I was interested in obtaining a copy of the Restoration Edition scriptures. So foul was the taste in my mouth how the project was shoved in our face, I never considered it until now. However, I'm interested in having what they contain. I explored the store online and saw pictures of the palettes of scripture. They were beautifully stacked and appeared to be great quality. I saw pictures of the volunteers with someone I expected to be front and center. There were lots of options to choose from, but their website says, paraphrasing "Here are twenty different leather types and colors you can choose from. Also, we're going to send you whatever we want and you can't object." I feel like I can't go to any restoration site without them, like Paul, or Peter in each epistle telling me how much they have sacrificed, and love the Lord, and about what is "underway". If you love the Lord, can you provide good service? From time-to-time I order something from a Japanese store. They are careful to process everything they send. They overestimate the time it will take to get to me. If they are out of what I ordered, they will upgrade at their own expense, to a higher quality product. There is more of "the Lord" in the service offered by this store than there is in this faux service provided by people who let you know they don't care what you want, but let you know it's because they "love the Lord". I'm reminded again, of Denver's story description of Zion where he describes a lawn mower and a baker among other things > "I thought about writing a fictional account of this curious city where those people who have several children live in big houses, while those who have no children live in small houses. In the place, no one has a job or schedule, but everyone works. One day the lead character gets up, walks outside, and notices that the lawn needs to be mowed. So he goes and finds a lawn mower and starts mowing. He mows at his house, then the next, then finds he has spent days mowing grass and is across the city to the other side. Everywhere he has been he found grass needing mowing, and he took care of it. He finishes after a couple of weeks, then returns to his house and says, 'Hey, look at that the grass has grown again.' So he starts mowing again. He does this because he feels like mowing the grass at the time. He just wants to. > > "Then after the season, he notices there is only one person working in the local bakery. He had never worked in a bakery, but he decides to go see what it is like to work in a bakery—and he rather likes that. So he spends the next seasons in the bakery doing that. The following year he wonders whatever happened to the lawns. They have been cut since the spring, but he doesn‘t know who has been cutting them. He goes on his way to find out who has been cutting the lawn because he liked doing that and he has something in common with whoever is now mowing the grass. He would like to know how they like it and what their pattern for taking care of the work has become. He wants to ask them: 'How did you do that?' On his way, he gets distracted by the orchard needing harvesting, so he spends that fall harvesting there. > > "So the story just ends, with what appears to be total chaos. A completely ungoverned society, where oddly enough everyone is at peace, but no one is in control. No one has a job, but everyone works, and the only thing that motivates any resident is what needs to be done. 'Hey, let's take care of this' is the only motivation. And they do it for as long as they feel like doing it, and then they do something else. It is a story I've considered writing, but have never done so. But now the idea for the story is in this talk, so you can write it in your own mind. If we can get people to stop doing their "duty" to prove by their sacrifice that they are worthy of a visit from the Lord, and just do what they feel called to do and do it with interest and care, we'll all be much better off. God told Samuel, "They have rejected me." "The Lord still strove with them because he's big enough to absorb offenses and still bear with them. I confess I am not big enough to absorb the insults of "the Remnant". I have a family that takes a great effort to care for in many ways. I don't have energy left over to take more abuse from strangers who don't care about me. Methinks they doth protest too much.