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The Book of Esther does not mention God either, yet in the scriptures it remains. This reminds me of a current controversy over the song "The Reckless Love of God." God cannot be "reckless" so the song is said to be heresy. I'd argue that the vastness of God's love for us is indescribable--so we use feeble human words like "reckless." I guess that makes me a heretic. Hope I can keep my job here. 😮

If she found out that the original words from Elder Whitney were not "fearless bands of indians" but "savage bands of indians". 😳 Yes, I welcome that change.

An indian

If the Church ever gave it the green light, I'd be there with you.

I hope this is correct. The Chinese government oppresses a billion of its people including the people of Hong Kong. I am hoping the people of Hong Kong do not lose what is left of their liberty.

I'm not sure how it's set up, but our ward uses Zoom to broadcast to Youtube. That way participants can't talk and interrupt the meeting. Every week, the ward clerk sends an email with the link and the meeting information. It's worked very well for us.

It has always been interesting to me what is assumed about G-d among many religious thinkers. There is a lot of terms and conditions used in scripture - all of which points to the possibility that both Jesus and his Father are personally involved in intimate marriage covenants and relationships. For example, in the ancient Israel (Jewish) society it was socially unacceptable for a man to NOT be married (man is not without the woman nor is the woman without the man in the L-rd). The title of Rabbi in that ancient society required a person be married. Jesus was often called Rabbi by the Pharisees that were using every means at their disposal to discredit Jesus. Had he not been married they would have leveraged that unusual condition to discredit him. We live in a life, culture and society that is currently discrediting the sacred marriage covenant. Sadly many religions have positioned their understanding of G-d in such a manner to debase the sacred marriage relationship as something ung-dly and not divine. Despite all the nonsense arguments concerning the marriage of Jesus - I have never see any creditable evidence that Jesus was not married. You would think that if this most unnormal and unnatural condition was a necessity to qualify Jesus for being the Messiah - that there would be something in scripture to justify it. The Traveler

The fuller statement is: "Each convert becomes one of God’s covenant children, whether by birth or by adoption. Each becomes a full heir to all that God has promised the faithful children of Israel!" Those who are of the literal seed of Abraham (covenant by birth) and do not know it or the covenants (or otherwise do not keep the covenants) can fully become covenant children (i.e. "a full heir" in his statement) once converted.

Thank you @CV75 that is a good response and straight from the prophet's mouth. Nice. I think you are right in that "gathering" is far more than a matter of geography. And implied in all this is the fact that we ourselves are also in the process of being gathered, regardless of our past activity and commitment.

"God" is not simply the Father's "position or job". "God" describes who and what he is in the deepest and most intimate sense. FWIW, I was not seeking to criticize you. I was seeking to express my distaste for the idea, distressingly common among Latter-day Saints, that the Father is "a God", as if "God" is merely a descriptive title like "President" or "prime minister", and that there are perhaps dozens or hundreds of them running around.

Or every time there is some thing about the way something is done or some random "Mormon" thing that isn't understood it is automatically assumed that it's a Utah thing.

You are my hero due to your unflappable demeanor, among other things.

Shared this with my family a few hours ago. They seemed to appreciate it.

I have my zoom meeting to no video and auto mute, but some folks still figure it's necessary to try to unmute and share video. It's the biggest buttons on the zoom toolbar, and some folks just figure it's something they have to click to 'make it work'. I've personally heard poor sister whatsername screaming at her kids. And the Stake has kept everyone uptight about it since around April, when apparently one of the seasoned couples in our stake were off mute, and broadcast some sort of intimate moment to their entire sunday school class.

Why doesn't the meeting moderator mute everyone's mic?

I'd move west and push for Deseret.

In October General Conference he made this invitation: "As you study your scriptures during the next six months, I encourage you to make a list of all that the Lord has promised He will do for covenant Israel. I think you will be astounded! Ponder these promises. Talk about them with your family and friends. Then live and watch for these promises to be fulfilled in your own life." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2020/11/46nelson?lang=eng "We live in a glorious age, foreseen by prophets for centuries. This is the dispensation when no spiritual blessing will be withheld from the righteous. Despite the world’s commotion, the Lord would have us look forward to the future “with joyful anticipation.” Let us not spin our wheels in the memories of yesterday. The gathering of Israel moves forward. The Lord Jesus Christ directs the affairs of His Church, and it will achieve its divine objectives." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2020/11/58nelson?lang=eng He mentions gathering three times in his opening remarks as well: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2020/11/11nelson?lang=eng The covenants and blessings are tied to the Gathering of Israel. I think it is a call to activate the "belonging module" in our spirits -- reach out to others on both sides of veil in various ways, be loyal to the Church and fellow members above all other identities, and promote this loyalty (one heart and one mind of Zion) that is based on the principal basics of testimony and ordinances.

President Gordon B. Hinckley had this say about Ezra Taft Benson:

I've developed a real fondness for Ezra Taft Benson

Nobody wants to admit the obvious--the worry that maybe she is scamming him. Still, the right and godly thing to do is to speak blessing into their new life together, and to pray that God draw them together, even as they are jointly drawn closer to Heavenly Father. Further--if I am deeply worried, I ought to pray even harder that God will protect the brother, and perhaps even help her to develop a sincere love for him.

Armies are made up of and commanded by people with agency.

I doubt it would work. History shows us that all it does is strengthen the dictator. Why? Because invariably the dictator's forces intercept the supplies, then hand them out themselves - as rewards for loyalty to those who say the right things - or they give it out as a PR move and claim the credit. This type of behavior is the catalyst for the events depicted in the movie Black Hawk Down.

She'll keep you warm at night if you knit a blanket from those eyebrows.

"Baby, nothing revs my motor like a good gospel doctrine class." *wink*

Done.

Since it is a zoom link, you really could watch any ward if provided their link. I heard @NeuroTypical will give out the link for $5 without drama OR $15 a session with sister whatsername screaming at the seasoned couple for sharing their intimate moment.

What part of Russia are you from @Backroads Still up for debate.

@theplains was trying to make sense of some similar teachings. God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that included promises to their descendants. Moses renewed these promises with them. You can read more about it in the Gospel Principles manual.

We had one family (white) create an uproar in our small town about our high school mascot. The school board meeting was pretty disgusting, with a bunch of people yapping at each other about what's offensive and what isn't. One guy stood up and announced that he thinks he's the only Indian in the room and he likes it. He was followed by a bunch of white SJW's telling the crowd what the Indians "they know" say. It was pretty odd, over all. The mascot stayed.

I want to be in your ward.

Ever since I've read Psalms I've felt that our hymnal is woefully lacking songs about raining vengeance on our enemies.