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Just thought I'd share this. This upcoming weekend, Pope Francis will be canonizing Blessed Pope John Paul the Great and Blessed Pope John XXIII. Canonizing, for those not familiar with the term, is when the Catholic Church recognizes the person as a saint and in heaven with God. It's usually a long process, but after the death of John Paul II, Pope Benedict waived the one year waiting period for opening up a cause of canonization and put his predicessor on the "fast-track". During his funeral and the days following the pope's death, many people were chanting "Santo Subito" which is Italian for "Saint now." Being as Pope John Paul II (or as I like to call him, John Paul the Great) was one of the longest reigning popes in history and a huge influence on world history, this is a moment Catholics (and in my case, former Catholics) have been waiting for. And it is very exciting. The announcement of canonization of Blessed Pope John XXIII was a bit more controversial. Pope Francis waived the customary number of miracles needed to be recognized a saint which bothered many traditional Catholics as Pope John XXIII was the pope who opened up Vatican II and was seen as a somewhat political move on Pope Francis's part to please conservatives (JP2) and liberals (J23). Granted, both are great men. Even though I am no longer a Catholic, I am looking forward to this weekend and the canonization of two great spiritual leaders. just thought I'd share this with you all.

Kind of a humorous Q&A regarding Mormons and trampolines on Ask Gramps. http://askgramps.org/23941/many-mormons-trampolines

You do a lot of praying, trust in the Lord to provide, work hard and keep the commandments to the best of your ability. Things tend to work out.

Of course it's not for everyone. It's all a matter of personal choice. Those with large families somehow make it work in a lot of cases. Really not for me to say if it's practical or not. Just wasn't my choice.

You sparked a thought about faith in people rather than "something". As I thought on this I became convinced that we must first have faith in ourselves before we can have faith in others. This is because if we do not have faith that we can identify others in which we can have faith - then we will never be able to have faith in them. Therefore, we must have faith enough in our own ability to identify someone worthy of our having faith in them. The more I thought on this the more I am convinced that all faith we exercise is in reality an extension of the faith we have in ourselves. Thank you Seminary, this a whole new landscape of understanding for me. I deal with many atheists in my profession and I realized that at least in part the inability to have true faith in G-d is hampered a great deal in an individual's tentative faith in themselves. This also means that we cannot have faith in attributes of G-d that we do not understand as worthy for ourselves. Your insight bring much more to the table but at this point I think I will back off some and see what others are harvesting or discarding concerning the idea that we cannot appreciate in others (including G-d) what we cannot rationally see through faith we exercise in ourselves.

For some reason, I am reminded of what Tweedle Dee (or Dum) explained to Alice -- perhaps she was just a part of the Red King's dream, and as soon as he woke up, she would cease to exist. I'm no expert on philosophy, but I recall that this was part of DesCartes "I think, therefore I am." axiom. He was trying to find a bedrock principle that could serve as an anchor for his view of existence. Perceptions through the senses could not be fully trusted, because our senses can "lie" to us. Even when dealing with spiritual promptings, sometimes it is possible to misinterpret or to deceive ourselves. I do not know if we can ever know for sure that something is true. Perhaps. I agree that God and truth should not be confusing or contradictory. On the other hand, I don't want to be guilty of limiting God/truth to my finite, mortal, imperfect reasoning. As God explained through Isaiah, His ways/thoughts are higher than our ways/thoughts. When something doesn't make sense, is it because it is false, or is it a failure of my logic engine. Right now I'm working on the results of an experiment where the results in many ways don't make sense -- don't follow expected patterns. There are a lot of variables involved, so I am really struggling to decide if it is because the experiment is wrong, or if I have not yet come upon the correct mathematical relationship to describe the relationship between the variables. In many ways, I think some truth, especially religious/theological truth, is in interesting interplay between reason and faith. There are several religious truths that I would be tempted to discard if I refused to believe something that didn't make sense to me. At the same time, there are some religious claims that I reject because I find them irrational. I'm not sure I can explain how those judgements get made, nor do I always feel like they are a "there that is decided" kind of thing. Part of being penitent might be never being quite satisfied that a specific question is definitively answered -- to always be willing to think through concepts again to see if they are still something you want to believe.

Why on earth would you assume that? The OP said "my son."

Yup. sounds legit.

Well that's not how it was described in the OP. Supposedly some guy got a call that he needed to go fix a ward. That's just strange to me and not something I've ever heard of.

Just finished my dinner of Mexican food....

So, because she "maybe kinda sort of" may have left abortion on table its good for everyone to tell her how wrong she is without knowing for sure? How about sending her a private message asking what she meant before making acusations? As an aside I do think aborortion is wrong, but I did not get the impression she was "Leaving it on the table".

She simply mentioned to word abortion only to say that it was NOT an option for her. It looked like people did not read the OP post and saw a response that was mistaken in thinking she was considering abortion as an option and just piled on top of her. Im sorry but that it not helpful.............at all............in any way. Yes the Lord works through people. People who take time to listen to and understand people's problems. People who don't imediatley brand them with a scarlet letter before they know their situation.

Snickering extremely loudly.

So, just for information's sake, I just read three other translations of this story - The New International Version, The Living Bible and The Revised Standard Version. All three say that "they" in the King James Version is the brothers who pulled Joseph out of the well, not the Midianites. And Reuben was inexplicably away at the time that Joseph was sold. I've never delved into the Bible stories before like I have this year, teaching Primary. Wow, the things you learn as a teacher!

Here are a couple of quotes that attempt to explain it: James E. Talmage "One may wonder why Jesus had forbidden Mary Magdalene to touch Him, and then, so soon after, had permitted other women to hold Him by the feet as they bowed in reverence. We may assume that Mary's emotional approach had been prompted more by a feeling of personal yet holy affection than by an impulse of devotional worship such as the other women evinced. Though the resurrected Christ manifested the same friendly and intimate regard as He had shown in the mortal state toward those with whom He had been closely associated, He was no longer one of them in the literal sense. There was about Him a divine dignity that forbade close personal familiarity. To Mary Magdalene Christ had said: 'Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.' If the second clause was spoken in explanation of the first, we have to infer that no human hand was to be permitted to touch the Lord's resurrected and immortalized body until after He had presented Himself to the Father. It appears reasonable and probable that between Mary's impulsive attempt to touch the Lord, and the action of the other women who held Him by the feet as they bowed in worshipful reverence, Christ did ascend to the Father, and that later He returned to earth to continue His ministry in the resurrected state. (Jesus the Christ, p. 682.) Bruce R. McConkie "The seeming refusal of Jesus to permit Mary to touch him, followed almost immediately by the appearance in which the other women were permitted to hold his feet, has always been the source of some interpretative concern. The King James Version quotes Jesus as saying 'Touch me not.' The Joseph Smith Translation reads 'Hold me not.' Various translations from the Greek render the passage as 'Do not cling to me' or 'Do not hold me.' Some give the meaning as 'Do not cling to me any longer,' or 'Do not hold me any longer.' Some speak of ceasing to hold him or cling to him, leaving the inference that Mary was already holding him. There is valid reason for supposing that the thought conveyed to Mary by the Risen Lord was to this effect: 'You cannot hold me here, for I am going to ascend to my Father.'" (The Mortal Messiah: From Bethlehem to Calvary, 4 vols. [salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1979-1981], 4: 264.)