Learning to Dance in the Rain

Posts Tagged ‘Pet peeves’

So when I was an LDS missionary my mission pushed the Lock Your Heart article on the missionaries quite strongly.  With good reason, I guess.  There were stories of elders from my mission, like the one who went home early, came back and married a 35-year-old divorced woman with children.  That’s the craziest.  Plenty of other elders I know personally married sisters that they were zone leaders over, or served around, etc.  My ears were just ringing with Lock Your Heart, so every time I met an RM who had a story like this, I judged him harshly.  Read on…

So Lock Your Heart is allegedly a transcript from a talk given by Elder Spencer W. Kimball.  In short, I don’t believe that it’s authentic any more.  My first tip off was that there were too many typos.  Then I couldn’t find it anywhere on the official Church web site.  Finally, according to the transcript, I believe Elder Kimball contradicts himself in the article.  For example:

Well, is there any harm to marry a Mexican
girl if you are working in Mexico? No, that isn’t any crime, but it proves
that some missionary has had his heart open! He has unlocked it!

Really?  Well what if you didn’t meet this Mexican girl while serving in Mexico?  That seems harsh to say you can never marry a girl whose nationality coincides with where you served.  But in the next example, Elder Kimball allows for this:

Is it
wrong to marry a German girl when you have been on a German mission? Why
no, there is no crime in that, if you met her some other way. But when
you meet her in the mission field and you have opened your heart, I tell
you it isn’t right, and you have shortchanged your mission!

That’s better, but it means something different from the last example.  Secondly, if you met a girl in the mission field, think nothing of it, and years later run into her again and marry her, that should be harmless.  President Hinckley agrees with me on this point.  From his talk “What This Work is All About”:

I first met Jack in Japan when he was serving as a missionary there. … [This man had] a great effort and a great sense of
devotion, and above all, a certain humility and reliance on the Lord
with anxious, prayerful pleadings for help.
…
I also first met in Japan and interviewed on a number of occasions the
young lady he was later to marry. She had a wonderful spirit, a deep
faith, and a moving sense of duty.  Their acquaintance in the field was nothing more than having seen one
another on one occasion. They worked in widely separated areas. But out
of their experiences had come a common touchstone—a new language in
which each had learned to share testimony with others while laboring in
the great and selfless cause of service to our Father’s children.

And he goes on to say many great things about each of these RMs and how wonderful their life is together.  The talk isn’t about how people can marry those they meet on their mission, but in talking about what missionary work is about, President Hinckley would not use an example like this if he thought it was a bad example.  Obviously, people who were acquainted in the mission field can marry later without somehow, mysteriously, shortchanging their mission that is already over and done.

I honor and respect President Spencer W. Kimball.  That’s why I don’t believe he really gave that talk.  And if he did, I believe the transcription is faulty.  While I oppose going on a mission to find a bride or groom, and I oppose flirting on a mission, and I support mission rules regarding not writing letters to people in the mission field while you’re serving in it, I nevertheless believe that there are perfectly acceptable circumstances in which you can marry someone who lived within your mission boundaries.

I’ve heard this all over the place: “I could care less”.  What does the person usually mean when he/she says this?  That they don’t care, of course. 

But think about it for just a minute: If you could care less, that means you must care something about it already.  I believe that this mis-quoted phrase probably stems from the more correct “I couldn’t care less”, and people just dropped the n’t without thinking about how they were significantly changing its meaning.

I had a co-worker named Kevin several years back who told me that people, in general, don’t like to think.  This is just one small piece of evidence in support of this claim. 

If you have used this phrase, consider thinking about what you say a bit more, please.  Let’s keep the english language a little less confusing to those learning it. 🙂

I don’t know if this phrase pervades outside the LDS culture like it does within it.  It is often embroidered to pictures of Christ.  The idea being portrayed is that life is hard, but it will be worth it because of Christ.

That simple idea is fine, but literally speaking, the saying is false, and its reverse is actually what is true:  Christ did say it would be easy, but he never said it would be worth it.  Think about it.  Can you find a scripture where he does? (literally speaking)

Now, of course Christ believed and taught principles consistent with the idea that yes, of course salvation is “worth it”.  But he also said taking His yoke upon ourselves is easy.  Let’s not get life (which is hard) confused with following Christ (easy). 

And let’s think about these catchy phrases before we allow them to permeate our entire culture.

This is a rant about BYU’s bike policy.

BYU has a list of rules posted all over campus about where and how bikes can ride and park.  Many of them are reasonable.  The really annoying one is that we can only park our bikes at installed bike racks.  There are too few of them, and they are not in the right places.  Depending on where you are on campus, you might have to park your bike 1-2 buildings away in order to get to where you are going because no bike rack is closer.  The worst thing though is that the racks that are there are too small.  During the school year, the bike rack between the Kimball Tower and the McKay building is so full that it is literally impossible to tie a bike up on the rack.  So what can you do besides park 3 buildings away?  I have tried tying my bike up to a nearby handrail or tree when no space was available on the bike rack.  I made sure it would not be in anyone’s way.  And I’ve gotten warnings stuck on my bike by the campus police telling me I could get a fine for doing this again.

Stupid.  This university already has a serious car parking problem.  They could alleviate much of it by providing enough bike racks to encourage more bicycles.  There have been many days where I took the bus just because I figured I could not compete for space at the bike racks.  It’s more friendly to the environment for me to take a bike.  BYU should encourage this behavior.