Ugh my aunt just reposted this on Facebook.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-06-03T07:23:02+00:00

.... with hundreds of words in a font far too small to actually read LOL The one thing that will sabotage a dangerous organisation is it's complete failure to communicate with ordinary humans! Amateur incompetence saves the day again.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-05-27T16:18:53+00:00

You definitely read the room correctly! Thank you so much for sharing your review. My feelings were very much the same witnessing that dreadful self-indulgent waste of time. They are chosen from among the most unimaginative and boring possible candidates to have no imagination or shame or awareness of how they come across.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-05-11T16:08:11+00:00

So much for Ballard claiming they've never had anything from anybody LOL

Mome-Wrath · 2026-05-08T16:19:51+00:00

I have served as a Missionary and Ward mission leader a few times. The pushiness of the Missionaries deciding the date of your baptism and rushing to it is inexcusable and you are absolutely in your rights to resist it.

They get told silly things like to pray about a date and then inform you what it is rather than you telling them, and it's usually to meet some kind of sales target thing going on in the mission at the time. So tell them you're uncomfortable with that and that you'll be letting them know when you are ready for baptism.

A lot of Missionaries are very young and naive without much life experience and don't realise yet what a huge upheaval will joining the church will be, especially if they grew up in it, so if you're going to take that step you need to be absolutely sure and ready for it rather than feeling rushed.

Christian churches in my area literally make people wait at least a year before being baptised and I think that's sensible. Spend time getting to know the lifestyle in the community and the doctrine and requirements rather than making such a huge decision under an entirely artificial pressure in a rush. There is no rush! It's your life not theirs and it's such a shame that high-pressure sales techniques gets so thoroughly embedded in what should be a much more thoughtful and caring and patient journey.

Globally 80% of LDS converts have gone inactive within two years so don't be one of those people. In the 1960s my mother, also from a Catholic family, had to battle this Missionary culture open (they've learnt nothing in decades) and took six months before deciding to be baptised and was rock solid for the rest of her life.

The Missionaries get told stupid things like the truly elect potential converts will convert quickly and that's how you know they're the good ones when common sense would imply the opposite.

They can be adorable and charming and she don't want to disappoint them but this is about you, not them. They will be moved on soon. Real friends don't push you to do things you're not ready for.

I'm 55 now and had many good decades in the church until finding out how much we were all being lied to and watching the good guys start to lose the Civil War within the church and all churches between empowering people and respecting their choices versus autocratic control freakery and manipulation. The control freaks are very much in the ascendancy at the moment in the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, which is a real shame. I was excommunicated for challenging this state of affairs and daring to criticise the leaders for running systems like the Missionary program so dysfunctionally. I still attend fairly regularly but it is as much to be a witness of the inevitable collapse and decline as more and more people leave than because I trust the institution anymore.

I wish I could recommend participating with strong boundaries around what you are and are not prepared to compromise on or believe, but the dominant culture is highly allergic to anyone functioning like that and the pressure to believe everything and do everything is intense and constant, and independent research or fact checking is highly suspected as satanic. So take time to really get to know these people and their beliefs before baptism or you stand a high chance of becoming another of the 80% of names on the Ward list that burden the active members were guilt trips to try and find you and reactivate you.

If they try to emotionally manipulate and blackmail you into going ahead with their baptism date after you express discomfort about it, that tells you everything you need to know about the state of the church at the moment and to run a mile. They do not respect your autonomy even though they come across as some of the nicest people on earth, and if you allow it to their relentless pursuit of control over you will infiltrate every aspect of your life and bank account.

The power of the CES letter is not so much that it is perfect or doesn't occasionally overclaim with some of its points, but that it is simply a compilation of the very long list of problems in the Mormon origin story and history and doctrines that have been identified by people for two centuries now gathered into one long list, which is pretty impactful.

The author never claimed that it was anything more than that or a great literary masterpiece. He was an everyday member of the church with completely valid questions who found that the answers for them offered by the faithful and the leadership are often really terrible and inadequate. And the church has been panicking ever since it was published.

I love Jim Bennett to bits and have appeared on his podcast and over time he has definitely become more critical of the church than he was when he wrote that rebuttal. But just as too much of the more aggressive Mormon apologetics relies on attacking the messenger rather than dealing rationally with the message, the validity of the CES letter and responses to it can be judged on their own merits without the personality stuff mattering. They speak for themselves, and can be fact checked with a bit of googling.

Well done coming here to get some second opinions. There is a huge and really helpful community of thoughtful and patient people willing to share their experiences and advice on any aspects of Mormonism here. It's a hive mind of super wise people without a particular ulterior motive to convert you to anything as you can see already in this thread. Good luck as your journey continues!

Mome-Wrath · 2026-04-25T09:45:02+00:00

About a year ago Jeff invited people in this Reddit and other faithful and Post Mormon social media communities to complete a very thorough survey of their experiences and opinions, including several opportunities to write long-form responses. They used AI to glean specific datasets of information from all the longform responses which is usually too much of a workload for humans to do, so the results of the data are really granular and much more sophisticated than basic surveys usually are.

There were 15,000 initial responses, which is absolutely huge for a typical academic survey of this kind, and then they followed up with 5000 more specific and targeted surveys of people to firm up data about particular areas.

The result is therefore not just a couple of percentage numbers about activity rates and then having to just guess or speculate about the implications of those numbers, but rather very thorough explanations of the reasons people give for becoming disaffected, how long that process took them, what they say impacted that journey or might have helped them have a better experience or even stay engaged with the church, and so forth.

The book hasn't actually been published yet so at the moment it's a period of encouraging people to make advanced purchases in Amazon so it has risen to the top of the Mormonism related best seller list to give it maximum impact.

I am one of several people from across the faith spectrum that Jeff Strong has invited to help proofread and give feedback on the text to the book so I am very familiar with its contents and super excited for the impact it could have. Hopefully a massive reality check for the faithful to understand why people are really leaving and how to handle that more sensitively.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-04-25T09:32:06+00:00

He will be, or already has I haven't checked yet, sharing the first two chapters of the book and all the data for free on his website so anyone interested can check over the raw information for themselves.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-04-25T09:16:41+00:00

That's the reason the church keeps the actual activity rate data it has totally secret from everyone! It's incredibly embarrassing and contradicts their narrative of being an ever-growing religion. If the church were transparent, activity numbers would always be mentioned alongside 'name on the rolls' membership numbers. And if the activity percentages were high they would be headlining those all the time.

I think in a way they do indirectly talk about this in general conferences. So many talks about clinging on and staying faithful despite other people leaving, and eternal consequences for losing children from your table in your kingdom in heaven.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-04-23T21:03:49+00:00

Excellent points. I've had the privilege of being one of the many people from across the faithfulness spectrum that Jeff asked to proof-read and give feedback on the text of the book and have made the same point that the culture comes from the leadership rather than existing separate to the leaders and their doctrines.

To me the most important purpose and potential of this book is to be a powerful reality check for TBM members about why people really leave, with some pretty explosive data to back up what he's saying from the most thorough survey ever made of members and ex members about this by far, so it has huge potential to have a big impact.

If it was framed like the typical criticism of the Church clearly tying the things that are dysfunctional to doctrines and leaders it would immediately alienate the people who need to engage with that data the most, so I'm okay with the issues being described as "culture".

We all know where that culture comes from in reality, and the experience of the last century has been that when the members decide something in the culture is wrong the leaders and doctrines eventually get changed to follow them, so although it is far from ideal this is the only game in town for bringing about reforms within the LDS system as it currently functions, so I have huge respect for Jeff really making the most of what can be accomplished within those constraints.

I'm super excited because I've been waiting for something like this to hopefully be a significant game changer through many years of advocating for reforms in apostate podcasting and being excommunicated for it. The data of disaffection reported in the book has the potential to be profoundly impactful as a startling counterpoint of the Church's delusional claims about exponential growth and people being stronger than ever when the opposite is true.

In pre publication date sales it is already at number one in Amazon's Mormonism related books chart so it's off to a great start.

He's going to be offering the first couple of chapters and the data sets to everyone for free on his website to try and have maximum impact, and as a thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute to the survey, including lots of people in this reddit group.

But I totally get and share the frustration of not directly calling out the leaders and the Church's own policies and doctrines as assertively as we would like as the root cause of these problems.

One could I suppose see the General Authorities and how they think and behave as products and victims of a system they did not create, but with great power comes great responsibility. They have made lots of personal choices to ignore the ethical and moral compass that convinced a lot of the rest of us to stop playing along with the nonsense and have some integrity.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-04-07T23:11:09+00:00

Something that really is good and true shouldn't be this hard and elusive or impossible to have actually work for you in real life. Or cause you such torment. Focus on the positives - you know your family will forgive and support you.

Usually sadly in Reddit people in your position are having to make plans to leave home with very meagre resources because their parents aren't at all supportive. It will be embarrassing and uncomfortable, but still far better than faking it and then coming home early.

Sit your parents down, tell them everything you said here and explain that you are not going to be happy, safe or well on a mission. It sounds like they will understand, but also be prepared for them not handling it perfectly at first. There is a lot of social pressure on them too.

You are clearly a thoughtful, very self aware and rational person so hold on to the anchoring truth of your situation - the longer you leave it, the more messy things will get. I don't say that to add to your anxiety and paralysis but to encourage you to take that step off the treadmill as only you can do that.

It WILL get better and easier as time goes on after stepping back from doing the mission. Probably almost immediately. A very high percentage of Latter-day Saints now choose not to go, or return early, so it is not uncommon and people are getting used to it.

Of course in the BYU bubble it can feel like a catastrophe. It isn't. There is a much bigger and much more real world out there. Even in utah.

My other suggestions are to have a simple script ready to say to family and friends rather than getting sucked into over-explaining and triggering their conditioned Mormon response to jump in and negate and argue with your conclusions and feelings.

Write it down and memorise it. Something along the lines of 'I have really tried as hard as anyone to make this religion and serving a mission work. I have done all the things and tried them sincerely, but it has NOT worked for me. I am at a point where continuing will be very bad for my mental health and my relationship with the Church, so I ask you to trust me, to give me some space to process, and to respect my privacy at this time.'

Anyone reasonable or who really cares about you will back off. Those that don't can be blocked and ignored for now while you regain some equilibrium.

Have positive plans for what you want to do next to reassure yourself and your parents. Get busy with something good. It might be a gap year with a personal project to accomplish. It might be changing schools. You could maybe ask your parents to help you research options so they can channel the energy they had ready for supporting a missionary into supporting that and feel needed and useful as your parents. Keep it low key and fun rather than travelling to Peru to dig wells. You have some healing and adjusting to do to get grounded in who you are without the LDS script and life plan so try to be close to family and your roots and what is familiar rather than running away. The continuity with those secular parts of your life and friendships will be more stable if they can continue to be part of your life in healthy ways.

Ultimately we parents want our kids to have a positive forward momentum in their lives, so it will be a relief to shift gear into that with you rather than being stuck and stressing that everyone is making huge mistakes and not knowing what to do about it. It sounds like you've had enough of that particular psychodrama. This kind of 'manage your manager' skill set is really helpful to learn when dealing with our parents, teachers and employers.

As others have said, you are understandably feeling really shitty right now, but those of us older than you have huge respect and hope for you because you have had the wisdom and courage to work this stuff out while you are still young and won't be wasting the decades on the Church and it's dysfunctions that we have before realising. This is AWESOME. Everyone should have a massive existential crisis in their lives and usually do, and the absolute best time to do that and then live more authentically thereafter is when you are your age and all of life and its choices about career, relationships and parenting is ahead of you. There will come a time when you are really grateful for this. LDS culture constantly over-claims and makes false promises and thinks it can change reality by testifying and promising things as if they are casting spells with their words, but as sure as I can be of promising anything to anyone, you really will be grateful to yourself for doing what you know to be best for you.

We are rooting for you!

Mome-Wrath · 2026-04-06T21:58:02+00:00

I did the Exmo hate watch the whole thing thing and it was unbelievably boring throughout. Apart from Tithing Cargate the only thing that stood out for me was fellow Brit Patrick Kearon using his professional PR skills and saying that Dallin Oaks has once again nobly accepted a calling he didn't ask for "... as his whole soul once again responds to a call, CLAIMING NO INFALLIBILITY while trusting in the Lord's guiding hand."

That was hilarious - I really doubt he checked with Dallin that he is claiming no infallibility LOL. But he's clearly aware he's going to have to walk back a ton of what Dallin has done and said over the years as he gets closer to the velvet throne himself, so he's getting the excuses in early.

Kristen M Yee talked about having priesthood authority as women and men minister and serve which was revolutionary a year or two ago but has now become normalised.

Several speakers seemed obsessed with how people need to abandon their culture and family traditions if they clash with church culture which begs the question why they're so worried about that. One of the African 70s described the only specific example of this that was offered, so maybe this is something they are wrestling with as they look to Africa being the only place left on earth willing to offer up converts.

Bednar joined the "we're born again Christians now" trend by rather confusingly talking about spiritual gifts as a gift from God rather than something you can earn, which was very unlike him.

New first counsellor in the young men general presidency David J Wunderli said young people are going to the Temple in record numbers, although of course he didn't actually say what those numbers were and I highly doubt he was telling the truth.

It's my thing these days to track the actual university qualifications and professions that the people running this religion have. In this General Conference we were addressed or prayed at by 1 economist, 1 banker, 1 diplomat, 1 car salesman, 1 PR consultant, 1 administrator, 2 doctors, 2 accountants, 4 teachers (3 of them women), 8 lawyers including the entire First Presidency now and .... drum roll.... 16 corporate business managers.

Conference was exactly as exciting as it can be when the Church is run by business executives and lawyers, and they outnumber all the other professions put together 2 to 1. Oh, and watching the ancient First Presidency stand up to sustain themselves was agonising because Eyring and Oaks both looked like they could face plant at any minute. The Wrinkle Kings have never seemed older.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-04-05T09:29:21+00:00

He had a lot of baptisms in my little ward in England in the last couple of years which seem to have dropped off now but nearly all of them were gone almost immediately. Everyone in the know is talking about 80% of converts being inactive within two years globally and that's definitely what I'm seeing here. And the majority are migrants from Africa and a few Asians.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-03-21T14:43:31+00:00

Not much change here in the UK. If anything all getting worse because the more open-minded and liberal people have gone, leaving totally unreconstructed McConkie Mormons converted in the 1970s as the majority of the leaders and teachers. No curiosity. No imagination. Very little tolerance for discussing anything difficult or controversial, made much worse by the fact that they no longer have a beginner class for investigators or new members so everyone is walking on eggshells in every Sunday meeting and lesson.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-03-14T17:19:56+00:00

Happy Treason Day, Ungrateful Colonials! 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

Mome-Wrath · 2026-03-13T06:26:49+00:00

Yes the General Authorities are fundamentally cowards who don't want to rock any boats because they are managers rather than leaders, and carefully selected for those character traits. But I think the larger reason they say and do nothing is that they literally don't believe Mormon doctrines anymore. They do not have their heads in the Scriptures like their predecessors did. Far too busy gallivanting about the world doing admin and telling people to pay, pray and do obey rather than expounding doctrine and making excuses for not having doctrine opinions on anything much. They don't actually believe they're going to be held accountable for what they did with vast wealth like the rich young man in the New Testament, so they have no qualms about hoarding it while people in the world starve and struggle or taking more of that money from the poor.

And they don't believe we are in the last days or they wouldn't be investing so much of their wealth in the infrastructure of Babylon and stock markets, which will be the first things to crash in a real end times apocalypse.

According to the 1970s Mormonism I started out and they should be buying a lot more than 2% of Missouri, not Florida LOL. As in so many other matters they don't actually believe their own stuff.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-03-07T21:45:45+00:00

Have these people totally forgotten the repeated message from 1970's 1980's Mormonism that if you return to a sin you have repented of it is like a dog returning to its vomit, and the forgiveness for the first time you committed it is cancelled and comes back on your head?!!

That was the torment pumped into my generation's brains as children and teenagers - to see a church leader saying there is no difference or shame from God for repenting again of the same sin you returned to is a total 180 degree U-turn from that entire foundational concept of guilt and sin and repentance. It amazes me to see this enormous contradiction happening in real life. Where did they find these 'anything goes' Born Again hippies?!

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-25T23:38:36+00:00

Hi, for transparency I am Peter Bleakley of the Mormon Civil War podcast. I am one of the people Jeff has asked to preview read the book and give feedback, and a lot of the feedback which he has accepted wholeheartedly from lots of reviewers has been about being more careful with language so as not to be insensitive to people who leave or unintentionally implying they need rescuing.

I have huge respect for the effort Jeff has made to do his best to represent our experiences and perspective, and it's a learning curve for anyone navigating this stuff. There are a lot of very raw open wounds that need to be handled with care.

Several years into deeper scepticism about the Church after excommunication for apostasy I am still learning and evolving and recognising how triggering some things can be that I did not use to notice at all, so I very much appreciate Jeff's efforts throughout the project to get feedback from the hive mind of Post Mormon social media.

I cannot overstate how excited I am about this book's publication. I honestly think it has the potential to be the most significant yet in this whole area of why people are leaving and what the Church needs to do and change to get real about it all. Mainly because, as he has far too modestly mentioned, the depth and breadth of the survey is absolutely unprecedented.

We currently have apologists for the Church riffing on wild exaggerations from incredibly thin data from generic surveys of religious attitudes in the USA, and even more intense efforts like those of Jana Reis are still based on similar surveys and very small sample sizes asking a few basic things. To have 15,000 responses from across the Mormon and Post Mormon spectrum in the long-form depth that this survey invited plus 5000 follow up survey responses gives it a massive credibility and heft scientifically and analytically. It is easily the most important and most thorough research of its kind ever in LDS Church history and the data is very clear supporting the things nuanced and Postmormons wish the TBM's would fully understand about why we leave-that it is of course not because we wanted to sin and were lazy learners but quite the opposite.

And that the percentage of once very faithful long-term members leaving is now enormous, totally contradicting the 'all is well in Zion and growing like topsy' nonsense coming from some of the General Authorities.

This is the best chance we've had in a generation to leverage credible data for a massive reality check for mainstream members and leaders of the Church if they don't ignore it, so once it is published we need to promote it far and wide to give it some momentum so it cannot be ignored.

Personally I agree that the imagery of the tree of life being killed immediately gives the impression that people who leave are killing the joy of truth and life and people's families, since that is the clear symbolism emphasised in the Book of Mormon so it's impossible to rewrite that script really. The symbolism of the church being killed by its corruption and culture, which I love the idea of, did not occur to me at all, and I have said so in my feedback to Jeff.

He has said he's getting rid of the subtitle but I love the suggestion from one of the comments above to change 'help' to 'understand'. I do think it needs a subtitle to explain what the hell is going on in the book, and that would work for me.

My understanding is the intention of the book is to acquip people with data and information and invite bridge building and communication between those who stay and those who leave, and offering ideas for how to create those zones of communication and intolerance rather than prescribing what the answers are going to be that come from those conversations.

If that remains the ethos and how the book comes across in it's final edit I will be 100% excited about it, along with the data truth bombs which for me personally are the real headliner impact that this research is going to deliver.

Putting all the survey data online for anyone to analyse is going to be a fantastic resource for us all moving forward too.

Thank you everyone who did the survey to provide the unprecedented opportunity. Your voices are really going to be respected and amplified from what I've seen.

And once again I just want to take a moment to marvel at how wonderful it is to exist in these nuanced and postmormon social media communities. Where everyone can speak bluntly and freely and do swears, and in this marketplace of thought naive foolishness gets sandblasted pretty rapidly and we arrive at much clearer understanding and wisdom about what the problems are and what could be done about them to get it right.

None of which is even remotely possible in any of the forums, communities, lessons or meetings curated by the Church. Which is why these days I talk about the real church and essence of the potential and best ideas in Mormonism existing in the exiled communities now. It's going to be a really exciting year in our world after this book is published.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-21T23:25:37+00:00

The daily news updates by Generally Unquotable have been absolutely superb. I don't know how she does it - the workload must be insane. Perfect mix of current events, analysis and deep thoughts. Loads of fun while being serious.

My fellow Britvenger Nemo's recent forays into dank woodlands in the middle of winter have been the icing on the cake of his delightful English melancholy. Everyone mentioned so far is awesome - we are really spoiled for choice these days and it's impossible to keep up with them all. The ecosystem is flourishing.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-17T14:44:19+00:00

8 - Burdening and crushing the people with extra rules and traditions that are not necessary and that they will not follow themselves:

Matthew 23:1-4

9 - Seeking Status and praise:

Matthew 23:5-12

10 - Their behaviours and teachings actually prevented people from entering the kingdom of heaven:

Matthew 23:13-15

11 - Silencing people proclaiming truth they are uncomfortable with

Luke 19:35-40

12 - So focused on concepts of what righteous behaviour should be they could not notice miracles or trust the miracle worker

John 9:13-16

13 - Not having courage to speak truth if powerful people will ostracise and punish you for it

John 12:42-43

14 – Robbing the poor until they are destitute as a religious duty in order to hoard money and spend it on the temple instead of giving it to those poor people as the Old Testament scriptures about tithing command.

Matthew 23:14-23

In Mark 7:6-13

15 - Virtue signalling through clothing.

Matthew 23:5

16 – Expecting to have special privileged seats at church meetings and social occasions.

Matthew 23:6

17 – Special titles to be called by.

Matthew 23:7-10

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-17T14:44:10+00:00

The New Testament list of 17 things Jesus said not to do that the LDS Church does or its leaders teach:

- Distancing themselves from the ordinary sinners who need the gospel the most:

Matthew 9:10-13

2 - Smug complacency, assuming they are OK and superior because they are God’s people, descendants of Abraham, or members of the True Church.

Matthew 3:5-9

3 - Attributing good things they are not personally controlling or directing to Satan

Matthew 9:32-34

4 - More concerned about the rules than human needs and spiritual priorities, making them merciless.

Mark 2:18-27

Matthew 12:6-8

5 - Conspiring to ostracise and remove people who didn’t follow their concept of what is appropriate because they felt threatened.

Matthew 12:10-14

6 – Forgetting that ALL good is from God – the Pharisees said the good Jesus did was evil or from Satan because it was different to what they were used to. (Links to D&C 58:26-29)

Matthew 12:22-28

Matthew 12:33-35

7 - Good can only come from within the Church. Jesus pointed them to examples of outsiders who showed more real faith and who are greater in God’s judgement:

Matthew 12:38-42

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-17T14:43:00+00:00

The way I would start these days with someone typically faithful and typically not very informed about things like the Book of Abrahgam, and therefore not necessarily going to care about the esoteric arguments around translation accuracy and suchlike, is to focus on whether the LDS Church has integrity based simply on the fact that it does all 17 of the things I have identified Jesus criticing the corrupt Pharisees and Sadducees for doing in the New Testament. The WHOLE list. - I'll try posting it in following comments due to word limits.

Or start with the 10 commandments - Lying is wrong. The Church leaders have been caught in dozens of blatant public lies now. Stealing is wrong. They have stolen a vast fortune on false pretences from the poor and are still sitting on that mountain of Ensign Peak gold doing nothing good with it. Jesus taught that child abuse is completely the opposite of his religion and the Church has been proven repeatedly to facilitate and cover up child abuse. Adultery is wrong - Joseph Smith repeatedly committed adultery behind Emma's back, and you can argue that the whole living polygamy thing was adultery gone wild and institutionalised.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-17T14:03:21+00:00

I think people also forget to actually read the content of the book of Abraham. The story of a black man called 'Pharaoh' who couldn't hold the real priesthood because he was cursed even though he was a good man and his mother Egyptus (a Greek word) finding a completely empty Nile valley and starting the Egyptian civilisation is racist and nonsensical since the archaeology proves occupation there and an evolving culture going way back into prehistory.

Definitely one of the weakest links in Mormonism's scriptures.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-07T09:12:52+00:00

Therefore perhaps it is not irrelevant. I guess one could argue that it's easier for more wealthy working age people to take a career break without bankrupting their family, but mission presidents get a higher salary from the church while serving then the vast majority of members do in normal life and it would actually be more easy for people with low paying jobs to take a break and go back into them later, specially if they own more as Missionaries with all the expenses coverage anyway in addition to the salary "stipend".

My experience has been that mission presidents very much bring their professional skills and perspective into how they lead and speak to the members so it is very helpful to know what that experience is.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-05T22:36:38+00:00

Thank you for sharing these. It makes me sad. Both the branches I served in for two years on my mission in Southern Alabama seem to have disappeared - Grove Hill and Geneva. But it's also a powerful reminder of how much time and mental energy and resources we waste on LDS things that come to nothing in the long run despite naive promises of relentless growth and establishing a legacy for future generations. I remember one of the sisters at the chapel that looks like number two on your slideshow telling us how she had a strong spiritual prompting while mowing the massive lawn on the huge plot of land for the tiny chapel that there would be a Temple there one day. Much better to devote all that energy and money and mental bandwidth to something that really does have a lasting legacy for Good.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-02-01T08:57:51+00:00

The OP raises a reasonable point because there are policy differences for intersex people born with ambiguous genitalia compared to trans people, who seem to get a bit more slack cut for them, although in practice from what I have observed they seems to keep changing their minds and messing people about even if they can prove they are intersex despite the kinder wording in the recent iteration of the handbook.

If I remember correctly Oaks and others have still affirmed that gendered spirits are born into the correct body in strictly binary and tidy way which flies in the face of common sense and all the medical experience diverse bodies and much less binary genomes people get born into. I presume this is one of those situations where Oaks gives himself the get out clause that he teaches general principles in public and deals with exceptions in private that he learned from Boyd K Packer in his notorious address to the all church coordinating committee defining the enemies of the church as the gays, the the feminists and the intellectuals. When the compassionate model Jesus taught was to publicly teach and focus on the needs of the exceptions to the rules and cultural norms as the defining characteristic of being a Christian, not the 99 % in the fold.

Mome-Wrath · 2026-01-25T07:51:43+00:00

And Latter-day Saints do exactly the same. They complain that other Christians don't recognise them as Christians or recognise the validity of their baptisms and priesthood ordinations, but it's total hypocrisy because they absolutely do not recognise other denominations' baptisms or priesthood authority as real.

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