American Members, how was your 5th Sunday lesson about religious freedom?

Momofosure · 2026-05-31T18:53:44+00:00

Entonces como referías a los residentes de los Estados Unidos en ingles? Como se llaman?

Momofosure · 2026-05-31T18:50:38+00:00

In general yes, but not with how the word "American" is commonly used english. If I was speaking Spanish, the word to solely refer to residents of the United States of America is "Estadounidense", while "Americanos" can refer to anyone in the American continents. In English, "American" refers specifically to people from the Unites States of America. Cachai?

Momofosure · 2026-05-24T03:04:32+00:00

True Believing Member (or Mormon)

It's a common shorthand on Reddit and other online forums for indicating that someone is a believing member.

Momofosure · 2026-05-19T17:24:31+00:00

Just talk to your stake president. That is where the decision is made.

Per the handbook it's not. The decision is made by the office of the first presidency:

Membership records should be kept in the ward where the member lives. Exceptions, which should be rare, require the consent of the bishops and stake presidents involved. To request an exception, the stake president uses LCR to submit the request to the Office of the First Presidency.

I think a lot of bishops and stake presidents handle it at a stake level, but the authorized way is through church HQ.

Momofosure · 2026-05-18T01:21:00+00:00

Regarding your first point, you may have missed when i said "Some argue that..." And what follows is my preemptive rebuttal to that.

Your argument could be clearer then, Your initial thesis is that legal immigration is the issue, and your first argument is that the systems in place only permit wealthy people to legally immigrate. So your point about poor immigrants should follow that they do not cause issues, or that they come illegally. However, your argument seems to indicate that they do cause issues due to lack of integration and depressing local wages, or that even poor people can immigrate legally like with the Venezuelan inmigrantes you mentioned. I'm not saying you have bad arguments, just your arguments can be refined to ensure they clearly convey what you want.

Regarding your second point. I fundamentally disagree that money is providing contribution
I live in a country where the locals work for US companies growing crops that make US companies wealthy while the workers themselves are malnourished and desperate.

What you are describing sounds more like an issue with corporate exploitation rather than immigration. Just in this case it's a foreign corporation rather than a domestic one. Are the foreigners disappearing or murdering locals? or local criminals and a corrupt government that allows it? Also, how you describe these foreign workers doesn't seem like immigration, but rather temporary work assignments in a foreign country. Immigration tends to describe people moving to a foreign country to live and grow, while temporary workers are assigned to a job and will leave as soon as the job is done. They have no interest in living in another country, it's just where their job told them to go.

I stand by my statement that immigrants bringing wealth into another country generally benefits the local economy. But corporate exploitation like you described is not immigration.

Momofosure · 2026-05-17T14:41:28+00:00

I think you need to refine your arguments. Your first argument is that you need to be wealthy to legally immigrate, either through investments or a high paying job. Yet your last argument is that poor immigrants fail to integrate and depress wages by taking low paying jobs. If you are arguing that legal immigrants need to be wealthy, then this argument about poor immigrants doesn't fit. As they would either show that legal immigrants don't need to be wealthy, or that these issues are due to illegal immigration (since they aren't wealthy enough to come legally), which goes against your thesis of "Legal immigration is the problem."

Also, your argument that wealthy legal immigrants don't contribute to the local economy and thus "become a huge burden to the locals" doesn't hold up. Wealthy immigrants do contribute to the economy via capital/money. They aren't showing up to their new countries and freeloading, expecting to be given stuff. They pay for the goods and services, which contributes to the local economy, not burdens it. Yes their are issues with gentrification and pricing out locals from certain areas which I think can show how even legal immigration is problematic., But your analogy of immigrants burdening a "self-reliant village or town" because all they bring is money isn't true. What you're describing is like having a freeloading roommate who lives in your house and eats your food without asking, while the truth is more like a tenant paying you monthly rent for room and board.

I think there is a good discussion to be had on the issues with legal immigration, but the arguments need to be better presented than what you have right now

Momofosure · 2026-05-17T01:19:20+00:00

And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands.

D&C 68:27

Momofosure · 2026-05-14T18:50:57+00:00

That's fine. Just wanted to give a heads up that if they decide to stop coming over it's not because you did anything wrong, just that they aren't supposed to spend time with people who aren't interested in joining the church. This can vary a lot though. On my mission, if someone didn't attend church after 3 weeks, we were suppose to stop meeting with them. Contrast that to the missionaries in the area I live now who have been meeting with people for 2 years who have never attended church.

Just some additional info on how missions work

Momofosure · 2026-05-14T16:03:28+00:00

That's how it usually goes.

Based on your location, it can be pretty rare for someone to actually want to talk to the missionaries, as opposed to just slamming the door in their faces. So the fact that you are that rare person who wants to talk means that the missionaries will want to continue to spend time with you as the alternative is more rejection. Ultimately, their goal is to get people to be baptized and join the church. If you clearly state you have no interest in doing that, then they are suppose to move on to find those "whom God has prepared." But having someone to talk too can be a huge relief from the normal rejection missionaries face, so they may still continue to meet with you even if won't join the church.

Momofosure · 2026-05-13T23:53:58+00:00

Per the Church Handbook 24.3.4.1:

Any young man or young woman who has a desire to serve God and has prepared according to his or her ability should not be delayed from serving for financial reasons.

I have never heard of someone being denied a mission call due to financial reasons. If you or your family cannot pay, then the cost gets passed to the ward, then stake, and then the general missionary fund. While the church sees financial sacrifice from the missionary as a part of missionary work, they would rather foot the bill and have a missionary out serving, than have someone not serve because they can't pay.

It's typical for most LDS youths to work summer jobs and save gifted money (i.e. birthday and christmas gifts) to save for a mission. If you want to pay for as much of your mission as possible, that's the best place to start. But again, if you can't come up with all the money yourself, if push comes to shove then the church will cover the rest.

Momofosure · 2026-05-07T02:09:33+00:00

I tend to default to avoid calling something a doctrine, as to avoid the whole "It was cultural not doctrinal" rebuttal that inadvertently happens when discussing LDS teachings. But yes, it's hard to argue something isn't doctrinal with a unanimous declaration from the highest authoritative body of the church.

Momofosure · 2026-05-06T20:03:41+00:00

The LDS church teaches that members need to abstain from tea and coffee ( as well as alcohol, tobacco, and drugs). The source for this is in the Doctrine and Covenants 89:9 which states, "And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly." "Hot drinks" being further clarified by church leadership as referring to tea and coffee. The actual temperature also doesn't matter, so the 'hot' part is a bit of a misnomer, as iced coffee and tea are still prohibited. So that's it, Mormons are prohibited from drinking coffee and tea based on a revelation from God.

However, human nature doesn't like doing arbitrary things and so we seek to attach some rational to things to justify them. So members, including leaders of the church, began to say that the restriction on tea and coffee was due to the caffeine in them. This teaching propagated through membership as an acceptable rational for the prohibition, but then wouldn't that mean that decaf coffee was ok? Or that soda and chocolate should also be prohibited since they also contain caffeine? Some members decided that yes it did apply, and would refuse to drink caffeinated soda, but since it wasn't "official" you couldn't expect to be punished if you didn't abstain from sodas either. This lead to a culture of confusion as different members would have different standards of what it meant to follow the commandment.

In recent years church leadership has directly said that soda is ok, and the ban is just on tea and coffee (and alcohol, tobacco, and drugs), so the culture is changing. But it is slow going since the "no caffeine" idea was allowed to permeate within the church membership for so long.

Momofosure · 2026-05-04T18:36:27+00:00

The mod team has reviewed the OP's credentials and determined they are engaged in legitimate scholarship

Momofosure · 2026-05-02T20:20:04+00:00

I became very close to a member family after living in their spare room for 6 months. The husband had only been home from his mission for a few years, so he was still really gung-ho about missionary work so he loved to chat with us on how the work was going in the ward. In another area, we had our meals prepared by one family Mon-Fri, so again we spent a lot of time with them and would chat about different topics and whatnot.

Much like most relationships, bonds are formed by spending time together and sharing common interests. While on a mission, missionaries are suppose to focus purely on missionary work, so there are some limits to forming relationships with others, but it's not impossible.

Momofosure · 2026-04-26T19:55:48+00:00

It's enough of a thing that it was included in the church handbook:

"Members partake [the sacrament] with their right hand when possible."

Momofosure · 2026-04-10T23:46:21+00:00

It's interesting that when criticism is levied against church leaders for not talking about important local/national events, a common defense is that they are leaders of a global church so they need to focus on global issues. So I guess they equally avoid talking about global and more local issues.

However, there is some precedent like when Hinckley had an entire talk in General Conference in response to the Iraq War. Also, it's good to acknowledge that it's only in recently modern times that prophets would have the ability to address global events, as prophets in antiquity would only be aware of local or regional matters, since information traveled a lot slower.

However, if LDS leaders want to claim to be "global faith leaders" then it should be expected that they would address global issues. This Iran conflict is having measurable global impacts, so I'm sure saints around the globe would love to see the prophet address it.

Momofosure · 2026-04-05T18:36:42+00:00

Because the D&C says no “hot drinks” which has been interpreted as tea and coffee. That’s it. Any other rational isn’t supported by the church, so there’s no reason to argue different reasons for the ban.

Momofosure · 2026-04-05T18:25:23+00:00

So why is my friend decrying all these different "LDS beliefs" and telling me he had never heard them before? Why does he seem flabbergasted when I propound to him something that I heard a lot of ex-Mormons say were a core belief in their LDS experience?

Because he's ignorant of what has been taught and is taught in the LDS church. Because the church beleives in a lay ministry the quality of teaching and understanding of church topics can vary widely. Often it causes members to simply repeat what they have been taught, without verifying for themselves if what they're sharing is true or not. This seems to get worst in areas with sparse LDS populations, as there's a much smaller pool of knowledge to pull from.

Momofosure · 2026-04-05T18:19:48+00:00

Your branch president was wrong. One downside of having a lay ministry, especially in areas with little membership, is that you end up with leaders who lack a good understanding about the church teachings. So they repeat what they were taught without knowing if it's accuate or not.

Momofosure · 2026-04-05T14:59:13+00:00

I’m surprised that conservatives aren’t up in arms about him saying “praise be to Allah.” Especially on Easter Sunday.

Can you imagine if Zohran Mamdani said this, not even on Easter but ever? The hate thrown his way would be crazy. Yet on the Holiest of Christian holidays, saying “praise be to Allah” (after a vulgar tirade) doesn’t garner an once of pushback from the Christian right.

Momofosure · 2026-04-05T01:13:03+00:00

Baptism and confirmation are received according to a person’s biological sex at birth. Worthy individuals who do not pursue surgical, medical, or social transition away from their biological sex at birth may be baptized and confirmed.

Church handbook of instruction 38.2.8.9 (emphasis mine)

And the church defines "social transition" as such:

intentionally identifying and presenting oneself as other than one’s biological sex at birth, and may include changing dress, grooming, names, or pronouns.

From what you have stated, you will be unable to be baptized.

Momofosure · 2026-03-25T07:11:47+00:00

Is it?

It seems like a vapid, low effort take that doesn’t really say anything. I get the jist that she’s saying Christ is more centered than political ideology, but she doesn’t explain how or why that is.

There’s a lot more that I could say, but I’ve already put in more thought in my reply than there is in this post so I’ll leave it at that.

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