"Hold my root beer" - the Russell M. Nelson thread

[Jeff Lebowski]

Am I the only one that doesn't care about alcohol? Even if the church all the sudden allowed it, I don't think I would change any of my drinking habits. Beer/wine/spirits hold no real appeal to me.

The only reason I would like to see them lift the restriction is that the ex-mos would no longer be able to act uber cool about their craft beer hobby.

[smokymountainrain]

Am I the only one that doesn't care about alcohol? Even if the church all the sudden allowed it, I don't think I would change any of my drinking habits. Beer/wine/spirits hold no real appeal to me.

the church could actually come out and suggest we partake and i still wouldn't. literally zero desire for me.

[YOhio]

Lol @ Smr and lc being total squares.

[Surfah]

Lol @ Smr and lc being total squares.

I'm heading to the ABC store and getting ripped as soon as it is announced.

[Moliere]

If they're studying the same material on Sunday, in their family study, and in Seminary, what exactly is the point of going to seminary? Seems like a cultural thing we should ditch, especially given the push to reduce the burden on the members.

Podcast warning. I agree this is a really dumb change. But of course, seminary has never been academic so I get why they are changing it.

[Jeff Lebowski]

If they're studying the same material on Sunday, in their family study, and in Seminary, what exactly is the point of going to seminary? Seems like a cultural thing we should ditch, especially given the push to reduce the burden on the members.

Seminary can have a huge positive impact on kids, in a variety of ways.

[Uncle Ted]

If there is a WoW change it will be for these millennial slackers...

More millennial Mormons are choosing a middle way — neither all-in nor all-out of the faith
[...]
Among members they classify as “relaxed but engaged” — most of whom still attend church either weekly or monthly and describe themselves as either very or somewhat “active” — only about 1 in 10 say they keep the Word of Wisdom faithfully (with 46 percent and 58 percent saying that they’ve had alcohol or coffee in the past six months).

“We are living in a culture where coffee has boomed in the American experience in a way that it wasn’t 40 years ago,” Riess says in a recent episode of The Salt Lake Tribune’s “Mormon Land” podcast. “It has become an identity marker for being with your friends.”


Church leaders and members “should keep in mind that about a quarter of those in the pews every week are ‘relaxed but engaged,’” Knoll writes in a recent Religion in Public blog.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018...nnial-mormons/

[LiveCoug]

I forget, can an active American LDS kid get into BYU without graduating from seminary?

[jay santos]

Seminary can have a huge positive impact on kids, in a variety of ways.

My boy that's in high school said seminary is his least favorite class with lowest quality teacher and has been for the past three years. He said they should triple the pay for teachers and then the highest quality people would become teachers and it would be competitive and they would give quality lessons. They could combine classes into a college type setting where it's lecture based to reduce teachers to keep the same budget. He thinks that's the #1 thing that would help kids not go inactive and encourage more missions. Doubt anything like that would happen, but interesting perspective. It's probably not one size fits all. Other kids probably respond more to the small class and teacher that's more intimate and personally relating to the kids. But my boy feels like the lessons are unprepared, just going by the book asking the same questions and getting same answers as they've done their whole church lives, and on one cares.

[LiveCoug]

Lol @ Smr and lc being total squares.

Square #2 alert! I couldn't care less about coffee or tea either!

[Jeff Lebowski]

My boy that's in high school said seminary is his least favorite class with lowest quality teacher and has been for the past three years. He said they should triple the pay for teachers and then the highest quality people would become teachers and it would be competitive and they would give quality lessons. They could combine classes into a college type setting where it's lecture based to reduce teachers to keep the same budget. He thinks that's the #1 thing that would help kids not go inactive and encourage more missions. Doubt anything like that would happen, but interesting perspective. It's probably not one size fits all. Other kids probably respond more to the small class and teacher that's more intimate and personally relating to the kids. But my boy feels like the lessons are unprepared, just going by the book asking the same questions and getting same answers as they've done their whole church lives, and on one cares.

That's too bad. My kids loved most of their seminary teachers.

[Paperback Writer]

Tell me about this “higher bar”.

Nothing that you don't already know. To clarify, admission to BYU is based partially on region. Utah students typically face a higher bar in regards to GPA/ACT scores than other regions. As far as answering the question posed from another poster about as the importance of Seminary graduation to BYU admission; it's not a requirement but would be difficult to gain entry without it since BYU is very competitive. The only student I know of from my kids' high school that got admitted to BYU without being a seminary graduate was a scholarship football player.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Nothing that you don't already know. To clarify, admission to BYU is based partially on region. Utah students typically face a higher bar in regards to GPA/ACT scores than other regions.

No, I don't know that. I don't believe that is true.

[Paperback Writer]

Not sure what you mean here. Are there are any high schools outside of Utah with around 1000 kids attending seminary?

In my stake, Seminary is coordinated at the Stake level not high school level. The number of youths in my stake is similar to a Utah stake. Students attend EMS in their church building and its taught by volunteers. The good teachers typically serve multiple years if they are willing. The not-so-good ones are usually released. I'm not a big proponent of EMS; none of my kids enjoyed it. Part of my issue with EMS was my stake's inflexibility with how it was implemented. Students got assigned to a class and couldn't change it even if they had one of the not-so-good instructors or were assigned to a class with none of their LDS friends. I have a daughter who had conflicts with EMS because a softball coach also had mandatory conditioning sessions at the high school at the same time. Her seminary teacher and stake leaders would not compromise on attendance requirement for seminary graduation so she quit attending seminary altogether after she determined she wasn't interested in attending BYU. Also, the academic load many students take with an AP schedule make EMS attendance very difficult. They don't get enough sleep as it is due to studies and to pile EMS on top of that can be too much. I think a better solution is an on-line program similar to home study/packets I had back in my high school days (had a combo of EMS and home study depending on the number of seminary students enrolled that year). I've heard that option might be still around, don't know for sure. I asked about it and was told that it wasn't an option for my daughter.

[CardiacCoug]

No, I don't know that. I don't believe that is true.

Ha ha no all my neighbors in SLC assure me that the only reason their kids didn’t get in is because of anti-Utah discrimination. It’s definitely true!!