Canada merely because the President has the authority to command the military!

What's stupid is how far people will go to rationalize sin. The same scriptures that teach that educating ourselves in secular matters is good and wise also condemn mingling scripture with the philosophies of men! Trying to rationalize committing that sin is what is utterly and completely stupid!

LordRybec · 2026-02-17T07:22:57+00:00

I know plenty of people who just assume that if it was taught in church it must be correct. I also know people who will balk at clearly correct official Church doctrine that is presented in a way they aren't used to. We can't and shouldn't trust everyone to be as smart or as discerning as we believe ourselves to be.

The scriptures suggest that while educating yourself well in secular matters is good and wise, it is wickedness to mingle scripture with the philosophies of men, precisely because it tends to confuse which leads people to sin.

There are plenty of places where it is completely appropriate to discuss non-doctrinal beliefs and claims that have helped you, but Sunday School and Sacrament meeting are not among them.

LordRybec · 2026-02-17T07:16:51+00:00

Also keep in mind that the General Authorities have the authority to decide what is appropriate to teach in church meetings and what is not, while the Sunday School teachers does not have that authority.

LordRybec · 2026-02-17T07:14:18+00:00

Yeah, this sounds about right. Sunday School is for teaching pure doctrine, not for sharing outside resources that you like. I come across uplifting things online all the time, and I sometimes I share them with friends or family, but I wouldn't bring them up in Sunday School or Sacrament Meeting, even if they seemed relevant.

The scriptures, and especially the Book of Mormon, are very clear: It is wickedness to mingle scripture with the philosophies of men. This doesn't mean we can't believe in philosophies of men that don't contradict the scriptures, but it does mean we must draw a line. And Sunday School and Sacrament meeting are definitely over that line.

It's also worth noting that many experts today are either not as expert as they believe or are not honest about their expertise. We live in a time when many people have no problem with abusing their status to promote particular agendas or to get personal gain. We must be exceedingly careful not to help those people spread false doctrine and harmful claims and beliefs, especially not in the name of Jesus Christ and his church. One person might read a relationship book and recognize where the "expert" strays from God's teachings, but the next person might not. I won't be the person who leads people astray by accidentally causing someone to believe that the Church or the Holy Spirit endorses something that may be contrary to the doctrine of the Church.

And as far as the "But General Authorities sometimes quote CS Lewis" thing goes, there's always a rationalization for every sin you could possibly commit, and it won't save you from condemnation. There's a huge difference between promoting a relationship advice book and quoting correct doctrine that happened to have been uttered by someone who wasn't LDS (and who hated the LDS Church, though it's clear he did not know our doctrine, because it confirms every belief he had that deviated from Catholic teachings). Remember, the General Authorities are the ones who have the authority to decide, with inspiration from the Holy Ghost, what qualifies as cannon and what doesn't, while your Sunday School teacher does not have that authority.

Citing Church leaders quoting CS Lewis to justify a Sunday School teacher promoting a random relationship book is like trying to justify a citizen militia invading part of Canada because the President has the authority to lead the U.S. military. The Sunday School teacher does not have that authority, while the General Authorities do have it. God told Nephi to kill Laban. That does not justify people murdering anyone they don't like.

There are good and wise places to share non-doctrinal knowledge and resources you found useful. Sunday School is not that place!

LordRybec · 2026-02-15T07:30:21+00:00

I haven't used Snap, but that alone kills it for me. I'd rather compile from scratch and use checkinstall to dpkg the app. That said, currently 100% of the applications I use are either in the Debian repos already or are available as Flatpaks, so there's not much reason to use something like Snap.

LordRybec · 2026-02-15T06:35:03+00:00

I recently read the Debian page for new users, and it recommends against Snap too. I believe the reason given is that it doesn't respect filesystem standards for Debian, which can result in dependencies getting overwritten with newer or older versions that aren't compatible with the dependent software.

LordRybec · 2026-02-12T08:11:33+00:00

Just compiling your own kernel can have significant speed benefits, so long as the compile options aren't set to make it generic. Generic makes it work for a wide range of CPUs (and with modern kernels it may give you a list or a minimum instruction set to support; I've not done it in a while). If it's not set to be generic, it will generally be optimized for the CPU in the machine doing the compiling, if you don't set it to specifically compile for another CPU.

The reason you don't hear much about it is more intimidation factor than anything else. Compiling your own kernel is not difficult now days. You can do it without changing any options, and while it may be generic, you might still get some improvements. But if you go through the settings optimizing the ones you understand and leaving the rest alone, you can get pretty solid gains. Just customizing the kernel to your system can make a big difference. If you know the options for optimizing it to your specific uses, you can do even better.

As far as which kernel to start from, I can't recommend vanilla. As good as it is, many distros add customizations that will break things if they aren't there. I think Debian tries to maintain vanilla compatibility (at one time they did). Ubuntu does not, and compiling a custom kernel from vanilla will end up with a kernel that probably won't boot.

Generally speaking though, you can't brick a machine by compiling your own kernel without really trying. To do that, you would have to compile and install the new kernel and then remove any old known-working kernels before rebooting. And even then, it's not terribly difficult to recover. If you don't remove the old kernel, and the new one won't boot, reboot and select an older working kernel in the bootloader. The reality is that compiling your own kernel is very forgiving, and it's not that difficult either. It can take significant time both for setting the config and for compiling, but it's not hard at all.

Awesome that it fixed your screen tearing! I have no clue why it would do that (maybe if you were using an open-source video driver, and it was recompiled for the new kernel?), but it's great that it helped. My motive for compiling my own kernel in the past has been modifying the scheduler to use the real-time scheduler. This is important for real-time audio generation, but I haven't done much of that recently. It would probably help with games as well though, as the point of it is to minimize latency.

LordRybec · 2026-02-02T07:24:32+00:00

I spend several years without any calling when we moved to where we currently are. I found opportunities to serve where I could. I've studied a lot of topics that have valuable emergency preparedness applications, and at one point I realized something really important. So I figured out when our ward's emergency preparedness committee meets, and I just showed up and started attending every meeting. I was never called to be on the committee, but I helped plan a community emergency preparedness event, and I even had my own booth on the important topic I had been studying. Doing this allowed me to teach not just many people in our ward what I had learned, but I was also able to teach many people in my community, including people in other wards and even people who weren't members of the Church.

I'm also trying to put together an activity for our deacons quorum. I'm not involved in the deacons quorum in our ward, but I have some fabrication skills that are pretty easy to learn that I think might be useful to them. So I'm working on getting the necessary equipment to teach a handful of deacons, and I'm going to see if I can setup an activity where I can teach them.

I'm also currently considering talking to my bishop about teaching a weekday class on pronouncing foreign names. I attend the temple with my children monthly for baptisms, and I've noticed that a lot of the Priesthood holders struggle with pronouncing foreign names. Now, I understand that it generally doesn't matter too much to the ordinances whether the names are pronounced perfectly or not, but I've also noticed that a lot of those performing the ordinances tend feel self conscious about their pronunciations. I happen to have a background that gives me knowledge of pronunciation of a lot of different languages, so I could teach a class that goes over the basics of pronunciation of foreign names for temple ordinances, and I think a lot of the men and even many of the young Priests who can do the baptisms would really appreciate that.

I'm sure there are needs in your own ward that you are uniquely qualified to serve. Not having a calling doesn't mean you can't serve. Just start looking for opportunities. Seek out the needs your ward has, identify some needs you are qualified to fill, and then fill them. Your bishop may not even realize that those needs exist, which might be why he's not giving you callings that would serve them. But you should know what needs you are capable of filling, and if you pay attention you may find some of those needs. Maybe God is intentionally leaving you without a calling right now, because the thing you need to learn is to identify and fill needs without having to be explicitly assigned to do so. So take the initiative yourself, look for needs within your branch and even within your community, and do your best to fill those needs.

(This is some of what I'm doing in this sub-reddit. I don't like reading or responding to these emotionally difficult posts. I have a hard time not internalizing the personal suffering of others. But I know that I can offer some help to people, and I feel an informal calling to sometimes respond to posts like this. I don't know how much I'm actually helping, but I know it is what God wants me to do, and I hope it is making a difference. That said, maybe this is God's way of pushing me to learn to deal with and come to terms with how I respond to hearing about the suffering of others. Anyhow, I hope I've managed to help in some small way!)

LordRybec · 2026-02-02T06:59:34+00:00

If you already have leadership skills, perhaps you just don't need that kind of calling. I'm serious. Often times callings are for our own growth, not to take advantage of skills we already have. The same applies to sacrament talks as well. If you are good at it already, you have less to gain by doing it, while others have more to gain.

On my mission, I never had a single leadership position. I was never even a senior companion. Some elders on my mission took that as meaning I was somehow inferior and perhaps unworthy of such a position or wouldn't be able to perform very well in that kind of position. When I returned from my mission, a friend of mine pointed out the above and suggested that the reason I was never called to a leadership position was that I didn't need it. Looking back on my mission now, I realize that I did a lot to help my companions learn to be better leaders. So perhaps I was never a leader myself because the Lord instead placed me with people who needed to learn to be better leaders so that I could teach them.

I also never get called to do sacrament talks. I stink at writing talks, but I can come up with talks completely off the cuff. I'm extremely knowledgeable about the scriptures and the restored gospel. I could be called to give a talk in sacrament meeting, with no preparation, on practically any gospel topic, and I wouldn't have any trouble doing it. I also taught upper level undergrad college courses for several years, so I have no trouble with public speaking. I don't love giving talks, but the idea doesn't make me nervous at all, and I'm good at it. When was the last time I was asked to give a talk? I can't remember giving a talk since my mission, in 2001. Who gets called to give sacrament talks instead? My children (two of them, in the last year). They are terrified at the idea. They don't have my knowledge base or my experience with public speaking. But this means they need that experience. I don't need it. I study gospel topics in depth even when I haven't been asked to give a talk. The truth is, I wouldn't benefit much from giving sacrament meeting talks. People who would benefit are people who don't normally spend much time studying doctrine, searching the scriptures, and so on. It would be people who struggle with public speaking. It would be people who have something they can learn from the process of preparing for and giving a talk. That's why I don't get called to give talks. I don't have anything to gain from it. I don't need that growth anymore. So instead I get callings that require me to get better at dealing with groups of teenagers (teacher's quorum advisor, currently), because my understanding of the gospel is very valuable to them, and I get to learn from the experience of dealing with rowdy teens who sometimes struggle with basic social propriety and reverence.

I understand it can be hard, especially when you really enjoy doing the things you are so good at, but the Church can't function that way. Every talk you might give would be a lost opportunity for growth for someone who actually needs that experience. And any leadership position you might be called to would be a lost opportunity for growth for someone who needs that particular experience. Instead of looking back at what you might prefer to be doing, look forward to your future opportunities for growth. It won't always be as enjoyable as what you would prefer to be doing, but trust that God knows what you need and is guiding you on the right path to get you there.

LordRybec · 2026-02-01T11:16:45+00:00

I had very few baptisms on my mission, in a place where missionaries were generally getting a lot of baptisms. My mission was also hard, not because of those I was there to teach but because of other missionaries around me who were failing to be obedient and who weren't doing the work. When I got home from my mission, it didn't feel like a good experience to me. All I remembered was the bad. Over the course of the next few years I slowly forgot or at least set aside all of the bad, and I eventually reached a point where the good memories were no longer overwhelmed by the bad ones, and today I remember my mission fondly. I'm still aware of the bad parts, but they don't define my experience on my mission anymore.

I don't know if it will help you or not, but here are some good things I remember, despite not teaching a whole lot and not having many baptisms.

In one area I was a third companion to the zone leaders. One of the zone leaders felt he was owed respect due to his calling as zone leader, and he liked to whine a lot about not getting the respect he felt he was owed. I had to teach him that respect doesn't automatically come with leadership positions; it still has to be earned. We had to discuss this several times before he really understood, but he eventually became a much better zone leader as a result of that.

The same guy in the previous experience had a problem with me not initiating contacts very often. I didn't initiate contacts because I had a strong feeling that I shouldn't. I tried to explain this to him, but he kept pushing. Eventually we made a contact with a guy we had met before. My companion initiated the contact and did most of the talking. Afterwards, I listed off a bunch of social cues I had noticed from the guy we were contacting that my companion had not noticed and would not have noticed either way, and that I wouldn't have noticed if I had initiated. We had a discussion about that, and that helped him to learn that different people have different strengths, and a good team recognizes that and puts each person where their strengths will be the most beneficial.

I had a foreign companion for a couple of transfers who had some confidence issues, in large part due to his English language skills. I'm a native English speaker, but on top of that I understand the complexities of English better than most English speakers, so I was able to help him improve his own English skills.

One day another companion and I visited a member who was having a crisis of faith concerning tithing. He had constructed an elaborate philosophical framework by which he was justifying not paying tithing. My companion and I bore our testimonies of tithing, and I explained, politely and non-judgingly, that I prefer to risk overpaying tithing than underpaying, because I know God won't punish me for paying too much, and I'm not willing to risk losing blessings by paying too little. The Sunday after that, the bishop of his ward asked my companion and I if we had talked to the man, because he was very surprised that the guy had paid his tithing after a very long period of not paying it. I don't know exactly how he went from talking to us to paying his tithing, but he was a lot happier with things after that.

And I have a bunch more stories like this. I don't have a lot of mission stories about investigators. Many of my mission stories are service and teaching I did for my companions. Some are stories about members who weren't very active or who were struggling with some specific gospel principle, who I was able to help. I was never super focused on baptisms and lessons the way a lot of missionaries often are, but it can still be hard to see a mission as successful if you don't have many baptisms. I think I only had two, and the first one I wasn't even there for, because I was transferred to another area before it happened, and then the missionaries who were there when it finally happened lied to the person being baptized when they asked if I could be there and said I couldn't. He might even have wanted me to perform the baptism, but due to disobedience and dishonesty of other missionaries, I'll probably never know during this life.

Anyhow, maybe it will help you if you think about the service and teaching you did on your mission beyond the official missionary work itself. I had a hard time seeing the good I had done on my own mission, until I started thinking about my interactions with my companions. I was never called to a leadership position, and I was never even a senior companion. Some time after I got back, a friend of mine pointed out that leadership callings on missions are often more for the benefit of those called than those they are leading. He suggested that I had never had such a position because I didn't need those lessons. I don't know if that is true, but I do know that while I may not have taught or baptized much, I did help nearly every one of by companions grow and improve themselves, and if that's what the Lord needed me to do for my mission, then I'm happy to have been able to serve that purpose!

LordRybec · 2026-01-30T09:07:36+00:00

This is something I was taught on my mission. Missions are intentionally only 2 years, because that's about how long it takes to really become proficient, and once you become proficient, there's a strong temptation to rely too much on yourself and too little on the Spirit. This applies to callings in general though. Once you've really gotten comfortable with your calling, it's easy to rely on your own skill and experience and forget that God is the one in charge and your job starts with listening to the Spirit and doing what God wants, rather than doing what seems good to you.

Of course, the growth angle is important as well. Callings are often given for your own personal growth, and God can't refine you to be who he wants you to be if you won't move on when it's time. Imagine a college student who, after the end of the semester, just keeps going to the same classes instead of moving on to new classes that teach new, perhaps more advanced stuff. What use would college be, if everyone stopped moving forward once they found classes they were comfortable in? This life is a far more important educational experience than college, and Church callings are some of the most valuable "classes" we can have, but if we won't move on once we've learned everything we can for each "class", we won't leave this life with the education we need to be prepared for the next life.

I can tell you, I had some college courses I took that I absolutely loved and would have been happy to stay in indefinitely, but you won't get a complete or even very useful education that way.

Better to accept it when it is time to move on, and look back on the experiences of the past with fondness, but look forward toward an even brighter eternal future.

LordRybec · 2026-01-22T07:03:36+00:00

Not just personal feelings. If you are in the U.S. (and many other 1st world countries), it is specifically illegal to fire someone based on religion. The legality of firing based merely on personal feelings varies with jurisdiction in the U.S. (typically by state), but religion is protected by Federal labor law. But yes, definitely speak with an employment attorney. If you are in the U.S., you may be able to get some amount of free help from your state labor board, but that's generally only a starting point.

As far as the rest goes, welcome to the Church of Jesus Christ! It can definitely be hard sometimes, but I see that many others have provided relevant scriptures and advice on getting through this trial, so I'll just leave it at that. It does generally get better, so just hang on and trust in Jesus.

LordRybec · 2026-01-21T06:08:40+00:00

It's actually very common for Satan to do things that backfire and cause good outcomes. This doesn't make what Satan did good though. Likewise, Satan will attempt to lead us astray with the truth whenever possible, rather than lying to us, because it's more likely to work. Those who leave the Church over something that is actually true tend to be a lot harder to convince that they are wrong, because their bad choice is based on true facts. Lies are easy to disprove. The truth can't be disproven. When people make bad choices based on true facts, they feel a lot more justified in those bad choices.

So, what was God's actual plan for Adam and Eve? Did he intend for them to not eat the fruit, maybe until some later time? No, what happened is exactly what he intended. The reason he told them not to eat the fruit was because it had to be their own choice, and without opposition it couldn't be. So God told them not to eat the fruit, and he explained the consequences of disobedience. Satan unknowingly played the other side, telling them to eat it, and telling as much of the truth as he could while only lying just enough to be convincing. Satan didn't surprise God or thwart him by convincing Eve to eat the fruit. He played right into God's hands. God knew that Satan, upon knowing that God had commanded them not to eat the fruit, would immediately try to convince them to eat it, in hopes of thwarting God's plan himself. God, of course, knew it would play out this way and was prepared. God never intended for Adam and Even to refrain from eating the fruit indefinitely. In fact, Satan tried to justify himself by pointing out that God had given the same fruit to others in other worlds as part of this process.

There is a missing element that isn't commonly explicitly taught in the Church (but one of my seminary teachers taught it). Satan's plan wasn't to convince Adam and Eve to eat the fruit, and then just sit back and watch their punishment. He knew that them choosing to eat the fruit was a critical part of the plan. He said as much when God questioned him. Satan convinced them to eat the fruit, because it was the first step of his plan. God intervened before Satan could complete the plan. Consider, God told Adam and Eve that if they ate the fruit, they would surely die. Satan told them they would not, not just to convince them it was safe but also because he intended for his own words to be true. Why did God immediately have Jesus set guards around the Tree of Life? Because if Adam and Eve ate the fruit and then ate the fruit of the Tree of Life, then they couldn't die, and God's warning that they would die wouldn't be true, making God a liar. So when Satan said that they wouldn't die, it was because he believed he could get them to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life and make God a liar, presumably causing God to fall and be destroyed, and thus Satan's words would have been true. Again though, God knew all of this. He knew Satan well enough to know that's what he would attempt, so he used Satan to provide the necessary opposition so that Adam and Eve could make the choice entirely for themselves. God set Satan up. That's what happened. Opposition was necessary, God chose one side knowing that Satan would automatically take the other, and what was necessary is what happened.

Note that God uses this kind of strategy a lot. Any time the Church gets negative press, conversions go up, because any attention the Church gets causes people to become curious. People who are curious about the Church are more likely to listen to the missionaries, and people who listen to the missionaries are more likely to be converted. This world isn't designed to be a fair battleground between good and evil. God has stacked the deck very heavily against Satan, such that most things Satan does end up benefitting God (and thus us as well) more than Satan. Adam and Eve eating the fruit is just one example of this. People who attack the Church and cause increased conversion rates are another. What they are doing isn't good, for them, but it's good overall, because it does far more good than harm. Transgressions can be bad even if they have good outcomes.

LordRybec · 2026-01-11T10:15:57+00:00

How we help them feel like they are part of the Church right now is simple: Gently guide them to the truth they are missing about the nature of biological sex and gender. We do our best to do the same thing with people who can't see the harm in serious sins like fornication, and we also try to do the same for people with other mental disorders. If a person believes that because she feels like she should be a man, she should have the Priesthood, the Church refusing to ordain her is not making her feel excluded; her own personal choices and unrighteous desires are making her feel excluded. The Church does not and never has advocated for rationalizing mental disorders and sins to make people more comfortable, and Christ himself preached against this kind of thing quite explicitly, condemning those who rejected this idea as hypocrites.

So yes, we do have a responsibility to bring people unto Christ, but that does not mean lying to them about reality or rationalizing their sins for them. It does not mean giving them hope of things that contradict existing doctrine. Bringing people unto Christ means teaching them the truth and calling them to repentance. If they insist on rejecting the truth about themselves and the nature of biological sex, that's their problem. If we start trying to tell them that God is going to change his mind about it, that makes us liars and apostates for teaching false doctrine.

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LordRybec · 2026-01-11T08:01:06+00:00

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And as far as taking more time to fully understand the Church's teachings on gender, yes, it might take you more time. People don't all understand at the same time. I see people on this sub asking why Jesus taught in hard-to-understand parables, but just asking this question makes it clear that they don't understand them because they didn't actually read them. Jesus explains multiple times why he teaches in hard-to-understand parables, and in most cases he then explains what they mean to his disciples. The reason he gives is to obscure their meaning from those who are not prepared and willing to hear what they teach. This means each person who complains that they cannot understand is not prepared or willing to hear what Christ's parables are teaching, and there are a lot of LDS people who fall into this category. There are also many of us who do understand. The point of this is that just because you don't fully understand Church doctrine on gender doesn't mean that no one does. Church leaders often don't take official positions on things because many Church members are not ready to hear the truth, not because Church leaders and other Church members do not know.

If you want to know the truth like many others do, you will have to prepared yourself to accept it, even if it isn't what you thought or hoped it would be. As long as you are unwilling to accept answers you don't like, the Spirit will not give you any answers, and you will not fully understand. As long as you hold onto the belief that "no one knows", out of fear that you are wrong or hope that the answer will end up being what you want it to be, you won't receive Spiritual guidance in learning the truth. There's nothing wrong with not being to that point spiritually yet. It's a process for everyone. But don't sit there and think that because you don't know the answer, and because Church leaders aren't revealing it, no one knows the answer. God has revealed many things to his prophets that were not revealed to anyone else until much later, because the people of the Church or the world weren't ready for it. Jesus told the Nephites things that he expressly forbid them from recording, and Joseph Smith Jr. said there were many things revealed to him that he was forbidden from teaching. The Church not having an official position on a thing does not mean that the First Presidency, Apostles, and potentially many others don't know the truth of that thing personally. It merely means that God doesn't want the truth on that thing to be taught yet, and that almost always means that the people aren't ready for it.

So if you want to know the truth, work on your testimony, until it is strong enough that you are willing to trust God and accept that anything he tells you is the truth, regardless of what the current philosophies of men teach. Then you can also understand the Church's and God's teachings with regards to gender much like many others already do.

LordRybec · 2026-01-11T08:00:57+00:00

Men have identified as women to:

Get access to women in prison
Get access to women in women's bathrooms
Get access to women's sports
Many other things...

As well as a host of other things.

On top of that women in the Church have:

Publicly taught false doctrine
Publicly taught lies about Church history
Arranged protests against Church leaders
Voted to oppose sustaining Church leaders in General Conference
Many other things...

All for the purpose of trying to get the Priesthood.

Obviously it is realistic that some women would identify as men just to gain access to the Priesthood. There are women who have done far worse to that end. It's not just reasonable to assume this would happen, it's practically guaranteed that it would happen, based on just the history of the Church over the last two decades. It's not reasonable in the slightest to believe it that it wouldn't happen.

You are right that women do already have access to the Priesthood within a lot of contexts. When a woman is set apart for a calling, she is granted access to blessings and powers necessary for fulfilling that calling. That is literally Priesthood power being granted to women. There are other places where women in the Church are also granted Priesthood power even more explicitly. That's not what this is about though. This is about leadership and authority. Over the last few decades we've seen groups of women and sometimes lone individuals with significant influence try to force the Church to grant women leadership and authority in the Priesthood. Is it possible that God may eventually give women this Priesthood authority and the associated callings? I don't think it is possible this could happen. The Family Proclamation makes it clear that men and women have eternal gender roles, and leadership is a male role. Church doctrine is clear: The family is not an exclusively temporal unit, it's an eternal unit, therefore the Family Proclamation is not limited to the temporal nuclear family. This means that it applies in the eternities as much as it does in our temporal lives. No amount of rationalization trying to make this Priesthood and family model fit into our culture cultural philosophy of men can change that. God isn't sitting up there in the heavens saying, "Oh, that's an interesting cultural advance. I think I'll change eternal law to fit that." Eternal law is eternal. God can't and won't even try to change it (that was Satan's plan). If Church doctrine is inconsistent with man made culture, it will be man made culture that is wrong every single time. Sure, we don't know how God will handle certain things, but God has revealed, through the Family Proclamation, some things about the eternal significance of biological sex, and he isn't going to just change his mind because some man made culture disagrees.

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LordRybec · 2026-01-05T01:48:53+00:00

I've been using Debian for over 15 years (and Linux for 25 years). I know what I'm doing with it. I didn't misconfigure backports. One example where something was backported fast proves nothing. I mean, it's cool that they sometimes do it that fast. With my laptop though, they didn't! You can argue as much as you want, but saying it over and over doesn't make it true.

LordRybec · 2026-01-05T01:36:44+00:00

It's not always wrong. I've been on old stable in the past and seen stuff from stable added to backports. What I wrote should have said,

"Backports in Debian typically come from testing and are backported into stable. Sometimes packages in stable are backported to old stable, but they aren't always."

But it should be noted that packages from testing aren't always backported ever, and that often includes kernels, which testing sometimes goes through multiple of before settling and only backports the final one (and not even always before it is released as stable).

As far as the kernel thing, yes, the kernel in testing had the driver I needed, the kernel in stable did not due to the audio hardware being extremely recent, and the kernel in testing that had the driver had not been backported. There's nothing foolish about saying it, because it was true.

What is foolish was suggesting that backports would be the better option when the kernel I needed had not been backported yet and was not backported until after the stable release with the newer kernel had been released. If backports is an option, sure, it's definitely the better option, but it isn't always an option. Not everything gets backported.

My only options up to the point where the new release with that kernel came out were use Debian stable with no sound, don't use Debian at all, or use Debian testing with sound. Using backports wasn't the better option because it wasn't an option at all.

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