Welcome back fellow watchers. Time to get supernal.
President Eyring conducting. Is the opposite of conducting a meeting, insulating a meeting?
President Uchtdorf with the sustainings.
Fun fact: The church published their last public financial report in 1959.
John S. Tanner just called into General Sunday School Presidency, though he is currently serving as a mission president.
Elder Nelson:
Are we securely tied to God so that our faith shows, or are we actually tied to something else?
Courage, no compromise, brings the smile of God’s approval.
“All Truth emanates from God.”
Elder Scott:
“Grandmother used just the right amount of courage and respect to help” his inactive father to allow kids to attend church
“Jeanene never asked me to serve a mission for her” but “gave me the opportunity to work out the direction of my own life.”
“It is easier to develop [faith in Jesus Christ] when they have friends or family members who love them” perfectly
Elder Hales
The best analysis of the Hiram Page incident.
Claudio Zivic is from Argentina and is a CPA.
Jesus “is the root and the trunk that conducts the living water to us, the sap that will allow us to be nourished.”
Take-home message for the session: Don’t lose the pages.
W. Craig Zwick, owner of Zwick Construction, of SLC.
“We can and should participate in continuing civil dialogue . . . when we view the world from differing perspectives”
“There exists today a great need for men and women to cultivate respect for each other across wide distances of belief and behaviour”
Quentin L. Cook
Here is a question for you: How were the keys conferred? Go read the original account.
“Only on the threshold of what we can do with these tools.”
Spirit of Elijah as inspired team genealogy?
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
I was gonna request somebody post a link to the stream, then I decided to not be such a sluggard and find it myself. Front and center at the lds.org homepage. Duh.
And the Mets win on a pinch-hit grand slam at exactly 4:00 EDT. A good omen.
Opening hymn at a good pace.
Is it just me or are those Mormon commercials always ragging on dads? My toddler’s dad, just during the last conference and the start of this one, has made him eggs, helped him mop the floor, made cookies, and assisted in toddler training. I’m pretty proud of both of ’em.
Nice choir. My compliments to the director. Also, purple ties.
The lunchtime spread is out. Egg Salad Sandwiches, Taco Soup, Fritos, and Doritos, with lemonade to drink.
And the word of the session is LOVE. No variations. The candy bowl has been restocked with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and Sour Patch Straws.
My wife: “Wow, a good, prominent 2nd alto part!”
The contrast of the men in suits and the ladies in art smocks is terrible.
Those blouses are pretty awful. Nice singing though.
Institute choir? Some of these kids look like they’re 12. Sigh, guess I’m getting old.
Bonjo, I had the same reaction. and I’m not much older than them.
Where are Boyd and L. Tom?
There are always 2 of the Twelve in other locations during each session
I can’t remember who it was, but someone speaking this morning stated that there are currently 318 Members of the Quorums of the Seventy serving. I wonder if that was the number before, or after the business of this conference was completed?
Pres, Uchtdorff, could you please come read the Mexico City phone directory for our next FHE?
Brian, I know there used to be, but recently I don’t think that’s been the case. Normally they have showed each member of the Quorum of the Twelve as their names have been called.
Strange, when they announced the q of 12, the camera only panned to Nelson and beyond. Didn’t show BKP or LTP.
Well, Uchtdorff got his own name right.
Oh, didn’t see the comment above by Brian. Yeah, maybe that’s it.
So many dudes’ names. (Devin Durrant was in my BYU FHE group.)
I appreciate very much that DFU seems to have practiced the names and pronunciations. It’s little things like that that make a difference.
Is that Devin Durrant, the former BYU Basketball player, and son of George Durrant?
I don’t think i’ve ever heard of someone being released as a general authority. Is there a back story on Callister?
I think they just made that distinction as he was called to the Sunday School.
No back story. The Lord needed him as the General Sunday School President.
Seriously, why do we take up time with the auditing report?
Yes, when GAs are released they become Emeritus status
That’s all the converts? Seems small considering the surge of missionaries and now that most of the sisters are now returning
Nelson poachin’ on Uchtdorff’s land!
Or they’re released because they’re members of the Second Quorum, serving a five-year term.
Loathing, I was thinking the same. Just change the date and read last year’s report. Unless they find some juicy discrepancy. That’d be fun.
Hasn’t he told this story before?
It would have to be really big and juicy for them to change anything in that audit report. The key words in there are IN ALL MATERIAL RESPECTS. For a corporation as large as the church is, there would have to be a major fraud perpetrated at church HQ to have an impact on that report. Any small problems at the ward or stake level will all be immaterial.
Loathing, maybe once they stop griping about the Church not making all it’s books public over at MormonThink, they can stop doing the audit report.
“Celebrities can fade.” Can we get a promise on that wrt Miley Cyrus?
ooh…E. Nelson slams PC.
*sigh* Criticism of religion != suppressing freedom of religion.
I’m getting tired of claims otherwise, seriously.
Is there any point to the very generic auditing report that has been word for word the same for decades? Just ONCE I would like to hear them say, “We caught some guy in the Church Carpool siphoning gas” or “One Bishop was absconding with funds, but he is gone now.” Something to break up the sameness.
This talk by Elder Nelson sounds like one that will be used in many 4th Sunday discussions
It’s kind of amusing to listen to people today diss on the weird-sounding hygiene rules in the Old Testament, not even realizing what actually-good-ideas a lot of them are.
loathing, he didn’t equate criticism with suppression.
Ooooh, scawy libruls and academitians.
I don’t buy the notion that he has to teach both secular knowledge and revealed religious truth in a secular context. It’s fine for him to say Truth is Truth for himself, but it’s a different matter when you’re inculcating your personal religious “Truth” to students who do not share your religious faith.
Loathing, have you been listening to the popular cries over at MormonThink for the LDS Church to lose it’s tax exempt status – not to mention Tom Phillips’ antics in British courts?
I agree, in general, Kevin, but I also think it depends on what it is being shared.
I believe Emily is the Nelson daughter who was in my ward the second semester of my freshman year at BYU. (I knew who she was, but did not know her at all well.)
Ray: Actually, it totally sounded to me like he was equating criticism with not suppressing religion, but suppressing the freedom of religion. Either way, though, the claim is wrong.
FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN CAN’T BE WRONG
(Rose / Raskin / Fisher)
Sophie Tucker
They say the French are naughty
They say the French are bad
They all declare that over there
The French are going mad.
They have a reputation of being very gay
I just got back from Paris, and I just want to say:
When they go parley-vee and parley-vou,
This for me, zat for you,
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
When they go Ohh la la la la la la la
On the bully boulevard
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
They shake-a the hand
They shake-a the feet
They roll ze eyes and qu’est-ce que c’est right on the street
Even though the Irish and the Dutch
Say it don’t amount to much
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
All of our fashions come from gay Par-ee
And if they come above the knee
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
And if they give the world a new design
To prove a lady has a spine
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
They shorten them here,
They shorten them there,
And if her name is Teddy, they make Teddy bare.
If they prefer to see their women dressed
With more or less of less and less,
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
When they put on a show, and it’s a hit
No one tries to censor it
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
And when a book is selling at it’s best
It isn’t stopped; it’s not suppressed.
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
Whenever they’re dry
For brandy or rye,
To get it, they don’t gave to give up their right eye.
And when we brag about our liberty
And they laugh at you and you and you and me
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
In Viva la France
They’re full of romance
You’ll find policemen with embroidery on their pants.
And when they start to sing the Marseillaise
They sing it forty different ways
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
True enough, Seth, but I don’t like the implication that revelation is a shortcut for science, and we should primarily interpret them as “good for health.”
Well, what came to my mind was his rejection of the Big Bang Theory. To me it would be completely inappropriate to teach that in a secular context.
The missionary surge seems to be a flop. The number of increased converts is barely 10,000 up over the previous year with more 23,000 more missionaries.
I agree with Kevin. Truth is truth, but certain truth is more applicable in various situations. (I also think it can be effective to *not* bring up your faith the first minute you meet someone.)
Seth R: I haven’t been reading over at MormonThink (not enough time in the day to read everything), but i do know about the British court case, and i’m also aware of the many reasons that such attempts are going nowhere, at least in the US and UK.
I agree with that, Kevin.
I don’t know that the missionary surge has been a flop—where i live, i’ve seen the increased number of missionaries correlate with a perceptible increase in reactivation. Don’t know that that can be extended outside of my experience, but there you go.
I don’t see 10,000 more converts as a flop – and they probably don’t either.
The main thing I’d like to point out is that it is a BIG mistake to assume that the rest of the population is as thoughtful or balanced or fair as the membership of ByCommonConsent.
Did Nelson tell that crashing plane story again? (Missed the beginning of his talk; in the kitchen starting the dough for tomorrow’s cinnamon rolls.) I hate that story and I hate that they made a Mormon Message about it. Just because you don’t want to die in a plane wreck doesn’t mean you lack faith.
To second loathing’s comment, my daughter has had extensive success on her mission with reactivation. Those people don’t show up in the figures presented in conference.
Missionaries in our ward have doubled, as have baptisms, going from 1 to 2. But, I would say that there is a lot more of a spirit of missionary work, and the sister seem to have a big impact. A few weeks ago I want with the sister to discuss the church in a colleague’s Religion and the Media class. This is to say that increased number of baptism may not be the only criteria?
No Joni – the plane in his story landed safely.
I doubt that they will reference that song in the Ensign Transcript.
Right, Joni. And not all women who are afraid to die are “hysterical.”
Whose game for creating a MormonApostleCupid.com profile for Elder Scott?
Reactivation has been a big push in my ward and stake too. That is important too. Sometimes I think we assume that just because things don’t turn out like we want or think they will that it is a failure.
No compromise! Stand for principle! #teapartyforlife
I love the story getting real about one of the prime motivations for a young man to serve a mission. I’d be lying if I said a similar type of motivation were not in the back of my mind as well.
Good thing the woman in the story wasn’t on my flight from Carlsbad to Albuquerque in an eight-seater. I think that thing dropped and jumped over 20 feet a few times. I hit my head on the cabin ceiling once, and a big six foot plus dude next to me was shrieking like a little girl.
I do an over/under bet with myself when Elder Scott speaks about how long it takes to bring up Jeanine — but I had no idea she served a mission. That’s awesome.
As a teacher, I’m often quiet about my own beliefs because I want to leave students space to work out their own. I certainly don’t want to set myself up as a religious authority for them.
I mean the story where they *think* the plane is crashing and we are supposed to judge the crying woman for lacking faith. (I’d be crying too if I thought I was going to die; I’m not done raising my kids.) Like I said, I only caught the tail end of the story, but it sounded like the same one, and it fits the general theme of the talk.
It occurred to me and my wife simultaneously that the fact that Elder Scott and his wife married after they *both* served missions is an important part of that story—she wasn’t just encouraging him to go, she was talking about something that was a part of her own life.
Has anyone else noticed that Elder Scott doesn’t seem to stare directly into the camera lens as much as he used to?
Joni: In that case, yes, i think it was the same one (i thought i’d heard it before, myself)—it’s problematic, but not any more than any nearly other metaphorical story from real life, i suppose.
I’m LOVing all the variations of the word LOVE in this talk that have the kids on the edge of their seats every time they are uttered.
Nice rhetorical circle back to the beginning of the address!
Actually Joni, he made a joke about the situation where the husband admitted to him after the flight that the only thing he could think of to calm her down was to tell her “Elder Nelson is on board, so there’s no way this plane is going down.”
Joking, but still implying the woman did have faith in the end of her own sort.
I like that Elder Scott just said “share your testimony at every *appropriate* opportunity”. Much better than Elder Nelson’s implication.
I have an LDS colleague who does not tell students that he’s Mormon. We team teach a class with 2 other faculty. I’m the opposite; I tell students in the first few minutes, and then make jokes about polygamy and so forth. I have tremendous respect for my colleague’s approach, and mine works for me.
and he followed that funny comment by saying that our faith should be placed only in Jesus. I liked that point, even if he didn’t say explicitly, “and not me or other church leaders”.
I do research (in linguistics) using archival recordings of general conference addresses. I’ve had a lot of colleagues at research conferences—and a couple students—come up to me and ask if i’m Mormon, and often how i can balance being Mormon with being a researcher and academic. That always seems an “appropriate opportunity” to me…
loathing, have you published on this stuff? It sounds like something I would be interested in.
While the song is playing, did anyone hear the message between sessions on the lds.org broadcast, that said, essentially, “Remember, we all are children of God – gay, lesbian or straight”?
Our missionaries have been visiting a lot of less actives too. I think that is an excellent way for missionaries to use their time. We need to focus on baptizing a lot less and focus a lot more on being sure the ones who are baptized are converted and have a place in their wards and branches. Missionaries can often connect with less active members in ways that ward members can’t, especially less active members who have interpersonal problems with members.
Elder Hales is looking and sounding worse this conference. He is really thin. I hope he is doing ok nad gets better
IT seems that this session has been reserved for the apostles with the driest delivery. Could Packer possibly be on the slate batting cleanup?
J. Stapley: A few times—the most accessible is probably my 2012 article in Dialectologia (it’s open-source, and available online) titled “Early trends in a newly developing variety of English”. [END shameless self-promotion]
Ray–more info, please.
“Selective obedience.”
I do not agree with the view that a person exhibiting fearfulness is a terrifying situation means that one lacks faith in God, Her response, described as “hysteria”, opens the door to” mental illness = lack of faith”. I do not believe that.
(aside) Hey, your Disputed Mormon Texts site was great…
TJ, I didn’t see it, but my wife and kids did – as did a good friend who texted me about it. I’d love to find a link to it somewhere.
Did Hales just equate God’s commandments with prophets’ counsel? Is ‘love one another’ equal with GBH’s ‘one pair of earrings only’? We pick and choose because not every word uttered by a prophet is equal in weight to God’s actual commandments.
Ben S: Thanks. (One of my goals for this summer, now that work loads will be lightening up a bit, is to get it back online and updated.)
Annie in KC: Elder Hales’s address, then, is a bit of an antidote to that, what with foregrounding Jesus not wanting to obey, though ultimately being obedient.
Annie, he didn’t even link her situation to faith in God. I was taking his message to be – faith in the pilot and the technology to get her through. Just a general point about faith being an antidote to fear – which it is.
I think people could stand to relax just a touch on this.
Annie, I can’t imagine anyone who heard that story linking that type of “hysterical” reaction (not that I would word it that way) to mental illness. Nothing in the talk even remotely implied there was any kind of mental illness involved.
or what Seth said
Thanks, Ray. Interesting.
I’ll take the wisdom that the Lord has guided me to which helps me deconstruct Church culture before I would take Church culture at face value. Equating God’s will with the declarations of man or Church is not sound. We must always recognize a capacity for disalignment of those two things.
‘Hysterical’ is a word with nasty connotations when applied to women.
The “hysterical” comment I’d think would be more evocative of sexism than stigmas about mental illness.
I understand that completely, Joni – but there wasn’t anything in the actual story he told or the way he told it that included those connotations. I really think linking them in this talk makes him an offender for a word.
Agreed that this session is a bit dry. I’ve given up on trying to keep my husband awake. Pres Uchtdorf did a great job reading all those names, but it was a long list.
You hear what you want to hear I guess.
Do other churches emphasize obedience the way that we do? My impression is not. Yes, obedience can be a good thing, but mindless obedience can also be a vice, and it concerns me that talks like this never try to parse that difference responsibly. Obedience is always portrayed as an absolute virtue, with no nuance suggested that would help people to distinguish the principle from cult-like absolutes.
I believe this is Inspector clouseau.
It’s not about hearing what you want to hear. It’s about recognizing that words have meanings and contexts, and that those contexts underlie the way we talk about things. And being aware of that and pointing them out is not making an offender for a word (no one said, look, he’s sexist), it’s shining light.
Sustain does not equal obey.
It’s hard to find inspiration in the vague and oblique way that they refer to sin and obedience.
Kevin Barney: Not mainline Protestantism or even (most) Roman Catholicism, no, but there are a *lot* of churches that emphasize obedience—it’s an orthpraxy vs. orthdoxy thing, and we tend to fall on the orthopraxy side.
We talk a lot about obedience but not all obedience is created equal. Obedience to your bishop is not the same thing as obedience to the Lord. ‘Obey’ is a transitive verb, not necessarily a guiding principle.
Yeah, except in this case, he wasn’t even being derogatory of the woman at all.
Geez-Louise, are we STILL on this trivial topic?
Wrong, absence of overt negativity is not absence of negative subtext.
And yes, we’re still on it, cuz folks seem to still not get it.
A whole nother mention of the lost 116 manuscript pages!
And issues are often “trivial” to folks who occupy a position of privilege with relation to said issue.
Hysterical women aren’t a trivial topic to me. (wink, wink, joke, joke)
BTWm SCW wins 10 internets for the comment at 2:14p.
I think that “hysterical” was just an unfortunate (and inadvertent) word choice. We can acknowledge the unfortunateness and still cut Elder Nelson some slack.
That said, the FB comment my wife showed me–“MY UTERUS IS BEING SUCKED OUT OF THE PLANE”–is pretty funny.
TJ, I’m not saying pointing something out is making an offender for a word – but dismissing the story for what was not said or even implied would be doing so. I think interpreting his story as equating mental illness with lack of faith is going way beyond what he both said and meant and, in so doing (“linking them in this talk”), making him an offender for a word.
I don’t know if Annie takes it that far (and, if not, I apologize, Annie) – but I do believe it would be uncharitable to take it that far.
Not to mention that ‘hysterical’ has a really problematic history, but that history isn’t accessible to most of the world’s English speakers nowadays. If a word ceases to have a particular meaning, after all, it no longer has that meaning.
TJ, my mother is schizophrenic. This is not a topic of privilege or academia for me. Please accept and understand that.
We disagree. Fine. Let’s move on.
Except that it’s incorrect that “hysterical” has lost its sexist connotations in current parlance. Really, really, it hasn’t.
Ray, wasn’t talking to you with that comment. And I have not invoked mental illness in the context of this word but sexism. So…you’re barking up the wrong tree. Peace be with you.
Okay, we are done with the hysterical. Let’s all move along.
Great, now are we going to have twenty more comments about how the woman jumping from the truck was, “irrational?”
And yes, I find that description of the mother troublesome.
Interesting follow-up talk, I think, about hazardous words.
TJ: Has there been a quantitative analysis of that? Any claims along those lines i’ve seen are based on purely anecdotal observations.
(And okay, i’m done on the topic now.)
Just remember, you brought that up first.
Oh no, he just called a woman irrational! begin the cries of outrage!
Again, I come back to what I mentioned last session. Word usage is important, but is that how you want us to communicate to each other? Behind an army of lawyers parsing every word for any potential misunderstanding? A simple phrase like “Hello” might become a thousand word paper. Sorry, yes I know it is a bit reductio ad absurdum. But lets try to be charitable in our word choice and the word choices of others. Lets listen to what is actually being said,
Ray, look it up. National Institutes of Health. Hysteria, women, and the history of mental illness. .
I like this guy’s (Br. Zwick) energetic style. Not to mention his content.
We need to be civil, even when we disagree? Heathen! BURN THE…Oh, wait.
Seriously. Done. I’ll mod comments.
Yeah, i think this thread has needed this address.
I’d prefer to call this lack of information rather than irrationality. I think it would be more accurate.
I like his solution of listening and understanding though. All in all, it’s a very good talk.
This really is a fantastic talk. “It doesn’t matter who was more right.”
I apologize if I have not ministered grace enough in this conversation.
Wow, this really is a good talk.
The “no corrupt communication” from Ephesians 4:29. The “communication” comes from logos, lit. “word.” The “corrupt” is a rendering of sapros, which in general refers to something corrupted by age and therefore no longer fit for use (rotten, putrid), and so generally bad, unfit for use, worthless.
It might not matter who’s right, but whether we understand and care for each other.
Thanks for that, Kevin.
“We have a heavenly Father who listens to our hearts and cares what we are thinking” Zwick’s talk was the best so far. Awesome.
NOOOOOOOO!!!!! I had cook in our local priests quorum pool as to who would be speaking at priesthood meeting tonight. Guess I lose.
What a great and timely message! I like “respect those you disagree with” so much better than “respect those who are wrong/make bad choices.” Mormons don’t have a monopoly on being right.
E. Zwick FTW! Testifies that we have a loving savior who cares what we think! That was a great talk, even though yes, the whole “irrational” thing could have gone the other way, but it didn’t, and I think that’s the point.:)
I was down with Elder Zwick’s talk but it did seem like he pushed the “women-being-irrational” a bit much. Jumping out of a slowing truck is a perfectly rational thing to do if you think it is on fire, and a large amount of thick smoke seems like a good indicator of that.
The reason that Malachi closes out the Christian OT is because John the Baptist was Elijah, n’est ce pas?
Stapley, were you geeking out at that image?
Meggle: Now that i’ve heard the whole address, though, i’m wondering if ‘irrational’ might have been exactly the intended term—but only from the point of view that that’s the way it seemed to him in a moment when he didn’t have enough understanding to realize otherwise.
Ellie, I think his point was that it appeared irrational to him, with his understanding of the situation, but wasn’t at all irrational based on her understanding of the situation. I think it was a great choice of words to say, in fact, that it wasn’t irrational like many (including he) would assume automatically.
I thought Zwick deftly qualified his perception of “irrational” as being a communication problem.
Geekorama.
When they say that 85% of the church lives within 200 miles of the temple, which we’ve been told twice now today, is that 200 air miles, or road miles?
Yes, loathing, exactly what I meant. I love the idea that our view of opinions/actions different than our own is always colored by our understanding or lack thereof of the other POV.
Listening to this, i can’t help but wonder what it would have been like to have been around when baptism for the dead was a completely new thing.
“The Family History Centers are now in our homes.” Is that an indirect announcement that Family History Centers in our chuch buildings will be closing?
Fair enough. Thanks!
I’ve supposed that was 200 miles as the crow flies.
@Joe in Alaska: Air miles, last time i looked into it—and yes, for those of us up here in Alaska, that does make a difference, doesn’t it?
Worth noting:
“Access to Genealogy Websites for LDS Church Members May Come Sooner Than Expected.”
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865599942/Access-to-genealogy-websites-for-LDS-Church-members-may-come-sooner-than-expected.html
BCC Admin, would you fix your spelling of Elder Cook’s name? It’s Quentin.
I agree, Zwick wins the day
Elder Zwick delivered a great message!
Loathing, yes it does. When we heard it this first time this morning, I mentioned that those of us in Soldotna are 85%ers, but Homer isn’t. My brother in law who is visiting from the valley reminded us that if you use air miles, Homer becomes 85%ers as well.
gellsyk, fixed. I thought his parents just liked the number five.
Eek! I am unreasonably excited that Vilate Kimball was mentioned! I am named for her (even though I have an extra L). :) And Elder Cook said her name like I say my name!
If the Church does secure free ancestry.com memberships for its members and gets the FHL collection online in the next decade or so, then–discounting missionary/community outreach possibilities–family history centers will be hard-pressed to justify their continued existences.
Pretty interesting arrangement of High on the Mtn Top !
Who is Pres Monson’s handler?
SCW, I believe that is his daughter.
Well, I’m glad we had a bright moment in E. Zwick’s talk, which picked up the slack where I had expected it from Holland. Hoping DFU will deliver again this round.
I love High on the Mountain Top but we do not save ourselves and our dead. The Savior did that. I wish they would change that last line.
I agree wholeheartedly, noray.
No, Monson has a male handler before he meets up with his daughter. I saw this on both sessions.
Its probably Church Security, or his driver
So, not a lot about gender roles in these two sessions.
Were Pres. Packer and Elder Perry absent from the sessions?
It’s his bodyguard. The First Presidency has security that rivals the Secret Service.
Maybe the three Nephites take turns.
They probably have former FBI, CIA, and Secret Service agents working in Church Security.
I loved how Elder Zwick said the Holy Ghost can pierce us with empathy. It can definitely be painful when you are able to look through someone’s eyes and get a better understanding of their suffering. That was a beautiful way to phrase it.
The First Presidency has security that rivals the Secret Service.
Look, their security is fine, but not in the same universe as the Secret Service.
First principles of the gospel…loyalty and obedience
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