I learned in church today

[myboynoah]

I do that myself quite often, especially if I have lots of meetings. I don't think it makes me more righteous, though, and I doubt your boys do either!

No, it makes them "more" lazy. They might argue "more" efficient.

[byu71]

I do that myself quite often, especially if I have lots of meetings. I don't think it makes me more righteous, though, and I doubt your boys do either!

I say my prayers at night and then I also say them in the morning. I am pretty sure that makes me more righteous than most. Of course I do take a hit because of my church attendance, so that brings me back down to average.

[Green Monstah]

I learned that the good folks in my GD class don't believe that individuals should make personal covenants with the Lord. I asked them what fasting was all about, because it seemed to me to be a "side deal": Lord, I will forego food and drink for a sustained period of time and ask that you bless me with ________. They disagreed because fasting is a commandment.

I also learned that they have a hard time articulating why baptism is necessary. They said "to fulfill all righteousness" (they were on the right track), when I asked what that meant, I got blank stares and an eyeroll. Sometimes GD Socratic style (or pseudo-Socratic style) is not a good idea.

[byu71]

I learned that the good folks in my GD class don't believe that individuals should make personal covenants with the Lord. I asked them what fasting was all about, because it seemed to me to be a "side deal": Lord, I will forego food and drink for a sustained period of time and ask that you bless me with ________. They disagreed because fasting is a commandment.

I also learned that they have a hard time articulating why baptism is necessary. They said "to fulfill all righteousness" (they were on the right track), when I asked what that meant, I got blank stares and an eyeroll. Sometimes GD Socratic style (or pseudo-Socratic style) is not a good idea.

Seems very odd to me. Why did they say you shouldn't make personal covenants with the Lord?

I can't tell you how many times I have lost something and finally made a covenant (deal) with the Lord and found the item within 30 minutes.

My Grandma taught me that one when I was very young.

[Solon]

Why did you put the bolded in quotes?

I used the quotes to set it out as a category. I could have just hyphenated the phrase too, but that would have required more effort.

Mauss' book The Angel and the Beehive talks about how, as the 20th-century LDS church went more mainstream, some LDS felt the need to make up extra rules in order to feel more exclusive.

[FMCoug]

Mauss' book The Angel and the Beehive talks about how, as the 20th-century LDS church went more mainstream, some LDS felt the need to make up extra rules in order to feel more exclusive.

Well it's important to keep the persecution going so coming up with extra stuff to make you weird is important!

[Paperback Writer]

My boys wear their church clothes all day long on Sunday by choice. Changing takes extra effort.

A couple of my boys are competitive. They have a race to see who can get changed out of their church closes the fastest upon returning home from church. Yesterday, I had to use my patriarchal wisdom to rule on whether unbuttoning one's white shirt and untying one's shoes while still in the car was cheating. I ruled that it was but there was a passionate appeal to their mother who refused to get involved. She deferred to their younger sister who opined, "if I have to look at your boxers again while you try to climb the stairs while getting undressed - I'm going to puke - you guys are so gross and immature!".

I typically wear my church clothes all day - not sure why. By habit, I suppose. It's not something that has been adopted by the next generation. Having to wearing missionary attire for 16 hours a day will be interesting.

[Eddie]

A couple of my boys are competitive. They have a race to see who can get changed out of their church closes the fastest upon returning home from church. Yesterday, I had to use my patriarchal wisdom to rule on whether unbuttoning one's white shirt and untying one's shoes while still in the car was cheating. I ruled that it was but there was a passionate appeal to their mother who refused to get involved. She deferred to their younger sister who opined, "if I have to look at your boxers again while you try to climb the stairs while getting undressed - I'm going to puke - you guys are so gross and immature!".

I typically wear my church clothes all day - not sure why. By habit, I suppose. It's not something that has been adopted by the next generation. Having to wearing missionary attire for 16 hours a day will be interesting.

At one point during the mission our MP told us that we needed to have district meetings every P-day. One particular district would have the meeting, and then play basketball afterwards. Everyone would bring their clothes to the church and we would change and play afterwards.

At one point one of the Elder's started undoing his tie or shoes as we sung the closing song. Over time the amount of time someone would wait until they started to change got shorter and shorter. It wasn't too many weeks until everyone was starting to change not long after the opening prayer.

Somehow I don't see that as working out quite the same way if we had had sisters in the district...

Meetings on P-day = not our MP's best idea ever.

[Donuthole]

At one point during the mission our MP told us that we needed to have district meetings every P-day. One particular district would have the meeting, and then play basketball afterwards. Everyone would bring their clothes to the church and we would change and play afterwards.

At one point one of the Elder's started undoing his tie or shoes as we sung the closing song. Over time the amount of time someone would wait until they started to change got shorter and shorter. It wasn't too many weeks until everyone was starting to change not long after the opening prayer.

Somehow I don't see that as working out quite the same way if we had had sisters in the district...

Meetings on P-day = not our MP's best idea ever.

The thing that I disliked most about being a missionary was that you never got a full day off. Even on P-day you were supposed to get up at the same time, study, etc. and then you had to be back out working by 6:00 p.m.. I often said I would forfeit an entire P-day if it meant we could sleep in and not have to work at all on the following P-day.

When I landed in a companionship with a guy who felt similar to me, we proposed the idea (like idiots) to our Mission president. He laughed and said "no." So we ended up inventing a P-day regimen that allowed us to "sleep in" while still adhering to the letter of the law. On the night before P-day, we would set our alarm for 12:01 a.m. and wake up to hold companionship study (the book only said we needed to be awake by 6:00 a.m.) followed by 30 mins of personal study. We would then jump back in bed at 1:01 a.m. and sleep until noon. We were obedient enough that we still went out and worked at night, though.

[falafel]

Well it's important to keep the persecution going so coming up with extra stuff to make you weird is important!

.... never mind.

[Portland Ute]

At one point during the mission our MP told us that we needed to have district meetings every P-day. One particular district would have the meeting, and then play basketball afterwards. Everyone would bring their clothes to the church and we would change and play afterwards.

At one point one of the Elder's started undoing his tie or shoes as we sung the closing song. Over time the amount of time someone would wait until they started to change got shorter and shorter. It wasn't too many weeks until everyone was starting to change not long after the opening prayer.

Somehow I don't see that as working out quite the same way if we had had sisters in the district...

Meetings on P-day = not our MP's best idea ever.

In our mission, as I recall, we held district meetings in the evening after P-Day. Those lasted an 1-1.5 hours and were usually at the church.

Our P-days consisted mostly of getting up, getting out the door to get errands such as shopping done and then out to play/sightsee/relax and then settling in for the district meeting in the evening.

In most branches/wards I was in, the ward held a sort of "Family Home Evening" at the church building and we generally did that after the district meeting.

It wasn't an entire day "off," but it was generally pretty low key and devoid of any pressure to go knock doors or street contact.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Yesterday for the 3rd hour, the Elders combined with the High Priests. The instructor started his lesson off with the question, "How many of you watched the Hatfields & Mccoys this last week?" Looking around it was pretty obvious that no one was quite sure if answering in the affirmative was some sort of trap, given the mature nature of the program. Once the instructor raised his hand enthusiastically, several others followed his lead. I think the lesson was on forgiveness, but we never really quite got there. People seemed more interested arguing about the details on who between the Hatfields & Mccoys was to blame.

Meanwhile, down the hallway, the young men were experiencing "The Book of Mormon: On Trial." I sort of wish I could have experienced that presentation.

[Jacob]

At one point during the mission our MP told us that we needed to have district meetings every P-day. One particular district would have the meeting, and then play basketball afterwards. Everyone would bring their clothes to the church and we would change and play afterwards.

At one point one of the Elder's started undoing his tie or shoes as we sung the closing song. Over time the amount of time someone would wait until they started to change got shorter and shorter. It wasn't too many weeks until everyone was starting to change not long after the opening prayer.

Somehow I don't see that as working out quite the same way if we had had sisters in the district...

Meetings on P-day = not our MP's best idea ever.

Interesting. We had district meetings every Monday. And, since it took a while to travel anywhere (we didn't have cars or bikes) we spent the entire P-day washing our clothes (by hand) and doing a few other chores. It was a special treat when we got to play basketball or enjoy some other diversion. And of course, we were out doing missionary work all evening.

This is one of the many things I would do differently if I were a mission president.

[Eddie]

Interesting. We had district meetings every Monday. And, since it took a while to travel anywhere (we didn't have cars or bikes) we spent the entire P-day washing our clothes (by hand) and doing a few other chores. It was a special treat when we got to play basketball or enjoy some other diversion. And of course, we were out doing missionary work all evening.

This is one of the many things I would do differently if I were a mission president.

It was well worth the $10 or so a month we paid to have someone else wash our clothing by hand versus doing it ourselves.

I had some companions who could spend the entire day writing letters, others who wanted to see the sights. Most of the time we ended up playing basketball - in some areas the entire zone would show up to play. Of course, that all ended after enough injuries (including one ex-comp who tried to dunk it, hung on the rim, let go after both feet and swung out from under him, and ended up breaking both wrists when he landed). By the end we were playing futbol instead.

[Moliere]

In our mission, as I recall, we held district meetings in the evening after P-Day. Those lasted an 1-1.5 hours and were usually at the church.

Our P-days consisted mostly of getting up, getting out the door to get errands such as shopping done and then out to play/sightsee/relax and then settling in for the district meeting in the evening.

In most branches/wards I was in, the ward held a sort of "Family Home Evening" at the church building and we generally did that after the district meeting.

It wasn't an entire day "off," but it was generally pretty low key and devoid of any pressure to go knock doors or street contact.

Our P-days (if you lived near Paris) consisted of waking up at 6:00 and being out the door by 6:30 so you could spend as much time in Paris as possible. Oftentimes we wouldn't get back to the apartment until right at 6:00pm and then we'd do some "missionary" work like writing letters to inactives or planning. I had some dead companions that had a hard time waking up most days of the week, but they never failed to be awake on Paris P-days.

If you didn't live near Paris, you likely woke up at 6:00 just long enough to hit play on the tape recorder (which was preloaded the night before with Truman Madsen's talks on Joseph Smith) then we'd sleep for a another hour or so and count it as comp study.