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I understand the Op’s Point. For some people teaching a lesson is about projecting love. These teachers mean well but ‘projecting love’ is sometimes only meaningful to those who share your small world. To the speaker the words selected and the body language have a deeper meaning that signals to their tribe but to outsiders the result can be meaningless or variously misinterpreted. As an early convert I found many talks to be uninterpretable. I can now guess at the meaning of some of these talks. The speaker was expressing love and gratitude. Talking about feelings and how happy you are about ‘how well your life is going’ is not generally helpful to the audience. Inside jokes and references to private times with friends in the audience can be alienating. I try not to talk about feelings, and especially not my own feelings, in talks and lessons because...why would anyone care if I am having a good day or a good life? If teaching a lesson or giving a talk, I try and find something useful for the audience.

Funny how much I can sympathize with the various struggles these guys experience. My life is wonderful, but it would be so much better if I were less of an idiot. And to be fair, my wife has her off moments, as well. Some seem to find their way through the crapstorm while others get engulfed by it. Not sure what to make of it all. It does make me think that our perspective on life and love is terribly short-sighted. My brother's first wife seemed like a walking nightmare. Her childhood included (it was whispered) molestation and outright sexual encounters with her father. I felt very sorry for her, but her actions were such that I have not harbored warm, fuzzy feelings toward her through the years. When interacting with my nieces (her daughters), I have been reminded of her mental disorders. How much differently our Father in heaven and our Savior see her. How much differently I would see her if I were a better man. I don't really want to lament or engage in public self-flagellation. Rather, in reading NT's stories, I recognize a thread of commonality in the human experience. Those people we admire most and whose lives seem so beautiful have also had to deal with these same basic issues. Somehow, they've just dealt with them better than others. (And I'm not talking about being raped by your father. I'm talking about the more mundane issues and "baggage" we all carry around and deal with.) Learning to effectively deal with such matters is surely one part of our purpose here.

I don't know. I've had problems in my life, who hasn't, but nothing like these guys. I married my wife because I loved her. When we have issues, which happens to everyone, we work it out because we value our marriage more than being right. I'm not bragging, I don't think we are special we are like thousands of well adjusted couples out there. But we both have a living breathing testimony of Jesus Christ and that helps more than anything.

Avoid pride and lawyers at all costs. Read the scriptures and pray together. Try hard to be a son or daughter of God, if not then a decent human being at least... Satan and despair are the most destructive forces on Earth. We must recognize that their intention is to destroy all that which is good. White knuckling your way through life ain’t no fun.

I married a woman who accepted me for all my flaws and her uncomplicated love made me a better man. I try to be the best I can be to be deserving of her. That's not a paragraph.

Mostly fun and mostly for the girls. My oldest (18)takes great pleasure in picking out just the right ones. We love making each other happy and I suspect that Jesus loves seeing that.

I would like at some point in the near future to start dating. In my view of things, I can't do that unless I am a whole person and I can't be a whole person unless I let go of the hurt and bad feeling I have for my ex. I have a long way to go but I am definitely getting better.

Here are some random stories from five guys I've come to know in real life, in the last few years. People tend to put their best foot forward, but I've come to know the rest of the story of these struggling dudes. Lane is divorced, and has primary custody of their special-needs teen daughter. Lane and his wife fought for years, decided on a divorce, but called off the plan after their daughter reacted very badly to the notion. Things got worse for several years, and they lawyered up and divorced. Now, a few years after that, Lane tells me it would have been better for everyone involved if they had gone through the divorce the first time, rather than dragging it out. He weathered Christmas ok, it was her turn to have the daughter, so he went and stayed with family. Bob is emotionally unhealthy. At the time I met him, he was trying to follow a program for codependent husbands called "No more mister nice guy", about healthy ways to claim dignity and refuse to accept being treated badly by your wife. As he goes through various programs and counseling, he is trying to work on his issues. His wife has filed, and they are currently lawyered up and going through the process. He is trying hard to draw healthy lines between his crap to fix, and his wife's crap she must fix. To know the difference between what it looks to pursue his wife out of love, or pursue her out of a desperate clingy brokenness. As she refuses to follow through on various agreements, he spends energy trying to find the motivation to do his part. Last I heard, his wife was planning to file a motion to postpone the next step in the divorce, because apparently she was seeing a change in him. Their kids are teens, seem to be adjusting ok to their parents' drama. James' wife, after soul searching and talking with counselors and the bishop and seeking answers in the temple, has filed for divorce. Both James and his wife grew up with very bad role models on how husbands and wives should behave. James is broken, and he knows it. He can't for the life of him figure out how to be emotionally healthy. He tells of a time when his wife kicked him to the couch until she saw some positive change in him, any positive change. After she had gone to bed, he stood in the bedroom doorway for like 20 minutes, unable to say anything, unable to either go in or go away, paralyzed by an emotion he still can't identify. He sort of does stuff like that. She has seen small bits of health from him, whenever his back is against the wall, but as soon as he's safe he goes back to his normal. James figures his most likely option to win her back, is to go through with the divorce, and then show his (ex)wife he can be healthy even though there's no pressure on him. They just made it through their first step of the legal divorce process. They had a good talk for two hours afterwords, then went home and back to business as usual - distance and proceeding to separate. No lawyers here. J.R. and his wife were both broken when they met, and got married for the wrong reasons. As he tells the story, he spent 20 years believing she was the enemy, staying at a safe distance from her, blaming her for the distance, before he finally learned to deal with his traumatic childhood baggage. He's heard stories about marriages where one spouse in an alcoholic, and the drunk gets sober, and the dynamic changes and the healthy spouse can't/won't heal, and the marriage just doesn't survive. He sees analogies in his life: she's now the one distant, rejecting, blaming, withholding. In his words, he got them there, she's keeping them there. His kids and wife are openly hostile to him, usually rejecting, sometimes cruel. Quick to claim harm or hurt, glacially slow to see good. J.R. wonders if he could have a more positive impact on his family if he were out of the house, and with every painful story he shares with someone, he's got one less bishohp/counselor/sponsor/spiritual confirmation urging him to stay married. He tries to see Christmas in a good light - there was a 3-4 day break in the usual faultfinding and criticism and distance. Roy finds his wife is treating him unacceptably. Yelling, blaming, accusing, etc. Roy has filed for divorce twice because of this, cancelling his divorce plans when his wife capitulates and promises to do better. He's now filed a third time. He reports his wife reacted with anger and refusal to put up with this any more. Roy strikes me as half the problem, he doesn't seem to have any empathy for his wife. He considers himself 100% victim, her 100% at fault. I have a hard time thinking of Roy in a positive light. It's interesting to see common threads running through their unique and different stories. All of them have been to counseling, some of them years and years of it - both couples and individual. Most are Christian of one stripe or another, some very devout. Getting to know these guys makes me wonder about everyone else. How many of us could write a paragraph about ourselves containing this much pain and trouble? Is it all of us? Just a few of us? Anyway, just getting thoughtful at the end of 2018. All that advice we get about being slow to judge because we never know the burdens another is bearing, is better advice every time I hear it.

@Sunday21 there are only 306 days...look close you will see it...

When reading I seldom see individual letters - often I do not read words but rather by sentences (groups of individual words). This is because I am dyslectic and I have never been able to understand when trying to read word by word. When reading aloud I will get some words wrong or leave them out (because I am not seeing them). If I am reading an important article or technical manual - I will read it backwards because it makes more sense that way. If I am reading an novel I will often skip what I see as worthless parts of the story which means sometimes I go back a few pages to figure things out to stay with and fill in the story. When reading scriptures I often see verses as the same as other verses but with different individual words - I believe this gives me an advantage in reading scripture and understanding what was meant. When writing I tend to type in the first letter of the next word as the last letter of the previous word - so when I write (including for the forum) I must read everything backwards to seem my mistakes. Whenever I give a lesson at church and write on the white board - there is a lot of misspelling. There is always someone that wants to correct my spelling - but I respond with, "If you only know one way to spell a word - you are uneducated." I figure that as long as someone understand what I am communicating - my spelling is not that important. I have no explanation why I mix up letters spelling but tend to remember numbers without problems. The Traveler

I read it a couple months ago. It's fantastic!

Not sure we are responsible to limit the sharing of our spiritual experiences to make other people feel better. If you are not having spiritual experiences perhaps consider what worldly things may be keeping you from them.

When our daughter died my husband’s ex-wife came to the funeral. It made it uncomfortable for us and other family members. After that my husband wrote an email to his ex detailing certain boundaries he would like to see implemented. In the letter he requested that she not attend any more funerals of his family. He then explained that it was uncomfortable when she attended our daughter’s funeral, and told her the reason he did not attend her mother’s (ex-mother-in-law) was so she and her family could grieve without any distractions. My husband’s son came from out of town to attend his grandmother’s funeral, and we would have loved to have seen him while he was in the area, but didn’t want to take away from their family time and mourning together. It just seemed inappropriate. So we did not visit him while he was here. As to forgiving the ex-wife, forgiveness does not require you to be in the presence of someone who has been a toxic entity in your life. It does mean you should be civil, especially since children are involved. But, forgiveness does not mean you trust that person. And, unfortunately, we do not forget, even if we would like to. We have to protect ourselves from a toxic person. And, even though she may have been toxic in your personal life, doesn’t mean she is toxic to your children or other family members. It becomes a fine line that needs to be tread, and can be difficult. My husband has been divorced for nearly 40 years and there are still consequences and repercussions from the prior marriage. Sigh. There are times when we just ignore her as much as possible without being rude or uncivil. We try to be Christlike, but that does not mean she is welcome at husband’s family functions. My stepdaughter would like to bring her mother to every activity we have. That’s another story. My husband has also needed to talk to his daughter about boundaries. Good luck!

This is a good point. Funerals are traditionally designed to be a sort of public gesture, open to all who knew the person. If you look at it from this perspective, it makes sense to not say anything about her coming to the funeral but otherwise not inviting her to participate in the family mourning and get-togethers. Not sure if this is helpful to the OP, but I like the line of thinking.

It seems to me that “the day” encompasses more than “the funeral”. If she wants to go to the latter—she knew the guy, she apparently had some modicum of like/respect for the guy, she wants to say goodbye in her own way, and I presume she didn’t hurt him the way @Iggy‘s BIL did to her MIL—so it seems to me, that’s what funerals are for. But if she’s trying to invite herself to the “family-only” components of the day—closing the casket, final prayer service; the post-funeral potluck, riding to the cemetery, etc—she’s not family any more, and I think it’s quite justifiable to say “I appreciate the thought, but we actually talked this out and Brother wanted that part of the day to be just family”.

In short, for me, it is where there is no longer a confusion of thought. When the Sister Missionaries were teaching a single male investigator they asked me, a single female to be there with them. This investigator was having some difficulty with the spiritual feeling that the Book of Mormon was true, that the LDS church had the true gospel of the original church even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What I told him was, quit the cigarettes, drinking of alcohol and of watching the mild porn movies (yep smelled the cigs and alcohol, saw the movies as I entered his tiny apartment) AND when he insisted on hugging me. THEN he must get on his knees, and to pray sincerely with a broken and contrite heart. Nope, the Sisters had not gotten to that part of the lessons. Four months later I see him at the post office. By his smell, he is still smoking and drinking. I asked him if he believed the Book of Mormon was true? Yes, he said. Me: Do you believe that Joseph Smith, Jr. is a prophet of God? Him: Yes. Me: Do you believe that all the Prophets/Presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were/are true and living prophets of God? Him: Yes. Me: Do you believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church here on Earth? Him: Yes. Me: So what is holding you back from getting baptized and becoming an active member of the Church? Him: I can give up the cigarettes and alcohol, they are costing me too much as it is. I already don't cuss, swear and treat others like they are trash. BUT Not being able to hug the women, well that is just sacrilegious! Me: Seriously! THAT is what is preventing you from joining? You mean to tell me that the handshake that also includes you taking that arm with your left hand at their elbow and shaking gently is not Hug enough for you?? Nope, there is something else that is really preventing you from getting baptized. Him: Well my friends think you all are a bunch of nuts and a cult. Me: Seriously?? You have been to Sacrament many times, stayed the entire three hours. You have attended at least three baptisms. You have come to three potlucks and mingled and talked with many members. What is the real reason?? Him: I don't have any suits and white shirts. Me: Okay, that one I believe. You don't have to have a suit and white tie. Come in the same clothes you have been wearing. They are clean and devoid of embarrassing holes. If you really want to wear a suit, white shirt and tie ~ then the PH and the RS will get you them, and the shoes to go with them ~ BUT only if you really want it. That has been about 4 months ago. I see him from time to time at Sacrament, sitting with the PH that the Branch Mission Leader asked to fellowship him. I don't know who has been telling him that he HAS to have a suit, white shirt & tie ~ once I find out I am going to give him/her a *Gibbs Slap* - good and hard!! metaphorically speaking that is.

Do what's best for the kids. Doesn't matter about you, or your ex, or who did what, or who would be comfortable, or what anyone wants. Do what's best for the kids.

My eldest son and I can read this paragraph without missing a beat. My husband and my youngest son cannot. "It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe." https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/why-your-brain-can-read-jumbled-letters

Even though boxer is no longer with us, I have to say something here. @Godless has been on this forum for years and years. One of the nicest people you could come across. While he may not totally believe any longer, he is still very respectful. He served our country for years and has one adorable little family. So while one person may be so judgmental, it is definitely not Godless one would say evil called good. He's just a good guy and one I'm proud to call a friend.

In my experience, action is, perhaps, more important than anything else. Granted, prayer is an action. Searching the scriptures is an action. But these alone won't suffice without acting on promptings given in response (like Abraham actually going to sacrifice his son). I'll throw this out for discussion: Ether 12:6 6 And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. @Traveler alluded to this when he said "we must always keep the commandments and live a virtuous life and we must join ourselves with a congregation of truth seekers working together in love and harmony". I would say that of all means to seek truth, acting (obedience) may well be the most important thing.

In the search for knowledge and understanding prayer and the words of the prophets (modern and ancient) are all very important. But at the end of the day it still comes down to the witness of the Spirit to know if you something is true and that you are correctly interpreting it. If we find ourselves having difficulty interpreting or discerning the source of promptings it is usually because we are not sufficiently in tune and we are allowing other sources of influence to cloud ability to receive the desired divine communications. When this happens we need to more fully engage in those activities that will more invite the Holy Ghost into our lives. I think this process is a large part of what it means to come to "know" God.

Working. I'm one of those essential government employees.

I love and hate this article. It captures a serious problem--role playing in the church. There's blatant hypocrisy, and the much more common testifying to what we know should be rather than what is. The call to authenticity is appropriate and needed. At the same time many testimonies are sincere and real. The author knows this and rightly expresses concern that some will over-correct. Believers may stop giving testimonies because they fear their own blessings may make others feel unworthy and neglected by God. Worse yet, some will read this thoughtful article and embrace an unhealthy cynicism. They'll assume that most testimonies are fake, or, at minimum, exaggerated. And so, the author calls for authenticity, and requests that teachers give thought to those who struggle. Further, he encourages the hurting to do so out loud, believing that as they share their difficulties, many will identify and find strength and support. My reaction is that testimonies are powerful. "I lost my job, but God gave me a better one." If I am unemployed and I hear that, I think, "Great. Maybe God can help me too." The key is that our praises and good reports should point to God, not to self. It's not important that God rewarded MY FAITHFULNESS. Rather, that GOD REWARDED my faithfulness. If we keep our glad tidings directed towards Heavenly Father we invite new/renewed faith. If we trumpet our own supposed righteousness we invite shame and guilt (which drive people into hiding rather than repentance). If King and Kingdom come first then God's people will flock to church!

When we are first learning things, the answers we receive are very straight forward and the teacher just gives them to you. However, as learners and disciples of Christ, we each need to eventually move beyond this basic given-to-me learning and learn to seek answers ourselves. In the temple, the answers each of us receive are for each of us. It's no longer about the teacher handing you an answer, or even there being one singular answer because we each have individual understanding. In my experience, that's the biggest transition with the temple that some people struggle with-- that they want there to be one singular answer and they are irritated that it's just not given to them. Because it's not about a human teacher giving you a singular answer. It's about you individually approaching Christ and having a conversation with Him.

Ah yes, the testimonies prompted by the Holy Script. Always wondered if these people read that part about vain repetitions.

Not after he got that black eye from Michael Kors. But hey, you're worth it

I'm here because my family is of the age and temperament where a little daddy goes a long way, and we've all got an entire week with no school or work, so I'm pacing myself.

So wait... you wait till 8pm to open presents... but open stocking before Christmas??? ... no wonder the church needed restoring...

It’s Christmas man. I was up at 4:30 and had to wait till 6:00AM for my 8 month old and wife to wake up

Wait. . . . You already have???