Leaderboard

Your understanding is obviously wrong, because it makes things look like they're not Trump's fault. I cannot believe that even the refrain "I Blame Bush" has been drowned out over the last three years by the shrill hatred directed toward Trump. I may well yet regret any positive feelings I have had toward Trump; but when the devil's media lapdogs unanimously condemn and vilify Trump, even while some of them praise terrorists and such, that evidence is simply too strong for me to dismiss out of hand. What Trump has said I often find petulant, childish, embarrassing, and sometimes harmful. What Trump has done, on the other hand, has mostly been better than I could have imagined, even with a Republican candidate I would have preferred. As Joe Paterno used to say, nothing succeeds like success.

That’s part of the human condition. But this particular site is inviting the saints to disclose sacred information about themselves that is meant to be kept personal (patriarchal blessings) and/or that they are under explicit covenant not to disclose (temple names). Basically, Clint Kimball is behaving like a trash human being. Hopefully he stops.

I think you'll find that most members have lines in the sand that would qualify as a conditional testimony, as described. Would you retain your testimony if: The Church reestablished polygamy? The Church reinstated the ban those of African descent from holding the priesthood? The Church endorsed a socialist political platform? The Church began solemnizing gay marriages? The Church ended tithing? The Church added hot chocolate to the list of substances banned by the Word of Wisdom The Church authorized women to be ordained to priesthood office? The Church required women to cover their heads and faces to attend Sacrament meeting? The Church begins donating larges sums of money to Muslim communities? Just because you are comfortable with one of those points doesn't mean that you will be comfortable with all of them. I can tell you right now that there are a few items on that list that I would struggle immensely to understand and accept. There's at least one that would drive me into outright revolt. Perhaps we'd be better served to meet people where they are at both emotionally and spiritually.

Once again the expected negativity. It gets really old.

My understanding is that we were fully out of Iraq (other than embassy security, maybe some isolated training missions, etc) for a time around 2010-ish; and then they asked us to come back in to save them from ISIS and the Obama administration indulged them. Otherwise: yes, we’ve been trying to keep the lid on that region for fifty years because *everyone* (not just us) needed a stable energy supply; and now that we don’t need their oil anymore (thanks, fracking!) I’m happy to walk away from it all, embargo the heck out of the petrostates, and let nature take its course. Except that a) I like Israel for the fact that it’s about the only nation in the region that spent the last few decades actually building stuff rather than exploiting its own people and blaming America for it; so I don’t mind launching a few dozen cruise missiles every now and then if it keeps them safe; and b) we still gotta have embassies out there; and if our embassies get attacked, I’m all for retaliating by killing the planners and perpetrators of the attack. If some of the perpetrators happen to be agents of a nation-state . . . Too bad for them. But what Trump is thinking sending 3,000 more soldiers (or whatever the number is) out there, I don’t know. It seems to me that the only ground we need to hold is our own embassy compound; and I can’t imagine it would take that many people.

@Scott, spending time and effort on sites like the one you reference is harming your spiritual well-being. Please consider not frequenting such sites. Consider, too, that Clint Kimball decries bias and pretends to present only factual information, while his selection of information and the way he presents it evinces a very strong bias of his own. The man is not honest, and you put yourself in a spiritually precarious condition when you uncritically accept his site as being a valid source of unbiased information. It is nothing of the sort.

We enjoy comics at our home. Here is a glance at a new one that we look forward to seeing someday:

We've talked about that before. You keep on talking about people you meet and keep ignoring the Brexit wipeout, the yellow vests in France, the rising fight against entrenched globalists to be replaced by nationalists all over Europe even in the little country of Iceland... Look at all the media you have in Europe. They are all anti Trump. But it still does not change the fact that Brexit just happened. And to say Brexit is anti-Trump is... well, there are no words for that but naivete.

We don't play the "my spirit is better than your spirit" game. There's one Spirit. And He does not testify of such.

Time and place for discussions Maureen. Sunday School is time for fulfilling spiritual discussion and appropriate class etiquette. Going back to my video games example: it's something I find interesting, but should not be constantly interrupting Sunday School to talk about. But I have had discussions after Sunday School about video games, and that's totally ok.

I just got back from visiting my sister in Texas. 4 years ago when I last visited, there was 1 ward building with 3 wards meeting and 1 stake building with 2 wards meeting (if I remember correctly) within reasonable driving distance from my sister's house. Now, there are 4 ward buildings and 1 stake building. Each have 3 wards (the stake building gained a Spanish ward). In the Philippines - the Church there is growing so fast, it's the only place outside of Utah that has 2 temples within 20 miles of each other. In my ward, we just had a baptism the week before Christmas. That was our 3rd convert baptism of the year. During our Christmas party, we had an investigator that believes "outer space" is a conspiracy theory run by our government. She's taking discussions and I truly hope she decides to get baptized or at least attend meetings. It's going to be awesome to have diversity of thought in addition to ethnic diversity we're gaining (the guy that was just baptized is a black guy bringing our total number of black families in our ward to 2) in Sunday School.

I think its helpful to take things one step at a time, knowing that with each step we take, we grow in strength and ability to take even longer, harder steps in the future. By the time we get to the future, what seemed like a hard step when viewed from the beginning, may well end up being just another small step.

A few thoughts here— 1) What you call a “conditional” testimony, I would call a seedling one. It’s still growing, and we should not blame a newly planted mustard plant for being a seedling. Growth take time. 2) We’re all seedlings to some extent. Some folks are just that newly-sprouted type, and some us small humans might call a “tree”. But God knows better. Even the strongest us mortals know will still face whirlwinds and has a lot of strengthening to do before being exaltation. 3) Yes, those whirlwinds can suck, and branches can snap off send the strongest mortal trees. But this isn’t about your or my mortal strength to survive the whirlwind, let alone some snapped branches. It’s about GOD and HIS power preserving the heart of the tree, strengthening it over time, and carving it in His image.

I get this way when I'm in that S.A.D. phase. I don't know if this is the same problem with your fatigue. I don't just experience it on Sacrament Meeting though. I experience it every single day. So, I think the issue with it coming up on Sacrament Meeting is that it has become a trigger. I'm thinking, the best way to deal with it (in addition to dealing with the bigger issue of energy drain) is to remove the trigger - try spending the 12 hours before Church sleeping, relaxing, walking (maximize sunlight and negative ions absorption). Then eat a bowl of oatmeal with bananas and an egg and drink as much water as you can handle. Avoid sugary anything (donuts, sugar cereals, pop tarts, store-bought fruit juice, etc). Get dressed and go to Church with a mindset that this is gonna be the day that you're going to put a smile on your face and focus for 2 hours. Let us know how it goes whatever you decide to do.

Over the years I have witnessed members leave the church, members come back and non-members join. They are ALL better off for having come unto Christ. After witnessing my exwife and kids leave I am learning to put all my trust and faith in Christ and try not to stress over the things I cant control.

We need you in our stake. Perhaps you should consider moving We even had a Branch President at one stage who was also a chocolatier.

Really, really old.

That describes me, except the word "hate" is wrong. "Distrust" would be more appropriate.

Are you sure this woman is an investigator? Those final few questions sounded more like the words of an "aggrestigator." What you're leaving out of this post is, what got her interested in the church in the first place? Has she shown any willingness to go any measure of distance to affiliate herself? What sort of truths (the unique ones in particular) has she said to find agreeable or likely?

Hmm. A website that says “Please tell us your new name and the date you received it”, projects ever-downward trends in all pertinent membership figures for the next forty years? I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you!

But the point is that it is not appropriate in a sermon. It is not shameful to have weaknesses; we all have them. it's part of the mortal condition. But it is shameful to seek to justify our weaknesses, which is precisely the intent of waving them away with a joking attitude. This is an interesting point. On its face, it's perfectly valid, as I think we will all agree. But most of us also recognize that after taking Steps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, you should continue with Step 6. Being late is almost always better than being absent, but at some point we need to discipline ourselves to get there on time. It's one thing for the investigator or new parent or member coming back into activity to struggle with punctuality; it's another for the middle-aged Saint with a lifetime of Church service and activity behind him/her to continue being late to meetings and appointments simply because s/he doesn't discipline himself/herself enough to leave ten minutes earlier. In last year's April General Conference, Elder Holland put it this way: As for punctuality, a late pass will always be lovingly granted to those blessed mothers who, with children and Cheerios and diaper bags trailing in marvelous disarray, are lucky to have made it to church at all. Furthermore, there will be others who unavoidably find their ox in the mire on a Sabbath morning. However, to this latter group we say an occasional tardiness is understandable, but if the ox is in the mire every Sunday, then we strongly recommend that you sell the ox or fill the mire. I have not noticed this attitude as prevalent, but I take your word for it that it is prevalent in some areas. I would suggest that speaking the simple truth is a better cure to such overzealousness than a stream of apologetic softeners appended to everything we say.

My response I: 1. A prophet speaks for God. Prophecy is the act of speaking in God's place. 2. Based on the Bible, prophets speak for God. 3. I check (i) whether the person has any authority for such a remarkable claim and (ii) whether the person's teachings accord with those revelations I have already received from unimpeachable sources. 4. This is no question at all. It is a lie parading as a question. The best response is something like, "Why did God ever have prophets? The fundamental relationship between God and man did not suddenly change at Christ's atonement. Or are you saying that God is a changeable God?" 5. The prophet has revealed to him the mind of Christ, which he can then teach to you, which makes you have more of the mind of Christ instead of continuing in your abased, prideful, foolish condition. My response II: While the first three questions are reasonable enough, it's clear to me that this person is not in a state to receive the gospel. She thinks she already knows the truth. Her questions are not designed to deepen her understanding, but to build the philosophical underpinnings of her resistance to the gospel teachings that the missionaries bring. Until she changes her heart, you and the missionaries are probably wasting your time with her as she pits her feeble understanding of things against the truths you are trying to teach. Such prideful idiocy is not and cannot be changed by having the stronger argument or knowing your scriptures better than she thinks she knows hers. A hard heart is never open to the truths of the Spirit. If this is truly her attitude, I would advise you to strongly consider not wasting your time. My response III: Check her reaction in casual conversation to the mention of "Jim theplains" and "GaleG".

Buck Showalter was once ripped apart for running up the score as his team was stealing bases and taking extra bases while they were up by double digits. In the post game press conference, his answer was simple: “When the other team stops trying to come back, I’ll stop trying to score....” Regardless of who perpetrated 9/11 or what ideology they followed, the “memory” that is being referenced is that there are bad people out there....people whose SOLE existence is wrapped up in perpetrating evil, by proxy, giving them the upper hand. Regardless of where he fits in the realm of ties to 9/11, if any at all, Quasem Soleimani was one of the most evil terrorists walking the planet, responsible for the loss of hundreds of American lives. Should we (America) have waited until he killed more??? How many more then???? What’s an acceptable number of lives lost before he deserves to be hunted??? We will never know how many lives Quasem’s death has saved. But I will never forget what treating stone cold terrorists like they are inconsequential or incapable of mass destruction landed us. And if the vaporizing of Quasem prevented the loss of even ONE more American life, I’m good with it. It’s hard for me to fathom that ANY American citizen WOULDNT be. When they stop trying to come back, only THEN should we stop trying to win...and not a minute sooner. (Language alert in the article) You said you'd never forget September 11. You lied. https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/you-said-youd-never-forget-september-11-you-lied/

I don't think you are the only one. I find myself extremely tired on Sundays. I think we go go go go go so much during the week that Sundays allow us that time to slow down. I think my body says...you've had enough this week. You're tired.

Good things to aspire to.

I live outside of Utah. At close of the year the units in our stake will average about 5 convert baptisms each.

It varies, but I don't think my ward has ever gone a year without at least one, usually several per year.

The presumption here is that God’s injunction to Adam and Eve was “don’t eat ever”, as opposed to “don’t eat now, and I’ll tell you when it’s time to eat it”. I’ll grant that if all we have to go on is the scripture, “don’t eat ever” is logical reading. But Latter-day Saints who have received their endowment have cause to consider the alternative interpretation.

1. Do you take *every* picture in a religious text as establishing doctrine? What about all those pictures of the nativity that show Jesus in a wooden manger, even though we know Palestinian Jews of the first century AD would have been using stone mangers? In answer to your question, Heavenly Father is the embodiment of a union between a spirit (or “spirit body”) and an immortal physical body of perfected flesh. 2. That’s very nice. But the invented dogmas of hellenized third-century Christians who lionized Socrates as much as Jesus and who were confounded by Jews who pointed out that worship of a God who was also the Son of God couldn’t possibly be “monotheistic”, are wholly irrelevant to the current discussion. You’re alleging that Latter-day Saint theology is internally inconsistent; it’s a non sequitur for you to trot out trinitarian fables to further that effort. The question I asked you challenged you to explore the situation from an LDS perspective, which of course you didn’t do; because as I said earlier, you’re here as an accusing ha satan; not as someone sincerely seeking truth or even as a teacher lovingly trying to understand another’s error before correcting it. 3. Jesus said He had done nothing but what He had seen the Father do (John 5:19). Many Saints have taken this literally in the context of Joseph Smith’s proposals in the King Follett discourse. I think often they perhaps push the analogy beyond its usefulness. That said, the process Jesus apparently went through was: a.) Organized as a spirit (from pre-existing intelligence) by God the Father; b.) Progressed further than any other spirit, accepted the role of Savior, and attained status as a “god”, but still lacking a physical body; c.) Condescended to give up His divine power and live a sinless life as a mortal, in political weakness and social obscurity and poverty, ultimately suffering a painful and humiliating death; d.) Was resurrected, being permanently joined to a perfected physical body and returned to the physical presence of the Father. The fact that the Book of Mormon generally focuses on c.) and d.) does not obviate or contradict a.) and b.). As for God the Father - we surmise He always existed at least as an intelligence, at some point was organized into a spirit, at some point received a body, lived, died, was resurrected, and became an embodied God; just as (in rough terms) Jesus did. The degree to which the particulars of God the Father’s journey through mortality may or may not have paralleled Jesus’s own experiences as outlined above, is speculation upon inference. I think some Church members like to believe that God the Father also went through the full series of steps a) through d) because it lets us immediately dismiss uncomfortable questions like whether God the Father has a savior or whether God the Father ever sinned during His mortality; rather than acknowledging that we just don’t know.

Up at the altar there are souls...some are repenting, others are quietly joyful. There are tears, holy silence, and a lady in the corner is even laughing. A deacon is concerned by the seeming irreverence of this woman and goes over to whisper in the pastor's ear. He responds quietly, yet with force, "Leave that woman alone. I know her backstory. She has never laughed in her life and tonight she's experienced the joy of the Lord." Meanwhile, in the back are a group of teens snickering about how fake the church is, and how there's nothing happening up front except a bunch of showboating: Sophomoric cynicism that feigns to be insightful and honest commentary.

Hi @anatess2, not sure if you remember me, it's been awhile. Anyway, liked your response. The "justice of God" is in a way illustrated by the problem-solving-test some of you may be familiar with: "A farmer wants to cross a river with his fox, chicken and bag of grain, because the soil is better on the other side and the grain would grow well, there is unlimited feed for the chicken and unlimited hunting for the fox: everything would be "in heaven." She/He has a boat that is only big enough to hold her/him and one other thing at a time. In what order does she/he carry her/his property across the river so that they all arrive safely on the other side?" If the farmer takes the fox across first and leaves the chicken and grain waiting together, the chicken will eat the grain; if she/he takes the grain across first, the fox will eat the chicken. Obviously she/he must take the chicken across first, because the fox won't eat the grain if the two are left together. Then the farmer comes back and takes the grain over and switches it for the chicken which she/he brings back across the river to the original side and switches it for the fox, which she/he takes over and leaves on the other side, then returns and brings the chicken back last since the fox won't eat the grain it's been left with in the meantime. Voila. The point is the farmer is limited in what she/he can do based on the nature of the fox, the chicken and the grain. The fox wants to eat the chicken, it is the fox's nature. The chicken wants to eat the grain, it is the chicken's nature. So because of what the fox and chicken would choose if given free agency and opportunity, the farmer must move them across the river in a very specific, tedious way. I've thought about that story from the point of view of both animals: -the chicken gets to cross first (yay), but then is taken back across the river (a setback) and must wait and be carried across last of all. It might seem "unfair" to the chicken that it be made to wait because of the fox's nature. -the fox must wait for the chicken to cross first before the fox is carried over. It might seem "unfair" for the fox to have to wait for the chicken to cross first because of the chicken's nature. I believe that's mortality in a nutshell, metaphorically speaking: God is the farmer, we're the animals. The brilliance of our all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful God is that He is able to take all of us with our individual and varying natures, and arrange our stay in mortality such that we each "cross the river" in a way that---I believe--best fulfills His purpose to grant us immortality and at least a chance at eternal life in His direct presence hereafter. (Moses 1:39) The point is to submit to God's wise and righteous will (2 Nephi 2:24) and wait patiently. The folly of believing we know better than the source of all knowledge is hopefully obvious. If the fox or chicken had disliked the waiting and the way the farmer was doing things, they could have run away but then they'd never have reached the other side where unlimited grain awaited the chicken and unlimited hunting awaited the fox. So it is with us.

I see today much like that time that Jesus first walked among mankind. We know from records that the greatest opposition to Jesus were the Pharisees. As odd as this may seem the Pharisees were experts in scripture and the traditions of the Jews. Today we would not have any of the traditions of the Hebrews, including Abraham and his seed if it were not for the diligence of the Pharisees. I used to ponder things about Traditional Christianity. Like the Pharisees, Traditional Christianity failed to be the light to the world that ought to have shined down through history. Traditional Christians rising to political power have no more been a reflection of Christ (Messiah) than were the Pharisees. It is true that doctrine has survived and that many have believed in "Christ" but the official treatment of those that question Trinity Doctrine has been anything but a reflection of Christ. There may have been individuals but as an institution or institutions I honestly do not see how anyone can argue that Traditional Christian institutions have been any more of the light of Christ than the institution of the Pharisees. Obviously this does not mean that we ought to throw the baby out with the bath water - but we do need to be mindful and truthful of history. The changes to institutions of the Jews and Christians have not come easy and not without great pains. Any serious student of history will see the hand of G-d moving through out history and that the Christians of today are greatly different than the Christians of the Dark Ages - especially from around 300 AD to now. So much so that there are thousands of so called Traditional Christian institutions claiming to be "better" than other Traditional Christian institutions - with such differences that they meet in their own building and somewhat resent those that meet in other building of their own. One thing that should unite all Christians - Traditional and non-traditional - is the understanding and prophesy that Jesus will return again to earth. That he will come in Glory to all those that wait on him and have become his disciples. Jesus said that his disciples will be know because of their love for one another. Not just of a particular sect but for their neighbor (neighbor as defined by by the symbolism of the hated and corrupted Samaritans). I do not consider @prisonchaplain to be a Traditional Christian. I believe him to be a disciple of Christ that is defined more by the love of Christ than tradition and the reflections of traditions throughout history. More than belief in any doctrine but because of honest love, I expect that when Christ comes, that he will say to @prisonchaplain - "Well done thou good and faithful servant." The Traveler

Whoa! Dude, this is totally cool. I've always wanted to be able to do this. Excuse me a moment while I put on my shoes and a jacket..... OK, ready. Ahem. Here we go. Wait, will I need a passport? Meh, I'll just bring a bunch of cash. Hang on, back in a sec....... OK, now ready. <clears throat again> Wish me luck. "The plates of Ether." . . . . . Dude! Nothing happened. No boom. I'm still on the couch. This sucks. If we were on facebook, I'd unfriend you!

Are you from the future?

No, no, that's me and PC.

Does it always rain in your world?

It's appropriate to cut a body down after its been hanging a certain amount of time

Your looking at it backwards, we kicked them in the cheek cause they turned it toward us.