RFM and Jonathan Streeter have a rollicking good time talking about the talks given in Saturday afternoon session of the April 2021 General Conference!
General Conference has never been so much fun!
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I love the GenCon post-mortem episodes and the commentary, etc. but the deep voice impersonations are really starting to be overdone and distracting.
The missionary was celestializing in your home in preparation for his mission. He was uplifted in his endeavors. Perhaps he was related to JS.
To give credit, Lindsay Hansen’s said “celestializing” is her favorite new term from I believe the Fanny affair.
I can’t stress enough that if you are going to watch The Exorcist 3 for the first time, you must seek out the director’s cut “Legion.” It is vastly superior to the original theatrical release. Just sayin’
I’m glad you addressed the financial report at the beginning of the session. My first cousin was the head of the financial department of the church, and was the one who would get up at every conference and say that “according to his audit”, everything was on the up-and-up. I have always wanted to know what he knows. What I do know is that he just retired a multi-millionaire, having put 5 sons through dental school (paid cash) and is set for life. He never worked for anyone else but the church. If you work your way up high enough, there is good money to be made in the Mormon church.
Even though it was my family member up there confirming everything was good with the church financials, it never seemed right that the rest of us had no idea if that was actually the case or not.
Jill, you’re so myopic.
Gentlemen, every time the Mormon leaders tell their young people that they were saved for the last days and how ‘choice’ they are, they are, in fact, still promoting the pre-mortal blessing based upon their honorable service in the war in heaven. If they “were the best”, thereby being born in good mormon families, then there are those who were ‘not the best’. They may not openly talk about this anymore, but I’m certain the leadership still believe it.
Keep up the good work – I so enjoy hearing your views.
When I heard the following quote, I wondered if it was an inadvertent Second Anointing reference.
“The temple ceremony includes some words that brought a feeling of burning in my heart, confirming that what was being portrayed was true. What I felt was personal to me regarding my future, and it became a reality 40 years later through a call to serve from the Lord.”
Since the endowment only anoints you to become priests/kings, and the second anointing (second endowment) actually anoints you as such. His call to be in the presiding bishopric (1985) was likely roughly 40 years from his endowment date, and could have received the SA then.
the voting doesn’t matter to anyone but the voter. I spied a person sitting alone, watching conference, who voted, (raised their arm) in their easy chair, knowing nobody was looking on, but their god.
Was going back and listening to this one, I’m about 12 minutes in and you’re referring to the “audit”. I started my career at PricewaterhouseCoopers and the language they use is consistent with the language used by real auditors. You can see examples if you go to any public company’s Form 10-K on their Investor Relations page and flip to the “Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm” (it’s generally only 1-2 pages long) where they say things like “In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of [xyz company]” and “We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud.” (emphasis added). The language is nearly identical across all public accounting firms, and uses a lot of “weasel words” by design (auditors don’t like getting sued by investors).
What’s interesting is that they’re using language that makes them sounds like they’re completely official, but the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. They MAY possibly be following best practices for an INTERNAL auditing department, but even that is suspect given that no one outside of the top leadership understands the standards being used (whereas a public company has to follow GAAP rules and auditors have to follow PCAOB rules). Furthermore, given the size and value of the assets under management, I’m of the opinion that they are violating their sacred stewardship of the funds entrusted to them by not having an EXTERNAL audit. The cost is nominal relative to donations received and assets managed by the church.