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I've never condemned those who make a living with other churches. Never. Serving Heavenly Father 24/7 is a holy calling, and I will NEVER denigrate those who feel the urge to serve in that way. They do much good in this world. Your pastor sounds wonderful, it was a wonderful thing he did for your family when your grandson died.

However, I will set the record straight on my father and others who serve as mission presidents (I have firsthand knowledge of that.) They are provided a home to live in, a car to drive, and a frugal budget. They are called for three years and serve 24/7. The money comes from the tithes of the members of the LDS church. He was very blessed to be called to serve the Lord in this capacity, and did so honorably.

And I do not begrudge any of our leaders anything. You may cast aspersions upon their heads, if they are misspending the money for "nice suits", they will be held accountable for it. Period. It is kind of ironic that you say that poor people can't serve in the LDS church or be called to certain positions because of money, and yet if they have temporal needs, you then cast aspersions because they are taking money from the LDS church for those temporal needs while serving.

For me, it is an act of faith to pay my tithing. I am showing obedience to my Heavenly Father and to Jesus Christ by doing so. I have seen in my life blessings for paying tithing, I have seen how that tithing money is spent. It is not wasted, the people administering the money are very careful and prayerful in their decisions. It is also an act of faith to trust in the Lord and in those whom he has directed to use tithes properly. Audits do go on in the LDS church, each ward is accountable for the money that comes in and is spent, each stake is, and so on up the line.

But I think it is more titillating to say that the figures aren't made public, so of course some hanky panky MUST be going on. I like to have more trust than that.

Since I brought up the financial disclosure issue, allow me to clarify: I can access at any time financial data from the church I attend. My Catholic friends can look at the data at any time and see where their money is being spent. In fact, most religions do fully disclose income and expenditures. I am talking about income statements and balance sheets published quarterly, monthly or yearly.

As a Mormon, you have no access to this information, in fact nobody ouside the LDS Church accounting dept and internal auditors at 50 East North Temple can see these records. Public disclosure does decrease the likelihood of fraud or embezzlement. And this could come from any level (underreporting of offerings; someone skimming the tithes for personal gain, bad investments and so on). What reason would there be to not disclose financials to the laity? Historically, this was a bad thing.