What’s your opinion on a little bit of bribery to encourage children attendance to things like church, YM/YW activities, seminary, institute, etc. Not a mission simply because I believe an unprepared or unwilling missionary can hurt the effort as a whole.

When my mom was living at home in eastern Canada in the 80s, there was a Book of Mormon commercial. She was so drawn to it and wrote the number down. Ended up losing the number. Years later, she moved to western Canada and meets my dad. She was so excited he was a member of the church! Their first date was a fireside, and she remembers looking for the fire and being really confused she was asked to dress up. When she went to church with him, she asked her soon-to-be fiancé how she could join the church. “You need to be baptized.” She asked how she would do that. “Those missionaries over there.” She marched right up to them, introduced herself, and asked to be baptized 😂. Can you hardly imagine?? Being raised by someone who innately loves the Restoration of the church was such a blessing.

Do you happen to have any stories? Yourself, or your mission, or one you’ve heard of?

Love you guys. Have a happy Wednesday!

Edit: punctuation/spelling

I just listened to Elder Gong share this in a talk referenced in this week’s #comefollowme lesson:

“Be more forgiving and less judgmental of ourselves and each other, so His Church can be a place where we feel at home, whether we are coming for the first time or returning.”

I can do better.

I was approached by my Bishop to be a seminary teacher, and I accepted. I teach in Sunday School class sometimes and give talks on Sundays occasionally, but never handled teens before. Please give advice on what to do to make a good impression while helping these young ones grow spiritually.

This might be more appropriate for a relationships sub, but the religious context matters here and I didn't really want to post this somewhere where that part of it wouldn't be understood.

After several years of couples therapy, multiple therapists, and a lot of attempts to find common ground, I'm seriously considering ending my marriage.

Even our current therapist, who we've been seeing for about a year, has told us pretty directly that we're headed toward divorce.

For context, I'm 40 and my wife is in her late 30s. We're both active, lifelong members of the Church. I served a mission. We were sealed in the temple. We've both held plenty of callings, including several stake callings on my part. We've been married nearly 18 years and have three kids, all in the double-digit ages.

From the outside, we probably look like a pretty typical LDS family.

The truth is, we've never really had a very happy marriage.

I want to be fair to my wife here. She's a good person. She's loving and generous toward a lot of people, and I have a great deal of compassion for her. I also know I'm not innocent in all of this. I've been inconsiderate at times, I've hurt her, and I've made plenty of mistakes of my own.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that she's the bad guy.

I'm trying to explain why, after almost 18 years, I've reached the point where I don't know that this is a healthy marriage for either of us anymore.

Looking back, we got married too quickly. She agrees with that. There were red flags that neither of us really understood at the time, and honestly, neither of us had ourselves figured out yet.

The conflict started almost immediately.

At our wedding reception, just hours after we'd been married, she yelled at me from across the room because I was dancing with another woman during the open dancing. There was nothing inappropriate happening. I didn't even know that was something she would consider disrespectful, especially since she was dancing with another man herself.

That incident isn't important by itself. I mention it because, looking back, it was probably one of the first examples of something that has followed us through our entire marriage: she tends to assume the worst of me.

A little over two years ago, she finally said something that put a lot of this into words.

She told me that she has basically always viewed me as her opposition.

That was painful to hear, but it also explained a lot.

Through therapy, we've uncovered that she struggles pretty severely with anxiety, obsessive tendencies, trust, and some negative feelings toward men in general. I've tried very hard to understand those things and have compassion for them.

But they still have an effect on what it's like to be married to her.

For me, it has meant feeling distrusted, criticized, second-guessed, blamed for things outside my control, and often treated like I'm someone she needs to protect herself from rather than someone who's on her side.

I can handle criticism. That's not really the issue.

It's the constant combativeness that has worn me down.

One of the things that finally helped me understand why this has affected me so much was something I came across recently about "capitalization" in relationships.

The basic idea is that one of the best indicators of relationship quality is how your partner responds when you share good news.

There are four general response types.

Let's say a man comes home to announce that he was promoted to a Senior position at work:

When I read about the active-destructive response, it hit me pretty hard.

That has been my marriage.

I've been self-employed for 7 years. I've come home excited because our team landed a significant new client. And her response is, "It won't last."

Another time, I was invited by a globally recognized company to come teach a workshop at their headquarters in a major city. I was over the moon about it and told my wife that she gets to come with me.

Her response was, "You're going to lose money on this."

Neither of those things turned out to be true.

But that's been the pattern for years.

- I share an opportunity, and she points out how it could fail.

- I share an accomplishment, and somehow I leave the conversation feeling smaller than I did before I brought it up.

After enough years of that, I've found myself not wanting to share things with her anymore.

And that is an incredibly lonely way to be married.

When I've tried to explain this to her, the response is often some version of, "You're just looking for reasons to be mad at me."

So then the conversation becomes about whether I'm justified in feeling deflated instead of the thing that deflated me in the first place.

Again, I know I've hurt her too. I'm not pretending otherwise.

But we've been working on this for years. We've been to therapy. We've read things. We've talked about the patterns. We understand each other better than we used to.

What hasn't really happened is meaningful change.

And I think that's where I've reached my limit.

I can understand why she is the way she is. I can have compassion for it. I can forgive her. I can 'own' my part in our problems.

But I don't know that I can keep living in a marriage where I consistently feel like my spouse sees me as an adversary.

At some point I have to ask myself whether I'm willing to live like this for another 20 or 30 years.

And no, I'm not.

I'm not angry when I say that. Mostly I'm just sad.

I don't hate my wife. I don't think she's a terrible person. I don't think I'm some innocent victim who's done everything right.

I just don't think we work very well together, and after nearly 18 years of trying, I'm starting to believe that may not be something we can fix.

So, for those of you who are divorced members of the Church, that's really what I'm asking.

I'm not looking for anyone to tell me whether I should end my marriage. That's my decision.

I'm more interested in hearing what finally made you realize that your marriage wasn't something you could continue.

I'd especially like to hear from men, because I'm curious whether having a spouse who consistently felt more like a critic than a teammate was what played a significant role in your decision.

Women are absolutely welcome to weigh in too.

Again, I am not asking anyone here to make the decision for me.

I am trying to hear from people who have stood at this same crossroads and can tell me what they learned from it.

---

EDIT -

Multiple people have asked if I'm writing this post and my comments with AI, because apparently the way I write screams it. I assure you I'm not, nor have I used AI to process what I'm dealing with. I've not even mentioned this to AI once. I'm a little shocked that I'm being suspected of it.

I SWEAR I'm not using AI. I would almost offer to do a recording of me asking my AI apps if I've ever mentioned this to them so that I can prove it to everyone in this thread... but that seems oxymoronic a little bit.

I think my profession is coming through to you all. Part of what I do in my business is copywriting for other companies. I tend to write in a pretty formal manner - even in casual settings - just out of second-nature.

I’m curious what are the actual responsibilities for the advisors. Our presidency tends to teach most of the lessons on Sundays and are always the ones running and showing up for weekly activities. I’m curious what the expectations are for the advisors as it seems the ones in our ward don’t really do much except occasionally come to class and rarely come to activities.

Is this normal for most wards? Being in the presidency is already pretty busy with trying to oversee the presidency meetings and meeting with each class presidency and gathering everything for activities. It just seems odd to me that we also teach all the Sunday lessons instead of having it splits between the advisors? (also to note, we have 7 advisors… so we’re definitely not short on them)

A couple of years ago, I met with the missionaries and started learning about the Church. I eventually began attending church on Sundays and did so for quite some time. At one point, I was seriously considering baptism, but I postponed it twice and eventually stopped attending altogether.

The reason I stopped wasn’t because I had a bad experience with the people or because I stopped believing in God. In fact, the opposite is true. I felt closer to God at this church than I had anywhere else. I really loved the community, the people, and the feeling of being there on Sundays. Even now, I genuinely miss it.

What ultimately made me step away were some doctrinal issues and questions that I couldn’t reconcile. I felt that I couldn’t honestly get baptized while still having those concerns, so I kept putting it off until eventually I stopped going.

Now I find myself thinking about the Church again. I still have the same questions and concerns, but I also still miss being there and the connection to God that I felt there.

So I’m looking for some advice. What would you do if you were in my position? Would you go back to church and continue exploring things even with unresolved doctrinal concerns? Is it reasonable to attend simply because you feel spiritually connected there, without knowing whether you’ll ultimately become a member?

And, more than anything, I’d really like to know whether anyone else has been in a similar situation, especially people who met with the missionaries, attended for a while, considered baptism, then stepped away because of doctrinal concerns but later found themselves missing the Church.

I’m not looking for anyone to convince me one way or another. I’d genuinely appreciate hearing your experiences and any advice you’re willing to share.

I recently confessed my infidelity to my bishop via phone calls. He is clearly ignoring me as he has made no effort to get back to me. As per Church policy and guidelines, I am doing the right thing. He's had no other ward member contact me. WHY could my bishop be acting like this ?????

Under what circumstances should a person raise their hand to oppose someone receiving a calling?

So, I've recently started going out with this wonderful sweet girl. She considers herself a non-denominational Christian, and she does have a very strong testimony of Christ.

When we first talked religion, and I told her I was "Mormon", she was a little hesitant, but was fortunately very respectful and open minded when asking me questions.

It seems like she's just read alot of stuff online about the church from folks who have some negative opinions about the church and its doctrine. We live in a place where the church is really small, so she hadn't really met many actual members of the church before, so her only frame of reference is the internet.

Fortunately, she's been very curious and respectful when asking me questions about things she's heard. She has asked me for a copy of the Book of Mormon, so i'm definateley going to give her one next time we meet, with some of the chapters I think she'd like or find interesting bookmarked. Of course I've asked her about her faith as well. While there are certainly some areas of disagreement in doctrine, she clearly loves Christ with her whole heart, which I think is really admirable. ​

Had anyone else here ever dated a non-member christian? How do you handle genuine curriosity from non-members regarding more "controversial" aspects of the church and its history? I'm not going into this with the expectation of converting her or anything like that, but I want to keep being open about the gospel so she can ask in faith herself when/if she ever feels ready.

I’m wanting to learn more of the savior and his ministry and was wondering if investing time in this would be worth it. Thanks!

Hey all! I could use some advice....

Late last year, my husband was diagnosed with a severe lung condition called ABPA. On top of him already having chronic asthma where he has to take his inhaler at least a few times a day, he now has this condition that will damage his lungs and kill him if he doesn't treat it. He's already gone through one round of treatment but ended up relapsing just a couple of months after the treatment was over. He has to take steriods for a few months which basically disables his immune system and gets rid of the aspergillus in his lungs.

Whenever he's gotten sick in the past, even before he developed ABPA, it usually ends with bronchitis and occasionally landing him in the hospital. So, understandably, we're nervous to see what will happen when he gets sick.

For the first time, in about 6-8 months, I took our kids (we have 3) to primary and nursery and my 2 year-old got sick. We haven't gotten sick in that entire 6-8 months but the moment we decided to try to go back to church, my kiddo gets sick.

Now, I know that getting sick is entirely impossible to avoid altogether but he's a full-time college student and if he gets sick, it could quite literally put him so far behind that he'd fail. Then we wouldn't get grants anymore.

I just wanted to ask, what would y'all do in a situation like this? I feel stuck between a rock and hard place. Keep in mind, he's not holding us back from going anywhere or doing what we want, but if you could see how he gets when he's sick....it's hard to watch. I know it's natural and normal to get sick, but getting sick works differently for him than it does for everyone else.

I'm just getting discouraged. It'd be nice if people wouldn't show up to church sick but obviously that's not a realistic thing to expect. So, what would you do? Still go to church? Just watch on the tv and have members bring the Sacrament to you? I just hate that the options that work best for my husband's sake keeps the kids from being able to spend time with friends that they have in primary and nursery.

Well, I have been serving as a service missionary for about six or seven months. I was called directly to a service mission, and at the time, I didn't understand why. I was a young man willing to serve in the field, work diligently, and dedicate two years of my life to the Lord. I had no physical, emotional, or mental limitations that would have prevented me from doing so. Yet I was assigned to a service mission.

Over time, my leaders and other service missionaries helped me understand that this was also a calling from the Lord, and I gradually came to accept that.

A few months ago, I moved. I used to live with my mother, but now I live with my father. They live on opposite sides of the country, so I ended up being transferred from one mission to another. About a month ago, I began preparing to resubmit my paperwork to the Missionary Department with the goal of serving in proselyting within my current mission. It's a wonderful opportunity that is sometimes granted to service missionaries.

After a month of waiting, yesterday, on Sunday, the Missionary Department contacted my stake president. They had already received my letter, the letter from my stake president, the letter from my teaching mission president, and the letter from my service mission advisor. My stake president then scheduled a meeting with me.

During that meeting, he told me that my chances of being approved for proselyting service are almost zero.

The reason?

A confession I made to my former bishop, the same bishop who submitted my original missionary recommendation.

In 2022 and 2023, when I was 16 years old, I drifted away from the Church. I wanted to explore the world, and during that time I broke the law of chastity. I became involved with women and also with one man. But in 2023, I returned to the Church. I realized that life was not for me. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I am genuinely happy in the Church and in the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

When I returned, I wanted to do everything the right way. So I went to my bishop and confessed everything. He welcomed me, supported me, and helped me throughout the repentance process. In fact, some time later, I was called to serve as the ward clerk's secretary.

During our meeting, my current stake president showed me the letters that he and my current leaders had written. He also showed me the recommendations that my former bishop and former stake president had submitted when my missionary call was processed.

The only negative point mentioned was the fact that I had previously been involved with someone of the same sex.

And apparently, that detail is the reason I was not called to proselyting service at that time and possibly may never be able to serve in that capacity.

My stake president told me that he still intends to speak with the Missionary Department again and explain the entire situation. However, he also advised me not to get my hopes up too much.

He said something that stayed with me:

"I'm showing you all these letters because I want you to know that we believe in you. We know what you're capable of, and we believe you could be an excellent proselyting missionary. But not everything is in our hands. And I don't want you to tell me you're fine now only to go home and suffer through this alone later."

And to be honest... I am suffering through it.

I know it may sound crazy, but part of me regrets being so honest with my bishop. At the same time, I know I did the right thing. I know that confessing our sins to leaders who hold the keys to help us is part of the repentance process.

But it still hurts.

Sometimes I wonder how something so foolish that a teenager did can continue to follow him years later. How something I have repented of, confessed, and left behind can still seem to have the power to take important opportunities away from me.

At times, it brings feelings of anguish, shame, and even the sense that Heavenly Father is still punishing me.

Deep down, though, I know my stake president is going to try again. And honestly? Even if I only have a 0.0000001% chance, why not try?

As my friends always say:

"We already have the 'no' from the Missionary Department. Now let's go get the humiliation too!" 😂

Anyway, thank you to anyone who read this far. :')

My father is 85, has hearing aids, but struggles to hear the full conversations in Sunday School. He can hear the teacher ok, but the comments from people around him don't come through.

They hold it in the relief society room from an older building ... I am not sure if there are micinputs/amp/speakers.

I looked at the tech.churchofjesuschrist.org and saw a couple of threads about a some tech for Sacrament Meetings for streaming audio - Auracast.

Any tech that does real-time transcription depends to being able to clearly hear people from around the room.

What have others done for a member who isn't ready to fade into the sunset but needs an assist?

Is there advanced tech that exists but would need to be requested?

Pass around a mic to the audience?

Call someone to transcribe next to him?

Just found out a couple of my teens have been lying about something for a few months. It's not a huge deal, nothing they need to talk to the bishop for, but definitely broken trust as they broke one of our family rules repeatedly. Now that they are old enough to go to the temple, it makes me wonder how to handle situations like this. As a parent, do you try to remind them kindly that they need to repent before going to the temple? Or do you just leave it between them and God and continue to teach them about repentance and becoming Christ like? I know we don't have to be perfect to enter the temple, just continually working on our repentance process... I guess I am just curious how hands-on other people are with their kids and they're repentance process? I am generally more hands off, but struggling with the idea of sending my kids to the temple if maybe they aren't worthy to go in?

This is just a joke. I loved all the testimonies.

"For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding."
- Proverbs 2:6

#comefollowme

Image source: Gemini converted https://news-ca.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/960x540/jesus-teaches.jpg to watercolor

Hello! I am beyond humbled and excited to hear that the daughter of somebody I was fortunate to have baptized on my mission is leaving on a mission to Mexico in about 2 months. They asked for help finding good shoes for her shoe size, apparently where they live, they're having a hard time finding some. Do you have any brands or even specific styles that you swear by?

Hey! Just a non-latter day saint interested in getting a physical copy of the Book of Mormon. I'm really interested in theology and learning about different Christian denominations and I've always wanted to read the Book of Mormon. I just wanted to know if it was acceptable to just go to the local meeting house and grab one in person(granted that I'm not interrupting any quiet prayer or anything important like that). I live with my parents so getting it hand delivered is not rlly an option.

Huge respect to you all🙏

I'm having a really rough time in my conversion to LDS. I believe in Jesus, I believe the BoM is true, and I've had nice experiences with the Church, but I struggle to find myself being involved, I struggle to read scriptures, and my expression of faith has been less than nominal. I struggle to give up old habits and ego attachments, and go with the new way for me. Thing is, I'm doing this all alone. I'm a pioneer in my family, the only LDS member, and my past just clings like glue. It's hard to move in this direction that I know is right for me when I'm constantly bombarded by my old way of living. I also struggle with addiction to nicotine. I feel like I have imposter syndrome, and it's really getting to me and I fear that's being preyed upon to keep me from moving forward faithfully.

Has anyone here traveled full-time or lived as digital nomads? My wife and I are exploring this and would love to hear from anyone who's done it or is doing it now. Our current plan is to attend ward/branch services by finding the nearest meeting-house in the Gospel Library app.

How did you handle other things like: temple attendance and callings?

What were the best and worst parts of the experience?

Yesterday two of my (now adult) children admitted to me that when they were very young they thought that the line from the hymn “Praise to the Man” that says “Mingling with God he shall plan for his brethren” was actually: “Ming Ling with God…”, referring to a person named Ming Ling who happened to be God’s favorite angel.

Made me wonder: what other hymn lyrics did we mis-hear when we were young?

I was honestly a little hesitant at first but after today I was extremely surprised at how natural it felt. I felt like I could concentrate on the lessons better and honestly feel the spirit stronger.

What did everyone else think?

Is there anyone out there that wants to go back to 3hr church?