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Old 02-16-2016, 01:57 AM   #1
MikeWaters
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Default New stake presidency

Had our stake presidency replaced. A couple of Seventies came in to take care of that. One of them spoke in his talk about the process of how a new stake president is called. A list of candidates is generated by the outgoing presidency (and possibly/probably the high council). Might be about 15 names. They interview those guys and if they feel the spirit has not confirmed who should be called, they may interview additional persons.

Interestingly, he spent much of the time talking about the experience of those who are interviewed, or those who thought they might be interviewed. He said that there are those of you that felt like you have received a witness that you would be called as stake president or a counselor, but here it is today and you are not. And this may have occurred in the week or two prior to the weekend. Why would this happen he asks. He said that many different persons in the stake would make great stake presidents, but only one is called, and these spiritual feelings are the Lord's way of blessing you.

I thought it was interesting that he felt it was necessary to address this very select few in the audience to whom this counsel applied. Obviously it did not apply to any of the women, nor the kids. And the vast majority of adult men never considered themselves a candidate.

He also said that there are those among you that may feel a touch of envy or "I'm glad it's not me." And he said neither of these feelings are correct or righteous.

I of course was not on any kind of short list. I wasn't even among those eligible to attend the priesthood leadership meeting (due to my calling). Fine with me.

It's an interesting time for people like me. Those of us that might be asked to do things that do not fit with our beliefs of God. Where fulfilling your calling might mean violating your personal conscience. You have the group that leaves the church or doesn't accept callings, and then you have the group that accepts callings and they do whatever they are asked. The middle ground is awfully small. Those that are potentially willing to accept these callings but seriously fret about the moral implications.

Maybe it's this middle group that is most eligible to be excommunicated from the church. Perhaps it is the group that is the most despised. I don't know.

I heard from the pulpit about what a remarkable success story our stake is. I don't have that feeling. Perhaps because I'm in a ward that feels like it is struggling to keep its head above water. Perhaps because I am in a ward that people choose to leave so that their kids can actually grow up around other Mormon kids. I'm in a ward where people don't buy houses, for the most part. But other parts of the stake are growing. Not because of missionary work or conversions. But because of housing stock and cheap prices.

A stake that doesn't have father and son's campouts. It's things like this that make me scratch my head.

I do respect these men that accept these callings. What difficult, thankless work. And to be honest I've never met a bad apple among a stake presidency. It's not like I've known any of them very well, but I gotta tip my hat to them. These are usually men who have been faithful for many years, with positions of responsibility such as Bishop.
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Old 02-16-2016, 03:39 PM   #2
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Here's a blog post that Daniel Peterson recently linked to.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpete...e-in-them.html

http://www.sixteensmallstones.org/di...dence-in-them/

One question that is increasingly difficult to answer is what is meant by "publicly"?

Blog post? FB post that is accessible to only friends? Public FB post? Talking to friends? Talking to family? Emails? Podcast? Media? Message boards?

"you can have doubts, you can't just can't let anyone else know or discuss them in any kind of public forum."

Is that the answer?

Bring the stakes in, tent is going to get much smaller.
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Old 02-17-2016, 02:46 PM   #3
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My response to J. Max Wilson:

If you can't ever know that a prophet is wrong, how can you ever know that he is right?
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