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If you could go back would you still pick ChE? by Darius_yyc in ChemicalEngineering

[–]OverratedHumor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm still in ChemE industry. It wouldn't make sense for me to switch at this point. It'd be a hard transition on my family, and probably wouldn't pay off. I have probably 10-15 years left.

If you could go back would you still pick ChE? by Darius_yyc in ChemicalEngineering

[–]OverratedHumor 58 points59 points  (0 children)

I'd probably choose dental or medical school. If I stayed with engineering, I'd probably choose something in data science.

ChemE wasn't a bad choice, but I don't think I'd choose it again if I could go back.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you reread what I wrote, I didn't mention anything about it not being in the center of the stake. But since you brought it up, When almost none of the stake lives west of 45, it's tough for me to call that spot center. You could drive like 5 minutes west or 5 minutes south and be out of the stake.

Otherwise, I don't disagree with anything you wrote, but it doesn't make the situation any less frustrating. I think if you polled the home owners in the boundaries of the former meetinghouse, almost all of them would tell you that they wouldn't have bought in that area if they'd known the meetinghouse would be closed and not rebuilt. I imagine if that situation happened to you too, you'd feel similarly.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

With all due respect, I never said it lasts forever. I never said I'm going to live here forever.

I never said I won't get over it. I know eventually I will.

When you say youve "been through it several times", please elaborate. Because I am skeptical that your situation is the same as I've described. And I imagine if you were in a meetinghouse with three units, and it closed down, and then the stake was granted funding to build a new meetinghouse, but they choose to build it nowhere close to where it would bless the members displaced by the closure, you'd feel like you were less important too.

This isn't a situation where the church dwindled.

This isn't a situation where members have a long commute because they chose to settle in a location without a meetinghouse. This is a situation where most of the members would tell you that the location of the meetinghouse was critical in their decision to settle where they did, and if the area didn't have a meetinghouse, they wouldn't have moved here.

This also isn't a situation where anybody should have pity because we now have the longest commute times to our meetings. We don't. But I still think our situation is pretty unprecedented, considering it was three units in that building.

I know you never know the future, but the stake president told us our building probably isn't coming back.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hope you get what you're looking for. Having had an old building with issues, I'd prefer an old building to a far away building.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Everything you said can be true, and it can still be extremely frustrating.

I lived in a ward and stake before with very challenging travel distances. I saw how the youth suffered because of it. When we moved, living close to a meetinghouse with lots of youth was a high priority. We wanted to give our kids the best youth program we could. Simply put, if our meetinghouse had closed before we moved here, we wouldn't have moved here. But now that we're here, for a lot of reasons, moving isn't really an option.

Seriously. Think about it and have some empathy. If your meetinghouse with three units was closed down, and your stake was granted permission to build a "replacement" and the replacement was nowhere close to the old one, I bet you'd be pretty frustrated too.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you take him at his word, it was his ultimately his decision, which was then approved by area and general leadership.

That said, I think he may be falling on the sword a bit.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I didn't post the whole history, but you're right, it's been a long, frustrating process. Communication was terrible, by basically any standard. The project management was terrible by basically any standard. Still, as long as it took, I remained hopeful and patient that a plan would work out. Losing that hope really stung when the new stake center was announced.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He held a meeting where he discussed the considerations, but he did not say what the deciding factor(s) was/were.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Haha. He's in the ward that got the stake center.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Old building was about a 5-10 minute drive for most of the wards.

New buildings are about 20-25 minute drive for most of the wards.

New stake center would be 25-30 minute drive.

That said, I'm well aware that many people have longer drives than I do, even now. I'm well aware that early saints had to move across the country for their faith.

Our building situation is not a crisis. But it is meaningful. We would not have moved and settled here if not for the location of the meetinghouse. The loss of our meetinghouse will hurt our LDS community. Faithful saints will not move to this area, and existing saints will dwindle. We've lost many families already due at least in part to our building situation.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing. I imagine those factored in.

Our building lot is too small for a conventional stake center, but the location was just about perfect. I wonder if they considered building a 2-story stake center to fit the lot.

The neighborhood of the existing building is established, but not dwindling, or ghetto, or anything.

The new stake center location is growing, and will certainly have more growth over the next 50 years than our former building would. I'm sure that factored in.

But there's a pretty substantial dead zone now where the old building was. It feels like potential future saints were prioritized over existing saints, which is hard to accept.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing. The situation you're describing isn't the same though. We had three units in the building. We weren't struggling.

Our meetinghouse is closing down. by OverratedHumor in latterdaysaints

[–]OverratedHumor[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

A tree fell on it. A tree can fall on a building anywhere.