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I see a few discrepancies in your comment.
1. Bishops are not fired. ......
2. ......release him with gratitude for a job well done.
3. Members are not COMMANDED to serve callings. ......

I agree with your standards, and these are my standards. With this context, I think the experiences I have said are sad experiences. Without this context (or with a context opposite to these standards, I can say the experiences are sad experiences. The older bishop was released but he did not want to be released at that moment. He questioned why to release him in his goodbye talk in the Ward Conference. I asked him about this issue many months afterward, in the dinner hosted by a member in the new bishopric. The member of the new bishopric is my family's friend and the family is often my guests in my dinners.

When I speculated why the bishop got fired, my family firend (the new bishopric) said I was wrong. I speculated: because I complained many leaders and he protected me, he got fired. Instantly, I knew why I was wrong with my speculation. The bishop had greivance against the outsouring policy of Area Office, because the design of the policy was problematic and a Ward member got hurt in terms of employment and income. The income was important to the member's family and children. Without any change of the policy, the bishop used Ward's money to help the family EVERY MONTH after the family's income dropped due to outsourcing. The Stake President disliked it, but the bishop kept doing it. Finally, he chose to be fired, but he did not choose to give up the monetary help to the family. I said he chose being fired, because I warned him his frequent money help would not be tolerated. He knew his consequence, before he took actions.

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As far as the treatment of the former Bishop's son's Baptism day ......

Thank you for your comfort to me! My brain told me what you have just said to me. My heart told me what I have said to you, when I saw the Baptism Meeting under a context of some of their Baptism Meetings and Sunday Meetings. I wished I was wrong with my heart's message.

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What do you suppose happens when an employee in a corporation, or a member of an organization constantly complains about every little detail in the operation of that organization or corporation?

What do you think in my mind, when I said earlier in posting: I wrote to my professor to say I wondered why I did not know to find an easy life. I wrote to the GA to say I knew I endangered/jeopardised my reputation/status in Church, but my focuse was the members' welfares.

Though I am a silly boy, I can tell you a real story: some staff got fired by a company, and they sued the company. No matter whether or not they were right, they would not be hired by any other companies. They had to change to another job field in order to find a job. That is: a trader had to change to be a teacher, or vice versa. They could not be hired in the same job field ---- end of their job life.

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whether in a business corporation, or a religious organization...those who constantly gripe and complain to 'management' about every last detail of the administration of the corporation or religious organization eventually either find themselves being ignored...or 'terminated'.

I do not blame anyone. If I were on their positions, I perhaps did the same thing. That is an organization, but that is not the Gospel in order to develop the members. That is to run a business or an enterprise, but that is not to develop the members. Perhaps, I ran the organization the same way, if I were on their positions. However, that is not the Gospel, but only profit business.

I still do not blame anyone for running business. I just feel sorry about some members, who saw their Wards were not a good place to develop their family and children, so they attended other Wards' meetings instead of complaining and objecting the management. The consequence was and is and will be: no signature of the original Ward's bishop for their temple recommend renewal. That is one example of the above quote "being ignored".

Quote: How is one area different from another?
For one thing...here in the United States, the usual term for serving as Bishop is 5 years.
But I've never heard of terms quite so long as what you have mentioned.
Now. Please answer the question. What area are you in? We're not asking absolute specifics, or your personal address. The name of the country will do.

My older bishop got fired, and he was the one I said service for 30 years. (The younger bishop of my age was with a wife with cancer.) I am sorry to confuse you folks. My older bishop was my first bishop, when I was baptised in 1970s. That was 30 years ago. He then served in the Stake Presidency, High Council and bishop on and off for the past decades. He was a Patriarch in the Stake for some years, if I remember right. He was again a bishop in 2003, and I moved into in 2004. He got fired in mid-2006. He served this bishop term for 3 and a half years.

His ward was an asylum for the members to avoid conflicts with any hurting/hurtful policies of any bishops. Yet, the Stake President asked those members to go back to the original wards, or it was difficult to process temple recommend renewal. I can tell you: not all members are rich enough to move their house. Not all members are like me to be crazy enough to borrow an address to move their house, in order to move their membership records too.

I used all the episodes that I witnessed in person. I never use any episodes I just heard from others including my family friends. The episodes I used, of course, happened in one Area. If I used some episodes from other Areas, I would have several country names to tell you. The pesons I complained against came from different countries. Their doings might be their cultural standards, not Gospel standards. Thus, no function/use to tell you my country.

My purpose is: I want to make sure I am right or wrong, I am good or stupid, etc. The logic of the episodes is more important than the Area where the episodes happened.

I meant the above, when I said earlier in posting: I know not only my Area is like this, I have friends from other Area be frustrated too. I tell you those episodes, because I myself witnessed the episodes. I do not use any episodes that I heard from others.

Quote:
How many complaint letters have you sent to Church leaders, local and/or Church headquarters?
Quote:
Apparently quite a few...from what I've been able to ascertain from his comments.

I let you how many. First, please be informed of my principles to file a complaint:
(1) I only complain the Church policies that hurt the welfares of the members.
(2) I do not complain the Church policies that only hurt the money of the Church.
(3) If a Church policy hurts both the money of the Church and the welfares of the members, I only complain the part of the policy hurting the welfares of the members.


Now, I give the issues I complained and (what year I filed the complaint)
(1) The power abuse of a stake president to mis-use a Church Court (June 2005 – June 2007). My Stake President was alleged to lie to me in the process of handling this case, in order to dismiss the case. I pushed up to Area President (AP) and the GA.

(2) A disrespecting Ward Meeting policy regarding food and silence and orders, to discriminate some families with special children (July 2007). This came from some parents disrespecting the bishop, who issued the policy despite the objection of his bishopric. Since the bishopric is my family friends, I successfully overthrew the policy. This one stayed in the Ward level only.

(3) As a marital counselor, I pushed to open LDS Social Service here (March 2006). It was my personal needs, in terms of me seeing many childhood friends in Church getting divorce. I could not imagine it happened in their families, because they are good guys and good gals. Bishops need professionals to help, and the concerned members and children in the concerned families need religious help as well as professional help. If we send them out to outside non-religious counseling agencies or the outside Christian agencies for counseling service, they would not receive service with Mormon context. I pushed up to the Area Office/AP, the GA and the headquarter of LDS Social Service. This one was not a complaint, but just a request/a brief proposal. Of course, there were some heated debates or discussion (like here in posting). I did not say anything that they were wrong. In fact, they are not wrong in any way. Of course, I failed in this course.

The following story triggered me my indifference to the Church. In 2007, I was for first time in a conference with many Mormon psychological therapists. The hosts of the Conference were very warm and introduced me to some persons (because the hosts were nice persons, and they did not want to forget a small potato from a brand-new country without any of their members.) They introduced me to a gentleman, whom they called International-Guy. When the International-Guy heard my name and my country, he just gave a cold shoulder, and said he had already received my emails. I did not know what was going on, so just exchanged name cards with each other under the instructions of the hosts. One of the hosts brought me to his table, and gave me a good hospitality (because he did not want me to feel hurt). His hospitality was so good that his past student, a Ph D candidate, on the same table thought that I was a big potato coming from a big country, and tried to befriend with me. I was grateful for the hosts, who are members. I was sad and then became indifferent to the International-Guy, who is also a member, whom I found from the name card to be an assistant head of the LDS Social Service headquarter in Salt Lake City. Why did a good nature of counseling profession and a good nature of Gospel not refine a person who is supposed to be soaked in these two fields?

(4) I proposed to Public Affairs to relate Counseling Service as a community service to my country. This would help the Church image here (June 2004 to June 2005). This was the first part of the above number (3), which appeared to upset the concerned Church staff already in Area Office.

(5) A mistake to purchase a small piece of land to build a chapel, where a public pavement has to cut across the land into 2 halves (June 2005). The Ward members have to suffer, unless they give up the land. No normal persons love to buy such a piece of land. I did not care about wasting money, but my concerns were the members using the odd piece of land. I pushed up to the Presiding Bishop and the GA, because it is a mistake of the Area Office/AP, who did not disclose their mistake to the Ward members, but just asked the Ward members to fast and pray for eliminating the problem of the land. (The bishopric and the stake presidency to reveal this problem. Otherwise, no one knows the mistake of AO.)

(6) Pushing for Service Missionary and Service volunteers by Area Office (June 2005). Stake Presidency followed to push for it. Bishops objected, and finally aborted. Members were alleged to be lazy and be blamed. I reflected to the GA the pitfalls of such projects, in terms of no liability insurance for volunteers, no concerns and care for volunteers and their energy and time in combination of Sunday meetings, seminary/institute, work/school, family/quorum projects, temple work and genealogy work, long-travelling expenses, etc. I complained to ask the GA to check if the members were exploited. We live in an Area where life is not as relaxed as that in USA.

(7) Complaining the problematic Outsourcing policy of the Area Office (December 2005 to March 2006) to my Bishop, Stake President (who did not care), then to AP, and the GA, the Twelve, the Presiding Bishopric. Judy Francis, the secretary of the Twelve, emailed back to say: I am aware, thank you! (which I understood to be quiet in my follow-up letter).


For all the above 7 issues, I wrote tens of letters totally.

Quote:
those who constantly gripe and complain to 'management' about every last detail of the administration of the corporation or religious organization eventually either find themselves being ignored...or 'terminated'. I am very interested in your response to this post by Jaye. Barring our leaders doing something illegal or heinous, we as members should try our utmost to be supportive.

You two are right with the above two points. I fully understand the consequence always. My older bishop warned me this, and asked me to stop. I warned him this (re: his possible being fired by helping the family every month), but I did not have any rights to ask him to stop. However, he and I intended to ask each other to stop. Then, he and I took care of my-so-called social injustice, and took the risks with fully understanding.

I do not know if I supported my leaders. The leaders might not be wrong. If I were on their positions, I might do the same things, carry on the same policies, and keep the same smile. Am I stupid? I do not know, but at least I know I supported one of my leaders.

"I see no faults in the Church, and therefore let me be resurrected with the Saints, whether I ascend to heaven or descend to hell, or go to any other place. And if we go to hell, we will turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it. Where this people are, there is good society. What do we care where we are, if the society be good? I don't care what a man's character is; if he's my friend – a true friend, I will be a friend to him, and preach the Gospel of salvation to him, and give him good counsel, helping him out of his difficulties.
"Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of 'Mormonism';..." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 326)

I fully understand the consequence of termination and ending up in hell instead of heaven.

Quote:
I asked you in another post how many letters of complaint you've filed. Is it possible that YOUR behaviors, coupled with at least several letters of complaint (I'm guessing at the number) have cause your marginalization? We will all be accountable for our actions . . .we can't always see the end-result of what we do when we're in the heat of the moment. You haven't given specifics of your complaints, which is your right, but it leaves us (at least me) with lots of questions and an uneasy feeling about you.

My actions caused my marginalization. Yet, did the members, who avoid conflicts and move away, cause their marginalization and their no renewal of temple recommend. Yes, they did, because they are not rich enough to rent/buy another house. Or, because they challenged their leaders by not being crazy enough (like me) to borrow an address to move away.

Getting your answer, please read all my several above postings. Did they give some more useful details? Please feel free to ask questions.

I can understand your feelings are not easy. I know how it feels, when we have to point out the wrong doings of our beloved ones (no matter the ones are Church, leaders, prophets, family members, sons and daughters, wife or husband, or good friends.) It is easy to point out those of our non-significant others, and do you think I am in such an easy situation. If you can believe I have my uneasy feelings like yours, My feelings was born in 1981 (right after my mission). As a matter of fact, I want LDS Social Service set up in my Area, because I want someone help me this long-time feelings. I found non-Mormon psychological therapist did not help very much (even though some are my Christian good colleagues, who are very experienced and kind-hearted, but do not understand the context of Mormonism).

WaynesWorld wrote:
2 Nephi 7. Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us.

9 Yea, and there shall be many which shall teach after this manner, false and vain and foolish doctrines, and shall be puffed up in their hearts, and shall seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord; and their works shall be in the dark.

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Consider the above in light of
Ecclesiates 8

14 There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.

15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.

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Ecclesiates Chapter 7

15 In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:
a righteous man perishing in his righteousness,
and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.

16 Do not be overrighteous,
neither be overwise-
why destroy yourself?

17 Do not be overwicked,
and do not be a fool-
why die before your time?

18 It is good to grasp the one
and not let go of the other.
The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.

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quotes from NIV. Bolded parts by me.

You can enjoy life and follow the Prophets, in fact it brings true Joy, not just short term happiness


Your scriptures really have nothing to do with the warning that was given in the BofM either, they are warning of people thinking it's ok to not follow the Prophets.