I left the church but, as prophesied, I can't leave it alone. I watched General Conference for a few reasons - because I was curious how differently it would come across with my current perspective, because it's given me comfort and inspiration in the past and I was open-minded enough to see if it would still do so, because I have two nieces (so far) who will be raised in the church and I maintain an interest in the church's development for their sake if nothing else, because it gave some structure and purpose to my lonely weekend, and because I've written about every General Conference since I started blogging weekly on this platform and I might break that tradition but there's no need to do so yet. Here are my jaded, cynical, faithless observations and opinions.

Dallin H. Oaks talked about the monetary value of the church's humanitarian aid, which is being disclosed in unprecedented detail in obvious response to criticism about how little per capita the church gives in humanitarian aid. He gave a total of almost a billion dollars annually, which is almost one percent of the value of the Ensign Peak "rainy day" fund at the time whistleblowers leaked it in 2019. I'm not knowledgeable enough to criticize the church's financial priorities much, and unlike a lot of people I recognize that charitable donations are not the primary reason why religions exist, but I just wish members would recognize that context before jumping to the conclusion that almost a billion dollars is a lot of money. He talked about partnering with good people of other faiths, and the fact that God works through them because one church can't do everything alone. I liked that. I also liked that he didn't feel the need to remind everyone that marriage is between a man and a woman.

The For the Strengh of Youth pamphlet, which I critiqued slightly a few months ago, got an overhaul beyond what I ever would have anticipated. Dieter F. Uchtdorf discussed the new edition and totally threw all the previous editions under the bus. Since it first came out in 1965, it's been a list of do this, don't do that. Some of the this's and that's have changed in fifty-seven years but the overall approach has not. Now that's all been scrapped in favor of generic principles to guide the youth in making their own choices. For example, the sexist list of "immodest" clothes that girls shouldn't wear and the stupid injunction against multiple ear piercings have been replaced with, "Heavenly Father wants us to see each other for who we really are: not just physical bodies but His beloved children with a divine destiny. Avoid styles that emphasize or draw inappropriate attention to your physical body instead of who you are as a child of God with an eternal future" and "The Lord’s standard is for you to honor the sacredness of your body, even when that means being different from the world. Let this truth and the Spirit be your guide as you make decisions - especially decisions that have lasting effects on your body. Be wise and faithful, and seek counsel from your parents and leaders." Based on my anecdotal observations, I think this is the church's way of capitulating to the reality that its young female members are wearing whatever they want and getting as many piercings as they want anyway.

As I anticipated, the bit about homosexuality has been revised: "I am attracted to people of my same sex. How do these standards apply to me? Feeling same-sex attraction is not a sin. If you have these feelings and do not pursue or act on them, you are living Heavenly Father’s sacred law of chastity. You are a beloved child of God and a disciple of Jesus Christ. Remember that the Savior understands everything you experience. Through your covenant connection with Him, you will find strength to obey God’s commandments and receive the blessings He promises. Trust Him and His gospel." This is a nicer way of saying that God expects you to be alone until you die or marry someone you aren't attracted to and will probably divorce, and that you're better off dead because God will make you straight in the next life. (Never mind that no human has ever said "I am attracted to people of my same sex.") I know or know of scores, maybe hundreds of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people who were miserable in the church and became happy after they left. That's why I stopped believing what the church teaches about them. Why didn't they "find strength to obey God's commandments and receive the blessings He promises?" Am I supposed to believe that every single one of them just didn't have enough faith? Even the ones who still attend church with their same-sex partners?

The pamphlet also includes this gem: "Is it wrong to have questions about the Church? How can I find answers? Having questions is not a sign of weakness or lack of faith. In fact, asking questions can help build faith. The Restoration of the gospel started when 14-year-old Joseph Smith asked questions with faith. Seek answers in the scriptures, in the words of God’s prophets, from your leaders and faithful parents, and from God Himself. If answers don’t come right away, trust that you will learn line upon line. Keep living by what you already know, and keep seeking for truth." I never heard this kind of stuff as a youth, but it's all over the freaking place now that the church is facing an unprecedented retention crisis (especially among the youth). I like that questions are framed as a positive thing, but also the constant emphasis on "questions" per se has really started to irk me. I didn't leave the church because of my questions, I left because of the answers. A big question I had was "Why did the church tell women not to have careers and then quietly stop telling women not to have careers?" And the answer was, "Because its past leaders were sexist and attributed their sexism to God, and its current leaders can't admit that its past leaders were ever wrong about anything because that would call their own reliability into question." The church promotes a circular assumption that the answers to the questions will always vindicate it and put it in a positive or at least tolerable light, and that simply wasn't the case for me.

Tracy Browning, the first black woman in a general presidency, became the first black woman to speak in General Conference. For those who say it doesn't matter, yes it does, for reasons I know you know, so shut up. She talked with a normal voice instead of a patronizing General Conference voice. I liked that. She hasn't been assimilated yet.

Russell M. Nelson spent much of his first talk condemning abuse. While he didn't directly allude to the recent Associated Press articles and child rape scandal that obviously motivated his remarks, it was nice to see the prophet kind of respond in some capacity instead of continuing to hide behind anonymous PR employees. It really annoyed me that the First Presidency delegated this issue to them while taking the time to write a letter about changing the name of tithing settlement to tithing declaration. He immediately went on to talk about truth and how we need to be careful about who we trust, which seemed to be a way of calling into question the integrity of Pulitzer-winning journalist Michael Rezendes in a way that won't get him sued for slander.

Kristin M. Yee's talk resonated with me the most, as she spoke about the difficulty of forgiving people who never apologize or accept responsibility for wronging you, a category that might, hypothetically, include ex-neighbors, police officers, so-called healthcare workers, deadbeat parasites, and/or elementary school administrators, hypothetically. In the absence of justice, my resentment feels like the closest thing I have. Giving it up feels like pretending that what happened was okay. I know I need to reorient my thinking for my own mental health. It kind of helps and kind of just pisses me off when I remember that many, many people have been abused and discriminated against far worse than me and never received any justice. This planet needs to burn.

Ulisses Soares spoke about the equality of men and women that doesn't yet reflect lived experience within the church, throwing in the obligatory patriarchal language to obfuscate the church's drastic evolution on this topic in the last fifty years. In all seriousness, I think he's a great guy who means what he says, I'm just annoyed at how the church teaches different things and then pretends it's always taught the same things. D. Todd Christofferson spoke about belonging and inclusion and diversity, which again doesn't yet reflect lived experience within the church but I guess that's why he needed to speak about it. The church would have less work to do in this regard if it had started rooting out racism in 1830 instead of 2020.

Gérald Caussé spoke about our need to use resources wisely and be good stewards of the Earth. Though not unprecedented, this kind of environmental message is almost unheard of within the church. It hasn't been a priority at all and it directly contradicts the political views of a majority of its American members. He said that left His creation incomplete and gave us the opportunity to contribute with art and music and I don't remember but I'm going to assume he said writing too. This came dangerously close to contradicting the political views of a majority of the church's American members, namely that artists and musicians and writers should have majored in something useful and don't deserve to afford to be alive. But this concept of being co-creators with God is a really great one. It first occurred to me in 2013 when I got chills from a slideshow of stars and nebulae set to the David Arkenstone track "Stepping Stars." God had left space silent and David Arkenstone had filled the silence with the sort of thing that we all somehow know space should sound like. That particular video is gone but this one is close enough. (EDIT: It's private now. I guess the uploader hates my blog.)

Jeffrey R. Holland spoke about why Latter-day Saints don't (usually) use the cross as a symbol. He made the interesting claim that because the earliest Christians didn't use the cross as a symbol, this is an evidence that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a restoration of the original Christian church. Actually, Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century often wore or decorated with crosses. They became less popular in the twentieth century and were made officially taboo by David O. McKay in the late 1950s, in part because he felt they were "purely Catholic." Holland expressed empathy for several of the various struggles that people face, including the struggles of LGBTQ people that are caused by the church.

David A. Bednar gave a talk that came across to me as a thinly-veiled passive-aggressive condemnation of the increasing number of members who don't wear their temple garments every day, mostly because he shared a parable about a guy who wasn't wearing garments and he said the word "garments" over and over. I thought the church was lightening up about that sort of thing.

Russell M. Nelson spoke again. I don't buy the narrative that the world is the worst it's ever been. I recently read a history of the 1970s, and talk about a decade that I'm grateful I didn't live through. I don't buy the teaching that the 0.2% of people in the world with access to temple ordinances in mortality have a degree of access to God's power that no one else does. That would make God a respecter of persons. And then I didn't pay much attention to the last session so I'll skip ahead to his final talk where of course he announced 18 new temples. I used to get so excited about new temple announcements because they meant that the church was growing and expanding throughout the world. Nowadays most of them mean nothing of the sort. Nelson keeps announcing them for areas where active membership isn't even large enough to staff them, let alone use them in appreciable numbers. The church will be scrambling to find a lot of senior missionary couples in the near future. At this point it feels like he's just showing off. He didn't announce 18 new temples because the church needs 18 new temples, he announced 18 new temples so the church can boast that it now has 300 temples operating or in planning stages, even though its annual membership growth has fallen from 2.19% to 0.85% in the last decade. But at least none of them were in Utah.

General observations: A higher percentage than usual of women (which isn't saying much) spoke and prayed, obviously in reaction to criticisms about the low percentage of women who speak and pray in General Conference. Bonnie H. Cordon was announced with her proper title of "President," not "Sister," which is such a small thing that shouldn't have taken until 2022 to implement but here it is and it's good. Most speakers continued the disturbing trend of quoting and fawning over our beloved prophet President Russell M. Nelson to a degree that I never observed with his two most recent predecessors. Neil L. Andersen was the most egregious. This prophet worship, coupled with the reality of how many things past prophets have gotten wrong that we're supposed to just not care about, was a big part of why I left.

The conference opened with a big emphasis on full-time missionary service, obviously in response to the big drop in missionary numbers that hasn't yet rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. It reminded me that my last love served a mission once. So that was a depressing note to start on.

Reyna I. Aburto asserted on Saturday morning, "The Church is more than the buildings and the ecclesiastical structure; the Church is us, the members. We are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with Christ at the head and the prophet as His mouthpiece." I loved to hear her say that because for a few years I've been responding to the false and annoying cliche "The Church is perfect, but the people aren't" with "The Church is the people." This cliche is as nonsensical as "The body is perfect, but the cells aren't." The last time I brought this up, the other person insisted that the Church is Christ. And I said no it isn't, because without the people, it would be nothing more than an idea in Christ's head, and also, the Bible describes it as the bride of Christ, and I'm not sure what kind of weird modalist reading could twist that into saying they're the same entity. Anyway, most members are more likely to listen to Sister Aburto than to me.

Patrick Kearon, I mean Jeffrey R. Holland was on fire during the Saturday afternoon session with his candid recognition and denunciation of abuse. "The abuse was not, is not, and never will be your fault, no matter what the abuser or anyone else may have said to the contrary. When you have been a victim of cruelty, incest, or any other perversion, you are not the one who needs to repent; you are not responsible. You are not less worthy or less valuable or less loved as a human being, or as a daughter or son of God, because of what someone else has done to you." I think Elder Kearon should be an apostle.

Dale G. Renlund gave the concluding remarks in the women's session on Saturday evening. He talked about the Young Women theme. Just a couple weeks ago, a former church member in my poetry class shared a poem about the sexism that was drilled into her in the Young Women program, and it excerpted the pre-2019 version of the theme. A current member recited the theme from memory and a never-member beatboxed along with it, which didn't really work but was funny. The current member mentioned the 2019 revision from "Heavenly Father" to "heavenly parents," and acknowledged, "It's not much, but... it's not much." I respectfully disagree; I think any phrasing in a thing that gets repeated every week and memorized for life is significant. Elder Renlund also fixated on that phrasing and talked about Heavenly Mother. After rumors and reports about him and other leaders, I had some idea what he would say. "Very little has been revealed about Mother in Heaven, but what we do know is summarized in a gospel topic found in our Gospel Library application. Once you have read what is there, you will know everything that I know about the subject. I wish I knew more. You too may still have questions and want to find more answers. Seeking greater understanding is an important part of our spiritual development, but please be cautious. Reason cannot replace revelation."

A lot of people are very upset about that. Personally, I think he did the best he could and I choose to focus on the postiive that he discussed Heavenly Mother at all. I don't think any reasonable person will be able to interpret him as saying that we shouldn't talk about Her or that she's "too sacred" and needs to be "protected" by Heavenly Father. (By the way, I've seen Elder Renlund and his wife relentlessly tease each other in a smaller and less formal setting, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't relate to that ridiculous and sexist hypothesis at all.) Granted, many members of the church are not reasonable people. But I don't think this talk would have the same chilling effect on discussion as President Hinckley's similar talk in 1991 even if that were Elder Renlund's intention, which I'm sure it is not. The culture is very different. The essay is on the website. And right after the caution that "Demanding revelation from God is both arrogant and unproductive" came an implied openness to receive it anyway: "Instead, we wait on the Lord and His timetable to reveal His truths through the means that He has established."

On Sunday morning, Russell M. Nelson referred to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and actually mentioned the two countries involved by name this time. He said, "None of us can control nations or the actions of others or even members of our own families. But we can control ourselves. My call today, dear brothers and sisters, is to end conflicts that are raging in your heart, your home, and your life. Bury any and all inclinations to hurt others - whether those inclinations be a temper, a sharp tongue, or a resentment for someone who has hurt you. The Savior commanded us to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies, and to pray for those who despitefully use us." And that phrasing really stood out to me because everyone over the age of two without a severe mental disability has wanted to hurt someone else at some point, but we're not supposed to admit it. Only dangerous and scary people admit it.
​
Dallin H. Oaks' Sunday afternoon talk was so repetitive of his previous talking points that I really and truly thought I was watching an old conference by mistake, and I would have said so, but I was watching at someone's house and switching between a laptop and the TV as the latter kept failing to work, and I realized it was unlikely that she had brought up the wrong conference on both devices. I've been uncomfortable with Oaks' anti-LGBTQ+ talks for years but now my conscience leads me to straight-up disagree on at least one major point. Even granting "that exaltation can be attained only through faithfulness to the covenants of an eternal marriage between a man and a woman," I do not see how legalized or socially accepted same-sex marriage "oppose[s] progress toward exaltation." Most people aren't choosing same-sex marriage over opposite-sex marriage, they're choosing it over being alone until they die, which wouldn't get them any closer to exaltation either but would probably make them a lot less happy in this life. If same-sex marriage can't be sealed in the temple, then it ends at death and is moot in the long term. I see no reason why the Church needs to keep worrying about it at all. I know that if it does, it's going to continue pushing out its younger members and shrivel up to a shadow of its former self as the older ones die off.

Membership: 16,805,400
New children of record during 2021: 89,069
Converts baptized during 2021: 168,283
Stakes: 3,498
Districts: 520
Wards and branches: 31,315
Missions: 407
Full-time teaching missionaries: 54,539
Church-service missionaries: 36,639
Temples in operation: 170
Temples dedicated during 2021: 2
Temples rededicated during 2021: 1

Growth has started to rebound from the catastrophe of 2020, but not all the way, and it was in steady decline for thirty years before that anyway.

• Wellington, New Zealand
• Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo
• Barcelona, Spain
• Birmingham, United Kingdom
• Cusco, Peru
• Maceió, Brazil
• Santos, Brazil
• San Luis Potosí, Mexico
• Mexico City Benemérito, Mexico
• Tampa, Florida
• Knoxville, Tennessee
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Wichita, Kansas
• Austin, Texas
• Missoula, Montana
• Montpelier, Idaho
• Modesto, California

Following President Nelson's trend, most of these temples are clearly not warranted by membership numbers alone (which have actually gone down in the UK and California in recent years) but will be more convenient for nearby members to attend. Breaking from the trend, one wasn't announced for Utah. Oh no, whatever shall we do? How will we get by with only 28 temples?

Good for Ohio though. Some of my favorite people in the world live in Ohio.

Since life is too short to listen to every song by every artist I'm not familiar with, I often just listen to the one or the few with the most Spotify streams. This is a useful approach, but it can become too entrenched into my mindset. Sometimes I like a song and then I see that it doesn't have very many Spotify streams, and I second-guess whether I should like it. That's stupid. I have to remind myself that I don't need anyone's validation to like something.

I had to remind myself again after I watched one of my new favorite movies the other day. I laughed through much of it - quite an achievement, since I rarely laugh when I'm alone and don't have other people's laughter to trigger me - and then had trouble sleeping because I was so excited about how great it was. And then I looked up more information about it and realized that, while some people agree with me that it's "A little-known cult gem," others see it more as "Land fill fodder the musical." One reviewer on imdb wrote, "If you have a child 6-12 perhaps, with a weird sense of style and fun, this might be something good to put on after they've watched all of Pee-Wee's Playhouse at least 10 times each." Another wrote, "None of the jokes are remotely funny. This movie really hurts and kills brain cells. It can be used to torture prisoners with." Another wrote, "Except for a few moments of unintentional humor this is certainly one of the hardest films to watch that I've come across. It appears to be little more than a Pia Zadora vehicle, and that vehicle is on a collision course with a tree." Another wrote, "I'm not kidding. This one is appallingly bad. Where to start? It really doesn't matter, this movie sucks on every level, so by all means, watch it! Enjoy it!" So anyway, I started to wonder if they were right and I was an idiot for enjoying it.

But I quickly concluded that what we have here is a mismatch of expectations. Patrick Mason has written in a thinly veiled scathing personal attack on me, "Those who are disappointed that church meetings are not as intellectually stimulating or historically nuanced as university classes suffer from category confusion; they would surely not expect or appreciate a sermon from their college professor." Likewise, the people who didn't like this movie obviously expected something different from what they got. I have no idea why. I'll freely acknowledge that it doesn't cater to everyone's tastes, but I think it's pretty obvious at a glance what kind of tastes this movie does cater to. I knew what I was getting and I got it and then some. Tell me truthfully, would you watch this movie with expectations of groundbreaking special effects, phenomenal acting, and a rational plot?

Where Voyage of the Rock Aliens subverted and exceeded my expectations was in the very conscious, deliberate nature of its low-budget cheesiness and weirdness. It's not just a B movie, it's a parody of and tribute to B movies. I first realized this when I noticed that the name of the malt shop was Popular Teen Hangout. And once I realized that, the movie could do no wrong. It thoroughly covered its bases. Clever jokes are funny. Stupid jokes are funny. Jokes with potential but poor delivery are funny. Absurd events are funny. Random musical numbers are funny. Bad dancing is funny. Some of the songs aren't terribly memorable, but they've all got the eighties charm that you'll appreciate if you aren't the imdb reviewer who wrote, "Man, I'm sooo glad the '80s are dead and buried." And this movie riffs not only on sci-fi movies, horror movies, and sixties beach movies, but eighties music videos - which it had the self-awareness to do during the eighties. I may not know much about art, but I know that this movie is it. I'm going to make all my true friends watch it on my birthday after I download it from YouTube and edit out the half-second of nudity in case that offends someone.

The second best thing I watched this weekend was General Conference, which I will probably write about next weekend after taking some time to collect my thoughts and look at the transcripts.

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

The spiritual highlight of my weekend was viewing the early access premiere of "The Chosen" Season Two. I'm not supposed to give any spoilers. Let's just say that it fully measures up to the standard of quality set by Season One. I do still intend to write up a post about this phenomenal series someday when I get around to it.

General Conference was good too. I was happy for all the focus on Easter in this morning's session. It seems that in the past whenever Easter coincided with General Conference, they just acknowledged that fact and moved on. Hearing so much about the message of Christ's resurrection and what that means for us all was nice. Also in that session, they went out of their way to have speakers and prayers and singing from various countries on every inhabited continent, blatantly pandering to my obsession with diversity that eclipses my attention to spiritual messages. I want this level of diversity to be the norm, not a one-time gimmick. Speaking of which, three black men (Thierry K. Mutombo, Ahmad Corbitt, and Edward Dube) spoke in this General Conference, blowing the previous record (one) out of the water. A man who looks like a black man (Taniela B. Wakolo) also spoke, but his skin color doesn't count as black because he's from Polynesia, not Africa or Europe or the Americas. I don't make the rules. I was happy to see that José A. Teixeira's face rash is gone.

Skin color aside, Brother Corbitt's message was most meaningful to me personally. I was moved by his reminder that I can overcome Satan because I've already done it once. Elder Cook's talk about how wonderful bishops are reminded me of my last bishop who was about as inspired as a potato and let me down at every opportunity. A lot of typical stuff ran through the conference about patience and trusting in the Lord amid the unfairness and tragedy of the world. Nothing new, and nothing I wanted to hear, but kind of an oasis to refill my stamina in the endurance test of life. The last few weeks have felt like a slow death of a thousand paper cuts. I continue to wait on the Lord to take His sweet time to fulfill His promises to me, and to ponder how destroyed I'll be if He decides not to keep them after all. The longer it takes, the higher the risk of faith seems to be. But it's not like I have anything better to do.

When President Oaks announced that he felt impressed to talk about the Constitution of the United States, I blanched at how tonedeaf and how counter to the "We're a global church" messaging that sounded, but I reserved judgement and gave it a chance. It was all right. He focused on the Constitution's broader significance to the history of the Church and the principles that people throughout the world can apply from it, instead of preaching the "The United States is God's favorite country" BS I hear all too often. I support the Constitution, but having distanced myself significantly in the past few years from many of the kinds of people who rave about it, the word sometimes rubs me the wrong way when it shouldn't. I believe in the principles the Constitution stands for. I don't believe it's perfect and I don't believe it contains a definitive list of every right that humans are entitled to. I don't believe this country deserves my blind veneration for consistently failing to live up to those principles.

And of course I was happy about President Nelson announcing twenty more dots for Rick Satterfield's temple map. This is a new record for the most temples announced at one time. Of course, it has little to do with recent church growth. I certainly hope nobody listening to these announcements was under the misconception that Norway, Belgium, and Austria have experienced recent surges in growth that have made these temples necessary. In fact, in 2017 Belgium had five of its sixteen congregations (31%) consolidated, including the only ones in a couple of major cities. California, another temple announcement location, has been in consistent membership decline and stake consolidation for several years as people flee in search of a place that doesn't tax them for breathing. And as one would expect under the circumstances, church growth took a nose dive last year to less than half of its usual flat rate. Mozambique has had the most impressive growth of any location on the list, but its actual members aren't exactly placing a strain on the nearest temple in South Africa.

So of course most of these announcements were not driven by numerical need but by a desire to increase convenience for members. President Nelson wants to get all members within two hours of a temple, and that means drastically different things in different parts of the world. I rejoice either way, but since I know that we as a people like to look at faith-promoting numbers and pat ourselves on the back for not doing anything and say "The Church is true because it's growing so fast", I wanted to point that out. The temples announced were:

• Oslo, Norway
• Brussels, Belgium
• Vienna, Austria
• Kumasi, Ghana
• Beira, Mozambique
• Cape Town, South Africa
• Singapore, Republic of Singapore
• Belo Horizonte, Brazil
• Cali, Colombia
• Querétaro, México
• Torreón, México
• Helena, Montana
• Casper, Wyoming
• Grand Junction, Colorado
• Farmington, New Mexico
• Burley, Idaho
• Eugene, Oregon
• Elko, Nevada
• Yorba Linda, California
• Smithfield, Utah

To be honest, I would have expected the next European temple to be in Scotland, for both distance and numerical reasons. Smithfield is right in my neighborhood, of course, and I admit the numbers here could actually warrant that announcement. I assume they'll build that one as fast as possible so we don't trample Brigham City into the ground when the Logan Temple closes for renovation in the near future. And I've changed my perspective on having more temples in Utah. I used to be as unenthusiastic as anyone else, but now I love them because they make Salt Lake Tribune commenters angry, and I enjoy watching terrible people get angry. Insert unoriginal sarcastic comment about how Christlike I am here.

The senior missionaries who pushed me to get endowed almost two years ago gifted me an Easter lily. I kept it on the kitchen table for a couple days, and then I put it outside because my apartment is perfectly located to prevent any significant amount of sunlight from getting in, so it would probably have fully bloomed by now if I'd done that in the first place, but I didn't and it hasn't. I water it sometimes. I had a thought the other night that maybe, in lieu of a sentient pet or spouse to love and be loved by, I could find purpose in life by devoting myself to this plant's well-being. But then I realized that's too risky. I don't even know yet if I can keep it alive for a week, so I'm not going to invest that kind of emotion into it right off. Maybe later.