We all heard this one growing up in the church. My question is how does the average member even know how much they sacrifice? The average member sees these guy's mostly give talks at general, regional, and stake conferences. Also, when they visit missions. Most of the time these guys are out of site doing who knows what.

The church publications are basically public relations for these guys telling us how great they are. To be honest, I never saw one apostle or seventy do anything charitable or remarkable. I once was told to move away by President Hinckley's body guard so the old man could get out of a sacrament service.

If anything, they are celebrities and the church is a mini version of Hollywood with it's press, magazines, movies, and television shows existing for the soul purpose of building the image of the stars. The gullable fan base eats it all up and buys the hyped up product because all their peers are buying it too.

Someone on the board posted recently they saw Euctdorf shopping at some high end store in some fancy clothes driving a new Audi... Rock star man!

me thinks Dieter could be the one to show his cards someday... we can only hope

That wasn't Uchtdorf it was Charles "Beady Eyes" Didier. Emeritus Status Asshat.

Right. My TBM friend grew up in a ward with Gordon B. Hinckley himself. He told me, literally in a conspiratorial whisper, that he was not a very nice person. I leaned forward eagerly, "Like what for example? How was he not nice?" John said he refused to take his water turn and took other people's water regularly.

This may seem like nothing to you city people, but when you live in the country, a refusal to cooperate with the distribution of water was literally a life and death situation. It would be like refusing to share the air on your way up from a scuba dive. Or hogging the road and forcing someone else off into a ditch.

If people didn't get water for their crops, they could starve. Respecting the water turns was survival.

For a man like Hinckley to demonstrate such contempt for the rights of others makes you wonder why God chose him to lead the Church, doesn't it? (hahahahaha)

I asked how Hinckley ever climbed the ladder and John said it was all politics. He was ruthless and simply got rid of any competition.

His story makes no sense. Hinckley grew up in Salt Lake, went to the University of Utah, served a mission, and was in the employ of the Church from his mission until his death. There is no possibility of him having been an ass about watering fields - he was never a farmer.

Your friend has mistaken him with another general authority.

Tyson

The story is plausible. It's quite possible Hinckley--as a grown man--owned rights to the water from the canal that still runs about a hundred yards from my folks' house.

No, it wouldn't have been a matter of life-or-death; by the time I was a teenager (and one of my classmates was in a carpool where Hinckley took his turn), the water was used for vegetable gardens and such; I recall accompanying a neighbor very early one morning to "open the gates" so the water would flow down pipelines to distribution boxes where it would be diverted onto his garden.

The East Millcreek area (where Hinckley lived) drew water from both that canal and Millcreek, and Hinckley lived in that area at least until around 1990. My mother worked at a department store and used to wait on Marjorie Hinckley while he waited for her to complete her shopping.

I can't confirm whether he was a "good neighbor" or not on that one (I'm doubtful anyone would gossip much), but I did hear a story about some land the church wanted in Utah County when he was LDS President. It included a cherry orchard, and what the church really wanted was a cherry pitter the owner had invented (and kept as propretory rather than patenting). Hinckley is reported to have said during negotiations, "Then I'll deny this conversation ever took place, and you'll be ruined."

Now watch the MA&D crowd holler that the Cabbie is repeating hearsay stuff again...

He was feuding over his shares with whoever was the water master at the time, even before the thing with his kids and school.

Just sayin' what Munchymomom sez--she reports, I decide kind of thing.

:-)

L. Tom Perry does have rock star status. Al Roker said it I believe it that settles it.

http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon040.htm

Looking back, I sometimes wonder how I ever took these GA fellows so damn seriously. Funny and sad.

What I remember is a lot of rationalizing and explaining why the leaders tended to be so much better off than the average member: They prosper because they're so righteous, don'tcha know, and they have time on their hands now that they've grown their businesses and everything.

That's right, rich guys have more time.

This is another thing that struck me about the Packer Facebook group. They really genuinely seemed to believe that GAs are not compensated, and that Packer and the others are like these kindly old grandfatherly characters who only care about others and don't mind not getting paid and stuff. I got a strong reaction, going in with my line about old men stealing their money.

I guess they think Uchtdorf gets his tan serving in an outdoor soup line or standing in fields, preaching to migrant workers or something.

Hello, dude spends a lot of time on the golf course. And skiing, too, probably.

The social stigma attached to not taking your proper water turn is no doubt left over from the times farmers lost their crops or starved if their water was stolen "upstream". It was an honor system. Yes, of course, Hinckley grew up in Millcreek and the point was, he was not honorable. He was a shark. The cherry orchard scandal was a big deal and it was generally known that the owners were threatened to be "ruined" if they didn't sell the orchard to the church.

The scandal that sticks in my mind was the lady I met who told me her family had donated some valuable land on the East Bench to the church for tithing- they felt it was needed for a parking lot for the local ward. The ward bishopric thanked them, etc., and within a few months, lo and behold, an apartment building was going up on the lot. They looked up the owner and it was the son of one of the general authorities. When I talked to her, it had been 10 years, so that was back in the 80's.

Just a sample of the sacrifices.....

Doesn;t he read in the bible that liars won't enter heaven?
I guess that must've been one of the misstranslated items.

Her apartment was gorgeous and huge. His takes up the entire top floor. (Or rather, did.) She was a bit of a rebel and took us up the elevator to wave at his door. I thought it was so cool at the time.

... where about ten years ago, other residents included the widow of Ezra T's brother and the widow of Bruce R McConkie?

I was friends with a young guy whose grandmother had been married to the brother of Ezra T (as she called Benson). It was her second husband, and they got married in relatively old age.

CBS 60 MINS 1979 LDS GARN BAUM Part 1
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd0asb_cbs-60-mins-1979-lds-garn-baum-part_news

CBS 60 MINS 1979 LDS GARN BAUM Part 2 25
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd0ax6_cbs-60-mins-1979-lds-garn-baum-part_news

Hinckley's role in that one isn't mentioned, and my source was word-of-mouth, but I'm hopeful others may come forward. I see this was 1979, so Hinckley wasn't in the FP yet... As always, I'm grateful for facts, and I find the silence by Mormons on this one is telling...

And in the interest of full disclosure, I found this reply on Google, and the summary judgment of the appeals court... Scroll down past the faith-promoting African stuff...

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=41a3615b01a6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/648/1292/130626/

Well, Brother Baum, if you're still around, I trust they didn't get your cherry pitter... As for what happened, as my friend Robert Kirby says, "Beats the heck out of me."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2010 03:48AM by SL Cabbie.

It's easy to detect when they lie. Des right, every time they open their pie hole.

ST

The General Authorities sacrifice so much of what the faithful have offered, and give to the building up of the power and influence of the General Authorities.