LDS General Conference is upon us again, and with it a reiteration of one of the worst pieces of life advice that the CoJCoL-dS loves to give its unmarried members:
Brethren, may I remind you, if there were a perfect woman, do you really think she would be that interested in you?
I don’t have the complete text (I’m just working from the BCC summary), but apparently President Uchdorf told the single men that it’s wrong to have high standards when choosing a wife — just grab the first faithful Mormon woman that’s handy, and get busy already!
Contrast that with some real, actual good advice I happened upon this week — which I wish Mormon kids would be taught:
In our world, the major rule is to get married before you’re too old—and “too old” varies from 25 – 35, depending on where you live. The rule should be “whatever you do, don’t marry the wrong person,” but society frowns much more upon a 37-year-old single person than it does an unhappily married 37-year-old with two children. It makes no sense—the former is one step away from a happy marriage, while the latter must either settle for permanent unhappiness or endure a messy divorce just to catch up to where the single person is.
Apparently that wasn’t the only example of terrible marriage advice from the priesthood session, as Alex reports:
…if you truly want more Priesthood power, you will cherish and care for your wife, embracing both her and her counsel.
This just seems like the most idiotic advice. Listen, if the reason men are bothering to cherish their wives and listen to their wives’ counsel is to increase their Priesthood power, maybe Nelson should be giving an address about how to be a good husband and an all-around decent human being before worrying about amping up the magical power levels.
Then there was a talk that was something about lost car keys. On this profound topic even the summary needs a [tl;dr].
The biggest news from conference, though, was the decline in the growth rate of the CoJCoL-dS.
Of course some people stood up to oppose the sustaining vote, like last time.
It looks like some Mormons are thinking of creating a planned community in Vermont, and not everyone is happy about it. Oh well, at least the Mormons’ writing Amazon reviews for the Book of Mormon was amusing.
From the annals of why being Mormon sucks, some members have made a game of making sure the mishies follow every nit-picky rule in the “white Bible”:
Here’s a little challenge for everyone similar to looking for the hidden objects in Highlights magazine while waiting for that dreaded dentist appointment when you were a kid. Scan the photograph shown here and see if you can identify how many ways, if any, these two Mormon missionaries might be violating rules set down in the LDS Church’s Missionary Handbook.
Is it me, or could that paragraph use a little more punctuation somewhere? I had to read that first sentence three times, trying to figure out how someone could be similar to looking for hidden objects. See, I can be nit-picky too! 😀
In podcasts, we have racial issues in BYU athletics and the obligatory Mormon TMI mea culpa about the imaginary disorder known as “porn addiction.” Fortunately, there was someone with some sense in the comments section:
I think it would have been helpful to have a professional therapist, like Natasha Helfer Parker or Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, someone in the Mormon therapy world with real professional experience to provide a perspective on these issues. I think all of your guests were well intentioned, but I’m worried that some of the language used to describe addictions on this episode could perpetuate some of the problems we have in the Mormon culture around sexual issues.
And what would April be without some April Fools‘ jokes? Plus April has brought us a new exmormon hymn!
Happy April, Happy Conference, and Happy Reading! 😀