In the last couple weeks I've watched three Halloween movies with my neighbors. The first was that old standard, Hocus Pocus. Neighbor Mikki hadn't seen it for a while and kept asking questions that would have been answered if she just kept watching. As I've said before, I can suspend my disbelief for all its absurdities except for the straight teenage boy running away from Sarah Jessica Parker. Someone asked how old the movie was, and I said "Thirty years, almost," and then I remembered that I was born the same year it came out and I got kind of depressed. We also went to the North Logan Pumpkin Walk that night or the following night; I've already forgotten.

Later, at my insistence, we watched Little Shop of Horrors. I only watched it once when I was fourteen but I've listened to both the film and Broadway cast recording soundtracks many, many times. My parents had the former on a cassette tape and I can even remember what it sounded like when I sped it up to make the voices funny. Alas, at my current age I've acquired a neurotic level of empathy for fictional characters and an unshakable insecurity about all the suffering and cruelty and injustice in the world, and I don't find Steve Martin's sadistic dentist as funny as I used to. The scene with Bill Murray as his masochistic patient is still golden though. Neighbor Sadie walked in on that scene and asked what the heck we were watching and I explained that it was a musical about a talking plant that eats people and not, as it appeared at the moment, a weird dental porno.

Also at my insistence, we watched Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost, a blast from the past. Since my neighbors talked nonstop through the first twenty minutes, they didn't anticipate the plot twist that anyone over the age of eight should be able to anticipate, so that was cool. When the Hex Girls showed up, Mikki said "That's Chris's kind of woman" and it was so random because I don't know how she correctly guessed that they turned me on as a kid.

When Emron and I sang along to their signature hit, Mikki decided that we should dress up as them, and Max, who'd never seen Scooby-Doo until now, should too because obviously we'd need a third one. That would have been really cool and made for some great pictures to share here, but I wasn't about to shell out for a costume.

My neighbors played cards after the movie, but I ran off to the institute dance, correctly anticipating that it would have candy and a movie playing. So I ate candy and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I'd never seen before, and it was cool and visually interesting but I don't really think it's worth watching more than once so I'm not sure why it's such a classic. It wasn't very humorous and most of the songs weren't very memorable. Some girl sat by me and talked to me a little bit and it was weird but I missed her when she left. She thought the movie was creepy so it's just as well she didn't stick around for the climax.

Last night I went to ex-neighbor Hailey's Dia de los Muertos party (because she has to be pretentious and do things in Spanish to show off that she knows Spanish) and ducked out early to go to graduate instructor colleague Kylie's smaller party because I've got to be loyal to my graduate instructor colleagues. We played Quiplash, which had nothing to do with Halloween, and I didn't dominate like usual because I had worthy opponents. Then we played three variations on Mafia/Werewolf - first with BYU students getting killed off by DezNats, then with villagers getting killed off by werewolves, then with colonists en route to Alpha Centauri getting killed off by native Alpha Centaurians trying to protect their race from being overrun and slaughtered. On that last occasion, the colonists scored a swift victory with only one fatality, so that was bittersweet for those socially conscious graduate students.

I don't anticipate doing any more Halloween stuff today, on Halloween, since I just want to relax and do the homework that I should have done in the last few days but didn't because I'm bad at structuring time on my own.

When I was about twelve I decided to read the Bible all the way through, and I did, except for a few chapters of Leviticus that bored me beyond my capacity to endure. I learned pretty quickly that there was a lot of stuff in the Old Testament besides the usual stories I'd heard eight billion times. If I recall correctly, the first time I thought "What the $#@%?" was during Genesis 19. This is not an obscure chapter. It includes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but I never had and still never have heard the parts before and after discussed in Sunday school. At the beginning of the chapter, Lot invites a couple of angels or holy men to have dinner and spend the night at his house.

​4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know [have sex with] them.

6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,

7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known [had sex with] man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

Lot doesn't exactly sound like a contender for Father of the Year. Fortunately, the would-be gang-rapers aren't interested in his daughters, and it becomes moot when the angels smite them with blindness so his family can escape before the city is destroyed by a meteor. He flees with them, his wife gets salty about leaving their home behind, and his daughters have their revenge.

31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:
​
32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

35 And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

Biblical scholars now believe that "wine" should have been translated as "margarita", because it sounds like Lot was wasted away again in Margaritaville, searching for his lost pillar of salt. Eh? ​Anyway, you can imagine that by the end of this chapter, twelve-year-old me was like

Muslim apologists have suggested a few creative and possibly legitimate interpretations of the first passage that don't actually involve Lot offering up his daughters to be gang-raped. So far as I can tell, the Christian approach to the passage, besides ignoring it, is that yes, Lot did offer up his daughters to be gang-raped, but this action was simply wrong and unjustified, even though neither God nor the author of the text shows the slightest hint of disapproval. Here's one area where Joseph Smith's revision of the Bible comes to the rescue. In his version of Genesis 19, the mob demands to have sex with the angels and Lot's daughters, and Lot refuses on both counts. (And the number of angels is three, not two, because that matters for some reason.) So maybe that's what really happened, or maybe the Muslim apologists are right but Joseph Smith figured that was too complicated to try to explain. He also interpolated that Lot's daughters "dealt wickedly" and "did wickedly" when they raped their drunk father to get themselves pregnant, removing any ambiguity as to whether the Bible endorses that sort of behavior.

If only that were the only issue. To modern readers, the Old Testament is full of weird and disturbing stuff that requires a lot of contextual knowledge that most people don't have in order to be of any value whatsoever. In my experience, instead of providing that contextual knowledge, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and most of its members - like most Christians in general - go out of their way to cherry-pick around the stuff in question and pretend the authors and characters of the Old Testament were just like us. Yet the Church exhorts people to study the scriptures, including the Old Testament, without so much as warning them about what they'll find. That sounds like a recipe for atheism to me. Third-party sources, including some by Latter-day Saints, are of course available to make sense of these things, but I sure think the Church should take a more proactive role in explaining one of its own canonical texts that it wants everyone to read.

​It doesn't help that the Church's curriculum writers lean conservative and anti-intellectual. Of course, it does help them with their assignment to dumb the curriculum down so it can be translated into dozens of languages with relative ease and used by used by a convert of two weeks to teach a class, but it has its obvious drawbacks. And my faith in them was shaken a little more last year when the Come Follow Me manual for the Book of Mormon included a racially insensitive quote from Joseph Fielding Smith about dark skin. It was, admittedly, pretty tame compared to most of the things he said about dark skin, but I still find it concerning that the curriculum writers didn't realize it would be a problem. And the Old Testament institute manual that hasn't been updated in forty-one years devotes quite a bit of space to quoting a Seventh-day Adventist anti-evolution tract. Based on these facts, I half-expected that the Come Follow Me Old Testament manual, in addition to continuing to cherry-pick around the weird and disturbing stuff, would strongly denounce evolution even though the Church has quietly but unmistakably moved away from ever doing that in the last decade or two.

The manual is already out, so instead of paying attention in Elders' Quorum one week, I skimmed through it (specifically the one for individuals and families because I'm an individual and/or family). This was by no means a thorough reading, but here are a few things of which I took notice.

An introduction called "Thoughts to Keep in Mind: Reading the Old Testament" gets off to a promising start. It says, "These writings come from an ancient culture that can seem foreign and sometimes strange or even uncomfortable. And yet in these writings we see people having experiences that seem familiar, and we recognize gospel themes that witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ and His gospel." Vague, but a most useful and necessary warning. It continues, "If you wonder whether you and your family can find personal meaning in the Old Testament this year, keep in mind that Lehi and Sariah's family did. Nephi shared stories about Moses and teachings from Isaiah when his brothers needed encouragement or correction or perspective." I'm not sure this is a good comparison when Nephi was at best a century removed from Isaiah, immersed in a similar cultural background to the Old Testament writers, and not dependent on a seventeenth-century English translation of their writings.

"Don’t expect the Old Testament to present a thorough and precise history of humankind. That’s not what the original authors and compilers were trying to create. Their larger concern was to teach something about God - about His plan for His children, about what it means to be His covenant people, and about how to find redemption when we don’t live up to our covenants. Sometimes they did it by relating historical events as they understood them - including stories from the lives of great prophets. Genesis is an example of this, as are books like Joshua, Judges, and 1 and 2 Kings. But other Old Testament writers did not aim to be historical at all. Instead, they taught through works of art like poetry and literature. The Psalms and the Proverbs fit in this category. And then there are the precious words of prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, who spoke the word of God to ancient Israel - and, through the miracle of the Bible, still speak to us today." Boom. Here the manual acknowledges that the Bible is not historically accurate in all respects and that its books are written in different genres altogether. Many people will be learning these concepts for the first time.

A note at the bottom of this introduction says, "These [first five] books, which are attributed to Moses, probably passed through the hands of numerous scribes and compilers over time. Still, the books of Moses are the inspired word of God, even though they are - like any work of God transmitted through mortals - subject to human imperfections (see Moses 1:41; Articles of Faith 1:8)." This is a short and sweet attempt at reconciling Moses' traditional authorship of the Pentateuch with the scholarly consensus that it has multiple authors. While church curriculum doesn't need to address every academic controversy or criticism in detail, it needs to engage with them instead of promoting a bubble of ignorance, and this is a good start.

Moving on, I was gratified by the lack of evolution-bashing. The manual remains as vague as possible about the methodology of creation. It says, "While there’s a lot we don’t know about exactly how the world was created, ponder what you learn about the Creation from what God has revealed in Genesis 1:1–25; Moses 2:1–25; and Abraham 4:1–25." I'm still going to nitpick a little because that's what I do. I would have said, "While there's a lot we don't know from the scriptures about exactly how the world was created..." (emphasis added) God has allowed us to learn a lot about how the world was created through the scientific method, and while this knowledge is beyond the scope of the manual, I kind of hate when we act like it doesn't exist and any speculation on the subject is equally valid. Just because the scriptures don't tell us how old the planet is or how its current diversity of species came to be doesn't mean those things are mysteries.

The manual does acknowledge at least one little controversy. ​"What does it mean that Adam was to 'rule over' Eve? This passage of scripture has sometimes been misunderstood to mean that a husband is justified in treating his wife unkindly." It kind of sidesteps the actual issue here - normal people in the twenty-first century are repulsed by the notion of husbands "ruling over" their wives at all, not just unkindly. A husband who "rules" benevolently, while of course preferable to an abusive one, is still an insult to any grown woman with a functioning brain. I think this is a more subtle example of the writers being out of touch. Within the memory of many people still living, the Church taught that while he should be kind and considerate and involve his wife in decision-making, a husband had final say because he held the priesthood and God had chosen him to preside in the home. His was the tiebreaker vote if the couple couldn't come to an agreement. I suspect that some of the manual writers still subscribe to this way of thinking on some level, and that while they would never use the wording "rule over" themselves, they can't bring themselves to denounce it either.

"In our day," the manual continues, "the Lord’s prophets have taught that while a husband should preside in the home in righteousness, he should see his wife as an equal partner (see “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” [ChurchofJesusChrist.org])." It gives no reason for the obvious discrepancy between this teaching and what the passage of scripture says. One cannot "rule over" an "equal partner," and the only reason one can "preside" over an equal partner is that we've redefined "preside" to no longer mean what the dictionary says it means or what we obviously meant when we said it fifty years ago. The only persuasive argument I've seen for this passage - supported by the original Hebrew and better translations - is that it isn't saying how marital relations should be, it's warning about how they will be in a fallen world. But then, since the passage itself has been used countless times to justify the very thing it warns against, it seems like God should have just not said anything.

In a note on the historical books of the Old Testament, the manual says, "When reading the Old Testament, as with any history, you’re likely to read about people doing or saying things that, to modern eyes, seem strange or even troubling. We should expect this - Old Testament writers saw the world from a perspective that was, in some ways, quite different from ours. Violence, ethnic relations, and the roles of women are just some of the issues that ancient writers might have seen differently than we do today." Like true historians or anthropologists, the manual writers don't assert that these views on violence, ethnic relations, and the roles of women were wrong, just different. That's fair. We want future generations to be patient and understanding with us too. And it's still a big deal - for many readers, this will be the first indication they've ever gotten that people in the scriptures were not just like us and didn't get their entire worldviews straight from the mind of God, let alone that the scriptures themselves contain unenlightened ideas we should reject.

The note also says, "Sometimes the passage may be like a puzzle piece that doesn’t look like it has a place among the other pieces you’ve already assembled. Trying to force the piece to fit isn’t the best approach. But neither is giving up on the entire puzzle. Instead, you may need to set the piece aside for now. As you learn more and put together more of the puzzle, you may be able to better see how the pieces fit together." I think the manual underestimates the number of pieces that don't appear to fit, but still, acknowledging them at all is a big and much-appreciated step. This manual isn't perfect but it is a breath of fresh air.

Yesterday afternoon I was eating pizza in my neighbors' apartment with neighbor Mikki, neighbor Jessica, and ex-neighbor Hailey who had come to visit. Hailey talked about some guy at work who's stalking her. I had already heard of him because when I was at her place a couple weeks ago for General Conference, her roommate's boyfriend, who was in the room at the time, texted her pretending to be this guy and trying to invite himself over, and she freaked out a little. It reminded me one summer in high school when I didn't even own a cell phone but some of my "friends" pretended to be me and texted this girl I'd made a fool of myself over in eighth grade, and I didn't even know about it at the time. Anyway, Hailey's coworker is overstepping all kinds of boundaries, not least of which is that she has a boyfriend in another country.

It then became just a conversation between her and Jessica, who said it sounds like this guy is autistic and not malicious, and that Hailey needs to communicate really clearly and tell him what behaviors make her uncomfortable, and that this will be awkward and feel mean but it's actually nice in the long run. Jessica said there's a big problem of women filing Title IX complaints against autistic men who don't know what they've done wrong, and she's into this sort of thing because her dad is autistic and her job right now is helping autistic people who, despite being phenomenal employees in many respects, have been fired and don't know why. She offered her services as a mediator. So she and Hailey were talking back and forth and I didn't have a chance to pop in with my input until they asked for it.

Hailey already knew about my previous situation where my former neighbors decided I was a stalker and immediately escalated to unnecessary and woefully incompetent police retaliation instead of communicating with me at all. (And I never did anything nearly as bad as this guy under discussion.) Jessica didn't know because she didn't live here when I talked about it, and Mikki didn't know because she was in her room doing homework when I talked about it, because she had no life back then. So I mentioned that again and told Jessica how much I appreciated her saying these things and asked why she couldn't have moved here two years earlier and saved me a lot of trauma. The conversation moved on before I got a chance to tell Mikki that I'm sorry I'm always going to hate cops even though her dad is one, but I'm sure he's a great guy because the bad ones are conveniently never anyone's relatives. And Jessica said she hoped she hadn't said anything wrong, and I didn't think she had but of course I'm not the spokesperson or an expert or anything.

I mean, the stuff she said hurt. That was inevitable. I'm very aware of how much I've been screwed by this society for my entire life, but I don't spend most of my time thinking about it, and seeing it in writing or hearing someone say it out loud just makes it real and fresh all over again. I wonder if women and racial minorities have a similar feeling when they read the statistics that validate their first-hand knowledge of their second-class status in the United States of America. I actually worried about that this semester as a teacher, when one of my students is a black woman and one of the readings I assigned is about a black woman who lost her baby thanks to apathetic hospital staff who refused to take her seriously and it mentions that "black women are 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes than are white women." And yet of course I didn't want to single this student out and ask if she would be okay reading it. So I didn't do anything and I hope she was fine.

The truth often hurts very, very much, but ignoring it doesn't help anyone. I so appreciated Jessica's compassion and advice and whole approach to the thing. I'm grateful that people like her are working to make life less hellish for people like me.

Before the, uh, falling out with my ex-neighbor Talease, I hung out with her one evening and she loaned me Wizard's First Rule and we watched Legion because she found horror movies relaxing. Shortly thereafter the book inspired me to create a fantasy-themed Spotify playlist and her fondness for horror movies inspired me to create a horror-themed Spotify playlist as a gift for her, and of course I still have them both even though I've long since burned the book and never developed much of a predilection for horror movies.

The horror playlist is titled "Boo" and recently I added a skull emoji as I was adding emojis to most of my playlist titles. The other day it picked up a follower for the first time, so that was cool. I hope this follower has the right expectations. The playlist has children's songs, but it is not intended or appropriate for children. It has some more intense stuff too. But not too intense because, like Halloween itself, it is meant to be in fun and not just dark and unpleasant. I have an angst-themed playlist for being dark and unpleasant. So for example, I've reluctantly excluded Rammstein's song based on a true story of erotic cannibalism (if you haven't heard of Armin Meiwes, don't Google him), but the tamer one about normal cannibalism is fine.

Like most playlists, after its initial creation and spurt of adding songs for a few days, I settled in and just added another song periodically when I stumbled upon one that would fit. Then last month a new neighbor moved into the apartment where Talease used to live, and wasted little time in putting up Halloween decorations. She put up a plastic sheet with skeletons on it over the front door, and for a while I saw them out of the corner of my eye and thought they were people, and it triggered me into actively seeking out music to increase the length of this playlist. And I asked my returning neighbor Mikki to ask her for music recommendations, and then I waited a bit, and then Mikki added her to our little neighbor group chat, and what happened next is the entire reason for this post that I've been building up to, even though I'm just now realizing it's not nearly as funny if you weren't there.

Now you may be thinking, "That is kind of sassy, but it's not that sassy, just a little sassy." That was my thought, but it turned out to be one too many pieces of sass.

Within like ten seconds, before Levi had even responded, I heard yelling through the kitchen wall. I couldn't tell what she was saying but I could tell it was directed at me. Then with impossible speed, I heard banging all over my front door like a rapid-fire battering ram. This was kind of hypocritical on Mikki's part. She and ex-neighbor Hailey made fun of me once for knocking too timidly, so after that I always made sure to knock vigorously and then they complained that I sounded "like a serial killer" because of course serial killers always knock first, unless they have a no-knock warrant. Yet here she was just pounding away.

I opened the door just a crack and she said, "Say that to my face."

I pretended not to know what she was talking about. I pretended I didn't remember what I had just said thirty seconds ago because I text a lot of people. They weren't lies because there was no risk of her believing them.

I came outside, where she threatened to beat me up. Sadie stood a few feet back with a grin and her phone out to apparently record it. A neighbor from upstairs came down to see what the commotion was about, and my roommate who usually stays cooped up in his room came to the door as well. Mikki held a hand above her head and said she'd had it up to there with me, and then, before I could make a sassy comment, explained, "That's five foot three." She said something about a camel with straw stacked on its back. And maybe, despite her size, she actually could beat me up. Her dad's a cop and may have trained her in unarmed combat. I also know she used to carry around a screwdriver for self-defense. She said she knows how to break into my apartment and she knows where I sleep. Aren't double standards interesting?

She didn't beat me up because she actually loves the rush of anger she gets when I sass her. My roommate went back to bed and the rest of us talked for at least half an hour even though I should have been doing homework. Sadie gave me an unexpected number of song suggestions because it turned out that she loved music in general, but she wouldn't like my Halloween playlist because metal is the one genre she doesn't listen to.

That story was funnier in my head. Sorry.

This weekend, some of us are ticked off because two apartments are flooding because when the roofers illegally woke us all up at 6:30 to fix the roof the week before school started, they failed to actually fix the roof. So that's nice.

You know what, after nearly ten hours of watching General Conference this weekend I was not looking forward to the tedium of also writing a post about it ASAP before another week has gone by, and then I thought, why not just share the five pages of notes I took? With a few little exceptions that I will redact, I don't believe anything in them is too personal or sacred to share with the entire world. Frankly, most of them are just stuff directly from the talks that stood out to me as potentially significant, and I don't flatter myself that they're anything special that anyone really needs to read, but I'm in graduate school and I'm a busy guy and this saves me the time of writing a full post. I approached this conference with the same question I had two years ago, and a lot has changed and my knowledge and insight into that question are light-years beyond where they were then, but it remains ultimately unresolved and just as pressing. For now it's a personal matter but I do hope that in the immediate future it will be resolved and I can write a post or twelve gushing all about it.

A few little thoughts before my actual notes:

On Saturday afternoon, the multicultural choir intended for April 2020 finally sang, albeit in reduced numbers. Prior to its debut, the Deseret News ran an article that of course drew anger from the usual ilk of Deseret News commenters for "creating division" because "we're all one human race" and so on. Then President Eyring used the phrase "multicultural choir" several times during the conference session itself and those people probably blew a few blood vessels. It was great to see more than three black people and one Asian in the choir before returning to our regularly scheduled whiteness in the next session.

Not counting prayers, twice as many women spoke as last time, for a total of four.

Most of the thirteen temples announced this time are actually somewhat warranted by membership numbers, and aren't just about reducing travel times. I had noticed most of them on people's prediction lists. Last week my institute teacher solicited our predictions of how many would be announced, and I half-jokingly said thirty-seven, because who knows anymore now that the traditional metrics for anticipating their locations are only reliable half the time. I'm glad I was wrong, because announcing fourteen more temples to service one or two stakes each and be mostly empty most of the time would have been harder for me to get excited about, but I suppose that just shows my selfishness in making this about me when it really isn't.

Now, my notes:

Three things to listen for

1. Pure truth
2. Pure doctrine of Christ
3. Pure revelation

Nothing could be worth more than all our Father has
It’s not too late to seek the Holy Ghost
Don’t “fix” the tooth, pull it out
No man having his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God
There is divine help for any one of us at any hour that we seek to make a change in our behavior
First great truth – God loves us wholeheartedly now
He will give us the capacity to love our neighbor and ourselves
Study patriarchal blessing
Don’t tangle yourself in the net
Don’t judge your neighbor harshly and cruelly because we all need the Savior
Seek out the good in others
As we rely on God’s love, we rely less on the approval of others
God’s blessings are not unconditional
The world is anti-Christ
Can God rely on our love as we rely on His? Can He love us not just in spite of our failings, but because of what we are becoming?
It is not where we start but where we’re headed that matters
Don’t ignore your negative circumstances, but don’t fixate too much on them
Show some humility for the positive circumstances we may not have created ourselves – give back
Every blessing of eternal significance begins with faith that God is willing
Overcome selfishness and individualism
Church participation can magnify our capacity to love
Live in accordance with the obligations we have accepted in the temple to receive spiritual strength in every season of our lives
If you want justice and accountability, study the Atonement more deeply
“Since the price already has been paid for those sins, would you demand that such a price be paid twice?”
Heal the wounds caused by another person’s unrighteous exercise of moral agency, receive peace, mercy, and love
The Lord knows what is better for us
Nephi and his brothers were acting and trusting the Lord, yet failed twice
Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time – your faith increases and your character grows
One more day, one more week, try one more time
God’s love is not found in the circumstances of our lives, but in his presence in our lives
Pray to have our eyes opened to see his hand in our lives and his love in the beauty of his creations
Focusing on growth is healthier than obsessing about our shortcomings
What things do you ponder? What things really matter to you? [Redacted] (duh)

1. Love the Father and the Son
2. Love thy neighbor
3. Love yourself
4. Keep the commandments
5. Always be worthy to attend the temple
6. Be joyful and cheerful
7. Follow God’s living prophet

Dangers of picking and choosing which parts of prophetic counsel to follow (even though prophetic counsel is wrong sometimes)
Don’t look beyond the mark or God will give you only confusing things
The faithful need not fear the Second Coming
And may I add, sisters?
The Savior doesn’t fault our shortsightedness re:death
The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives (4x)
Nephi didn’t murmur against the Lord because of his afflictions
Lift others’ burdens even during your own
Complexity is not a bad thing or something to be avoided
Small things bring to pass great things

1. Live the gospel to be sensitive to promptings
2. Serve others
3. Invite all to receive the gospel
4. Unite families for eternity

Lovest thou me more than these? What we value in life, who we follow, how we view our relationships. What really brings us joy and happiness?
Only He can bring us true joy, happiness, and peace
To believe is to love and follow our Savior and keep the commandments even in the midst of trials and strife
Relationships with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and those around us = happiness
Willing heart to say to the Lord, “Here am I, send me”
Repentance is healing and it’s more important than physical healing
His grace is sufficient for all + leftovers
Feast on the scriptures, don’t just taste them
Desire to participate in the gathering of Israel will increase
We will want to go to the temple as often as possible and submit our ancestors’ names
We will faithfully keep the Sabbath day
God’s well-intentioned messages can be misunderstood as hateful
Taking the sacrament is like filling up at the gas station
Don’t just ask for forgiveness, ask for grace – less time hating yourself for what you’ve done, and more time loving Jesus for what he has done
No all-or-nothing expectations – incremental growth – prosper by degrees
We are not just walking toward God and Christ – we are walking with them

1. Humility – “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever”. Humility precedes glory
2. Courage – don’t knowingly put yourself in danger, but move forward with faith. Courage to live righteously
3. Forgiveness – “Go and sin no more.” It’s easy to forgive one who apologizes, but the Savior can help you forgive those who never do. Required to be true disciples.
4. Sacrifice – the demonstration of pure love, the degree of our love can be measured by what we are willing to sacrifice for someone.

Sharing the gospel protects against temptation – sharing that light brings us more fully into it
The need to hold up our light has never been greater
Pure revelation for the questions in your heart will make this conference rewarding and unforgettable
Revelation is always gotten by exercising faith
If you have questions and seek answers, you have at least enough faith to hope for answers
If it’s important to your eternal welfare, it’s more likely to come (*cough* [Redacted] *cough*) but even then the answer might be to be patient
Internal quiet and submission to the Lord’s will. “I only want what you want, not what I want.”
Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, wherefore they speak the words of Christ
The Savior will not shout commands to you and me
Judith Tannery Roiz
It’s hard to walk in a straight line, actually impossible without landmarks. True for individuals, also for societies and nations
No matter how strong our spiritual experiences have been in the past, we tend to wander
Keep our thoughts and actions pure by keep rolling
Change this hour to change your day to change your life
What narrative are you writing for your life? Will you invite Jesus to be its author and finisher?
David could have gone home, back to tending sheep
We receive more faith by doing something that requires more faith
Spiritual stress test has revealed a need to be more unified and less contentious
Failing the test doesn’t mean I’m hopeless, it just means I need to change
What can I do to foster unity and lessen contention?
Assume that those with whom we disagree are doing the best they can with the life experiences they have
Don’t give up our cultural heritage
The Savior helps restore order to a life thrown into chaos by our own or others’ choices
Thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment, and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high
Love your enemies if you want to receive a glorious welcome home
Nobody changes the principles and doctrines of the Church except the Lord, but methods may change

1. The Restoration is a process, not an event
2. The ultimate objective of the gathering of Israel is to bring temple blessings to God’s faithful children
3. As we seek how to accomplish that, the Lord reveals more insights

Safety, solace, and revelation
Pray consistently to understand temple covenants and ordinances
We can always trust God even though humans break our trust
We endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning
The Lord doesn’t forget our sins, he chooses to forget them
I can do the same thing with [Redacted]’s wrongs against me
Sacrifice was once more closely tied to ancient Latin roots meaning to make sacred or holy
Our will/heart is the only uniquely personal thing we have to give the Lord

1. Suffering does not mean God is displeased with your life. Refined souls are prepared to joyfully live in God’s presence forever
2. Heavenly Father is intimately aware of your suffering.
3. Jesus Christ offers his enabling power to give you strength to endure your suffering well.
4. Choose to find joy each day.

Aggregate small and steady marginal gains, but there must be a consistent daily effort
Don’t expect to go from Attila the Hun to Mother Theresa overnight
One of these things could make the biggest difference in your life
When we choose to doubt, we choose to be acted upon
Only your unbelief will keep God from blessing you with miracles
Conversion blesses your life – sorry I was distracted during this one by [Redacted]’s text
Focusing on the road ahead is like focusing on the Savior and walking on water
No discipleship without discipline
Things in front of the hood can distract us from Christ and eternal things down the road
Distractions do not have to be bad or immoral to be effective (for Satan)
The Savior came to the Apostles’ aid during the fourth watch of the night, not immediately
When we must wait, remember that the Savior is always watching
Specific steps in the Savior’s work (like emphasizing the proper name of the Church) are revealed at the appropriate time
In these coming days, we will be called by the name of Jesus Christ
Domains suddenly became available when the name change happened
Humility and sacrifice to follow the prophet when it contradicts our initial thinking, we receive the Lord’s affirmation and approval
How will we be different because of what we have heard and felt?
Counter the allure of the world by making time for the Lord in your life each day. Even otherwise faithful Saints can be derailed by the steady beat of Babylon’s band
Nothing invites the Spirit more than fixing your focus on Jesus Christ