9 AM Press Conference

[Crockett]

He has handled it beautifully. I love him.

Lift where you stand.

[Moliere]

Pres Nelson’s wife is 26 years younger than him. I guess that not as weird as it sounds when you are talking about people past their 60s but I had no idea of the age difference until this morning.


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[Goatnapper'96]

Those were the samples I found upon a quick search.

My understanding of the blacks and priesthood issue was that it was always taught that eventually the ban would be lifted. Many Church leaders offered ideas or explanations for why the ban existed. From what I read on the official church essay on the subject it claims that the Church has officially disavowed all of the various explanations seeking to answer the why. The Church has not, and I am not expecting it will, come out and said that President Brigham Young was wrong but I think it is pretty clear that it allows the individual to believe that should they so choose to and that believing President Young erred is not any form of heresy.

I can see a lot of things changing in the LDS Church but I don't see it becoming Church policy/doctrine/practice that gay marriage, and all the physical intimacy that usually follows within the bonds of marriage, is recognized of God as a good idea. But if it does change I am pretty sure I will just roll with it - baby!

[Goatnapper'96]

I honestly have no idea. It's more likely than not that he agrees with the November policy and the official LDS stance on LGBT issues. But there's quite a few members who sincerely want him to be more
progressive than Nelson or Oaks. He continually gives inspiring talks that don't focus on the church governance, and so they hope his talks reflect a progressive mentality.



Again, we are all conjecturing about who and where in the spectrum church leadership lies. And I have no knowledge about anyone's belief. I'm just contributing to the CS parlor game of where the leadership resides on the LGBT spectrum. Who knows, maybe Bednar is a closet liberal!

If there is a difference of opinion in leadership, we shouldn't be surprised. It's pretty clear there were significant differences of opinion in the church's last struggle with social justice, blacks and the priesthood.

This. Uchtdorf has different experiences and likely a different perspective as a result. Thus he focusses on less specifics and more big picture type of stuff. The "progressives" like him the most, not really believing they like him just by comparison and a desire to pretend they are open minded causes them to fawn over him, and thusly project their own desires for his beliefs on subjects he doesn't speak on because they aren't his bag. My guess is he doesn't care near as much about LGBTQ issues as much as they would like or he would speak on them. He cares how people treat each other and vocal LGBTQ advocates care more about how people treat LGBTQ folks than how they treat other people.

[Omaha 680]

I agree, from his GC presentations. That said, I had occasion to attend a fairly intimate devotional by President Oaks with a small body of Saints in a remote part of the world. He was very engaging and caring, making sure to mingle among the attendees, greeting them all in person. His remarks were devoid of the standard legalistic approach I normally see in GC. In a way, I was like, "What the hell?"

I had a similar experience about 8 years ago when he was here to re-organize our stake presidency. During the two Saturday stake conference sessions he was very down to earth, personable and engaging. I was cleaning the church that Saturday morning with our kids and he was very grandfatherly when speaking to the little kids. During the small gathering when he set apart the Stake Presidency he was still very loose, relaxed and even a little silly at times. However, during the Sunday morning session of stake conference it was like he flipped a switch and went back into general conference speaking mode. The relaxed, personable Elder Oaks was immediately replaced by the stern, somber, legalistic Elder Oaks.

My wife and I served in the Winter Quarters Temple Baptistry when DHO's brother was Temple President. (Temple) President and Sister Oaks are some of the best people I have ever met and we will always cherish the time we got to spend serving with them in a small temple. Then-Elder Oaks came to visit the area once; I assume he came mainly to visit his brother, but he also Presided over a Stake Conference and had a separate meeting just for temple workers. The temple worker meeting was somewhat informal. DHO spoke as well as his brother and SIL and DHO took questions. There was a lot of joking and ribbing between the brothers during their talks. I remember specifically noticing how DHO's shoulders bounced when he laughed because he did it so often during his brother's talk. I also remember some funny stories from when DHO was a widower and dating his current wife as an apostle.

The point is that DHO's mannerisms, speaking style, and interaction with people was so different from what I was used to seeing in GC talks. I'm not one who hates his GC style, but the difference was pretty dramatic. I always knew this in my head, but that meeting was one of the first times I really recognized that what we see in general conference may not be our leaders' real personalities. I think that much like o_g or Walter have board personas that I assume aren't how they act in every day interaction, some church leaders feel the need to present themselves in a certain way at official meetings. I'm not commenting on whether that is a good or a bad thing or which leaders do it more than others, but I do think it's important to acknowledge.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Nate Oman argues that DFU could have a bigger impact on the missionary department than he will have on correlation.

http://nathanoman.com/2018/01/23/why...lly-important/

We are now in a moment that looks a lot like the early 20th century: low growth rates and the tentative search for new methods and messages. There are lots of starts and stops and the Church as an institution tends to be conservative and risk adverse, but I think that the over all trajectory suggests the search for a new missionary model.

...

And it would seem that for the time being, that finding that model is the job that has been given to Elder Uchtdorf. Hence, I suspect that he will be plenty influential on the Church going forward. That is encouraging.

[Goatnapper'96]

Nate Oman argues that DFU could have a bigger impact on the missionary department than he will have on correlation.

http://nathanoman.com/2018/01/23/why...lly-important/

As someone who served in the UK 25 years ago I have long said that, at least for Europe, the big hope of the need for combines rather than sickles is in the migrant/refugee community. The requires a leader who likes to fly!

[falafel]

My wife and I served in the Winter Quarters Temple Baptistry when DHO's brother was Temple President. (Temple) President and Sister Oaks are some of the best people I have ever met and we will always cherish the time we got to spend serving with them in a small temple. Then-Elder Oaks came to visit the area once; I assume he came mainly to visit his brother, but he also Presided over a Stake Conference and had a separate meeting just for temple workers. The temple worker meeting was somewhat informal. DHO spoke as well as his brother and SIL and DHO took questions. There was a lot of joking and ribbing between the brothers during their talks. I remember specifically noticing how DHO's shoulders bounced when he laughed because he did it so often during his brother's talk. I also remember some funny stories from when DHO was a widower and dating his current wife as an apostle.

The point is that DHO's mannerisms, speaking style, and interaction with people was so different from what I was used to seeing in GC talks. I'm not one who hates his GC style, but the difference was pretty dramatic. I always knew this in my head, but that meeting was one of the first times I really recognized that what we see in general conference may not be our leaders' real personalities. I think that much like o_g or Walter have board personas that I assume aren't how they act in every day interaction, some church leaders feel the need to present themselves in a certain way at official meetings. I'm not commenting on whether that is a good or a bad thing or which leaders do it more than others, but I do think it's important to acknowledge.

Since we are talking about DHO's relatives, I had a class at BYU taught by his son, Dallin D. Oaks (I'm guessing I'm not the only one here that can say that). It was an intro linguistics class and it was fantastic. I still remember lots of the things I learned in that class and trot out examples of the history of the English language to kill conversation at parties.

The point of this boring story is that DDO is a really funny, laid back, even sort of sloppy in his dress and grooming, kind of guy. Quite the juxtaposition with the public persona of his dad. I wonder how much of that sort of person DHO might be in private (probably not the untucked shirt and bed head that DDO often had though).

[old_gregg]

My wife and I served in the Winter Quarters Temple Baptistry when DHO's brother was Temple President. (Temple) President and Sister Oaks are some of the best people I have ever met and we will always cherish the time we got to spend serving with them in a small temple. Then-Elder Oaks came to visit the area once; I assume he came mainly to visit his brother, but he also Presided over a Stake Conference and had a separate meeting just for temple workers. The temple worker meeting was somewhat informal. DHO spoke as well as his brother and SIL and DHO took questions. There was a lot of joking and ribbing between the brothers during their talks. I remember specifically noticing how DHO's shoulders bounced when he laughed because he did it so often during his brother's talk. I also remember some funny stories from when DHO was a widower and dating his current wife as an apostle.

The point is that DHO's mannerisms, speaking style, and interaction with people was so different from what I was used to seeing in GC talks. I'm not one who hates his GC style, but the difference was pretty dramatic. I always knew this in my head, but that meeting was one of the first times I really recognized that what we see in general conference may not be our leaders' real personalities. I think that much like o_g or Walter have board personas that I assume aren't how they act in every day interaction, some church leaders feel the need to present themselves in a certain way at official meetings. I'm not commenting on whether that is a good or a bad thing or which leaders do it more than others, but I do think it's important to acknowledge.

dho and i are very similar in lots of ways

[Pelado]

dho and i are very similar in lots of ways

Who did you date while you were an apostle?

[old_gregg]

Who did you date while you were an apostle?

tried to hit sheri d. but she kept making me wear a wig and lecture about the divine potential of mothers so she could get it up

[Moliere]

Did clack take over og’s account?


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[Northwestcoug]

Did clack take over og’s account?


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No. He didn't google 'Dew', 'wig', and...something else. And then post the pic.

Which praise the maker, we should all be glad he didn't.

[MartyFunkhouser]

dho and i are very similar in lots of ways

I agree. Although, I doubt that DHO watches Game of Thrones.

[Clark Addison]

I taught DHO's nephew in the MTC!