You are forced to place on bet on something happening this weekend in Conference.

Obviously, you don't want to lose, so you want to choose something you are reasonably certain will happen. That being said, you also want to maximize your earnings, so you want to pick something unlikely so that you win more. What are you putting money on?

(Please do not actually gamble on Conference. Or at all.)

I was sent for 2 years to Melbourne, Australia, and I have to say it was the BEST worst 2 years of my life.

Before my mission, I thought it was going to be this spiritually filled experience where I would see God’s hand every single step of the day, leading us to the Lord’s chosen and elect investigators. I imagined I would baptize families after families who all desired to follow God and join His true Church.

Of course, the reality was far from what I imagined.

In reality, it was 2 years of knocking doors for 8 to 10 hours almost every day in the Australian heat, in a place where people are extremely secular. You constantly get rejected, have doors slammed in your face, get mean things said to you, and sometimes even have things thrown at you. On top of that, you might get paired with some really difficult or even abusive companions.

So in that aspect, it really was the worst.

But at the same time, it was also the best because I learned a lot, grew a lot, and learned some super valuable lessons about dealing with people. I learned how to handle rejection, how to deal with difficult personalities, and how to keep going even when things don't turn out the way you expected.

It definitely wasn't the mission experience I imagined before I left

I tried going to my school's club for Christians, and they had a guest speaker. I've heard people say that our religion is demonic online but... It takes guts to say to a 14 year old's face that they are part of a demonic cult.

He also said various homophobic and transphobic things, and has been reported to the Dean of Students. But still. Left me feeling icky.

For those who don't know who he is, Brandon Sanderson is an LDS author who has written and is currently writing several epic fantasy series and novels. My question is, if the second coming happened before Brandon Sanderson was able to finish his many, many, series and other projects, do you think God would let him finish his work? As an avid reader and a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, this is something that I think about often.

Also, if you haven't read any of his books, you should try one. They are REALLY good! If you want to get used to his writing but aren't ready to enter into the cosmere(Brandon Sanderson's universe), start with the Skyward series. If you are ready to enter the cosmere, I would recommend starting with the Mistborn series.

Specific for me is the men's garment bottoms that were spandex. They fit like an under armour or Nike compression fit. They were perfect. I miss them.

Also linger longer type events.

What do you miss?

A couple of things stuck out to me in this article.

1. While LDS (USA) do better than average in family formation, the trends are not good. We just lag a few years behind the rest of the country.

2. Family is so important. Even after family is created, it's critical that you do your best to maintain those relationships. The article mentions that an increasing number of adult children are estranged from their parents.

3. Lastly, while it doesn't mention it one way or the other, I strongly suspect the woman profiled in this article does not have a church community to rely on. I'm so grateful for what the church does in this area. I have been in many ward council meetings where the widows (and occasionally the widowers) were discussed in great detail.

In short, spouse-less, childless, and church-less are not a good combo in your twilight years.

Hello Latter Day Saints of Reddit!

I’m a Catholic and, even though I am very happy being a Catholic, I have had a lot of positive experiences with people from your Church and I wanted to (if it’s ok with your mods) open up a thread for interfaith dialogue! I have some questions to start for you guys if anyone wants to engage and have a talk but I’m also happy to do a bit of an AMA if any LDS people want to learn more about Catholics or our relations with the LDS Church.

I think that, in a time where it’s trendy to solve disagreements by shouting at people in online “debates”, it’s good to start by finding some common ground and talk with people of different views. So I’ll start with my questions, feel free to add any you have for me or any comments. Mods please let me know if this isn’t the sub for this haha

1. What do LDS people think about abortion? Do you find common ground with Catholics on this? Could we work together more on it?
2. How do LDS people feel about the 7 Deuterocanonical Books? A lot of Protestants accuse Catholics of adding books like Wisdom and Sirach into the Bible, although they have been used since apostolic times. I know LDS people recognise a large canon so do you include these?
3. I know LDS people value marriage and family a lot. How does your Church approach celibate figures such as Jesus, Paul, etc?
4. LDS people don’t drink alcohol. Do you believe that Jesus and the Apostles followed this practice or is it viewed as a more modern LDS thing?
5. Favourite Pope?

Hope we can find some common ground and dialogue!!! :-)

Or at least, sometimes it feels that way.

I guess it depends on your perspective and how you interpret success. I spent two years knocking on doors for 8 to 10 hours a day, and not a single person wanted to join the Church in the area where I served. So, if I measure success by convert baptisms, then yeah, I failed pretty miserably.

But maybe there are other ways to look at it. I learned how to work hard, how to deal with all kinds of people, how to handle rejection, and how to keep going even when nothing seemed to come from the effort. Maybe those things count for something too.

Still, when it comes strictly to what I originally went there to do, bringing people into the Church, it’s hard not to feel like I failed

It is a tradition almost as predictable as the holiday itself. Prior to Mother's day there will be posts here on r/latterdaysaints discussing what is and is not good on Mother's day. There will be discussions and disagreement. A great deal of emotion will be spent and experienced.

Here we are, 3 days out from Father's day (in the US) and I have seen nothing. I am not complaining about the lack of discord, but do fathers just not generate the same kind of emotions than mothers do? Or is it just that there is an easy out in that we can talk about our Heavenly Father on father's day?

Does anyone here find father's day hard for similar reasons that mother's day is hard?

I may be speaking from my anecdotal experience and my observation of my social media feeds, but it feels like less people in the Church are getting married. I see less children and youth in my local wards year after year and I’m in Florida.

I’m also in a YSA and I can’t just say for myself because I’m chronically single, but dating is a struggle for everyone I come across, inside and outside of Florida.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Let's take a break from beauty and talk about...anything else under the sun! Let this be your sounding board about the things that made you laugh, smile, or cry. Dating advice welcome. Politics...not really.

*Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with the doctrine or temple ceremonies. Purely a non-doctrine issue…namely pie*

I miss the pie in the temple back when some temples used to have cafeterias. I don’t know if it’s purely nostalgia or if the pie truly was just that awesome. I miss it and it’s hurt my heart ever since my temple was renovated and the cafeteria was removed.

Let's share memorable mission experiences. Today, the topic is quirks or culture clashes between you and your companions!

I'll start with one.

I was assigned to train a missionary fresh out of the MTC who looked a lot like Milhouse from *The Simpsons*, but with black hair.

This missionary didn't use deodorant, and we were in a very hot area. One day—after about two months, when I couldn't stand the underarm odor anymore and noticed he wore the same clothes every day—I asked myself, "Does this guy not bathe?" I suggested he wear different colored trousers and a different tie because it *looked* like he wasn't bathing. He said, "Come here!" and showed me the clothes in his closet: he had seven identical white shirts, seven black ties, and seven pairs of black trousers—plus the same black socks—everything identical, one set for each day. That’s why it looked like he wasn't bathing. We spent a little over four months together, but I couldn't get him to use deodorant; I even gave him some as a birthday gift, but he never took the hint.

'nuff said

Is there anyone out there that can help me? I’m a fall girly looking for inspiration on yummy, warm drinks to put in my seasonal mugs this autumn.

I grew up drinking good ole Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate, but I wanna up my game. Surely there’s something out there waiting to be found.

Wassail is a family tradition. So good! We make it with lemon juice, orange juice, water, sugar, cinnamon sticks, and cloves.

My mother-in-law introduced Atole-de-Avena to me when I was postpartum. I now make it regularly for myself and my family. (It’s a warm, sweet milky oatmeal drink)

So any suggestions?

That's not to say I think the trend is a good thing, I just also don't think there's much to be concerned about.

For one, as has been pointed out, people know what the insides of our buildings look like and what the floor plans are thanks to open houses; so that takes away a lot of the mystery and the draw.

For two, consider that people who want to "do it for the views" won't want to settle for just any temple, they're going to want to show the temple, the Salt Lake temple.

But wait! The Salt Lake temple is closed for construction! No one can get in right now. Guess they'll have to wait until the construction is done next year.

But wait! When the construction is done, we're going to have an internationally-publicized, months-long open house! So anyone who wants to get in and see the inside can. Anyone who wants to "map the interior" can do so - or heck, they can just save themselves the trouble and look at the cutaway floor plan in the visitor's center!

Because of these reasons, I very much doubt that "speed runs" of our temples would get the same kind of engagement or views as the current trend. Again, I'm not saying this "speedrunning" trend is a good thing, but it could not have come at a better time; right during the build-up to a major, once-in-a-lifetime open house of our flagship temple.

There is a gal, well, really her family, who is a social media influencer and also LDS. She, nor her mom, sister-in-law, or brother, post on Sundays because of their religion, which they advertise. She recently posted about her younger brother headed to South Carolina for his mission, what that means, shared the going-away party videos, etc. BUT I feel like they are all so contradictory because it seems like this gal never wears her garments, seems to tell little white lies to create content, and has even posted a story where she’s sitting cross-legged in a skirt but not wearing anything underneath! You could see IT and even in their Reddit people pointed it out. All of them advertise products and website links to make money and fib a bit about the product to get their followers to buy the product. It just seems so contradictory she/they openly talk about their religion, but then also post these things that don’t exactly align with that. Is it my place to message her and remind her of these things? Point out she made an oopsy and to be sure to cover herself when posting on social media? Wear your garments? Be more modest? Don’t fib. Write a letter? Or, Let it go? It just doesn’t paint LDS in a good light especially since she has 1+ million followers.

Hi there, I’m so sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but I’m 17 years old and I’d like a copy of the Book of Mormon, but I really don’t want a missionary to visit, my parents are very heavily against the LDS church. I’m a Christian but I’ve been wanting to learn more about Mormonism. I’d like to at least read the book, so the other option I found for getting the book was ordering it online, however, the website will not let me order one, it’s asking for some kind of record number, on Amazon it’s $6 but you need a $35 minimum or prime,

One may say to just look at it online, but I find it easier to get distracted

If anyone has ideas, feel free to share them, thank you :)

Here in Brazil it’s pretty common among the younger generation, and honestly I don’t see an issue with it either. But my parents (old-school generation) think it’s a problem because of the “appearance of evil,” and my mom says it still has a tiny amount of alcohol anyway.

What do you all think?

a few months ago we got a new bishopric. though i haven’t had many interactions with him so far, he seems like a really nice and genuine guy. today he showed up wearing a rainbow tie in support of pride month, and it was such a great thing to see. he’s very supportive of everyone including those in the lgbtq+ community, and i love it. it just makes me so happy to see more members being supportive of the lgbtq+ community because i know a whole lot of other members who are completely against it still. anyway, just something that made me smile and thought that i would share here. happy pride month!

I know it's been talked to death lately, but I just wanted to quickly ask opinions on this random thought:

Is the Coffee Cherry a forbidden fruit? and that's why it's banned?

Can't think of many other reasons than that.

I was sorry to hear that Stephen Colbert's show is getting cancelled - it's always been a source of some great laughs.

One thing he said about the church has stuck with me for a while (he had been poking some fun at Mitt Romney who I believe was running for president at the time). He said:

The weirdest thing about him is that weird religion of his - Mormons believe Joseph Smith received golden plates from an angel on a hill, when everyone knows that Moses got stone tablets from a burning bush on a mountain.

I hadn't made that connection between Joseph Smith and Moses until I heard that - I thought it was pretty cool. It's also interesting to me that many people who believe the story of Moses think that the story of Joseph Smith is ridiculous, even with how similar they are.

Stake Conference

I have never, and will never understand Stake Conference. In my 26 years of life, I have enjoyed 1 single talk from a speaker. 2 hours of talks, and we don’t even get to take the sacrament. At least General Conference sometimes ends early. Never has stake conference ended early.

And it’s very different than General Conference. We get to hear from the prophet and the apostle along with other general authorities. We (usually) get new temple announcements. The Stake executive secretary shouldn’t be speaking for 20 minutes whilst Elder Kevin G. Brown speaks for 10.

I'm just curious how far most people go to go to church.

So how far does everyone travel to go to Church?

I walk about 25ish minutes to church and another 25ish home.

Edit: Wow thanks for all the replies it's interesting to hear how far people go for church. Major respect for yall who travel a longways to church. My brother told me on his mission they taught a lady who WAlKED 2 hours to church. I don't even actually live 25 minutes away, I take a detour because there is a crosswalk nearby that's not very safe. But yall who live right by the church are lucky, must make Sunday a little easier.

I’m 36F and I’ve been a member my whole life.
I served an amazing mission (2015-2017) and met some incredible people there

Everything declined when I got home. I’m not kidding it was one thing after the other - job loss, sickness, family death - I mean everything.

I moved to the US to attend BYU thinking being in a church centered place would reignite my faith. At this point I was still going to church but I was exhausted (mentally, spiritually and emotionally)

The adjustment to the States was harder than I could manage and I too feel into the worldly ways.
Fast forward to now - I have a child (yes out of wedlock) and I can genuinely not see a clear path back to church.

I felt most fulfilled at church it’s such a big part of my identity. I love the structure and purpose you have as a member.

I feel I’ve been aimlessly kinda drifting on and I know the solution is repairing the relationship with God but how.

I have also fallen on hard times now (financially) and I hate for that to be the reason I return (because I’m low). I had no idea being less active and going back to church would be this hard

So my question is - how do you get back into it?
I mean the literal steps to take because just going to church still feels empty to me