ZionsRodeVos

I've never thought of such questions. As I put some thought to them I see how they can be difficult to answer. I have some thoughts about the last one which likely won't be a complete answer but could give some insight into why a loving God would allow children to be born into circumstances where they will surely suffer hunger and suffer for the lack of clothes and other things. All the children of Heavenly Father need to be born to gain a body. There are some who only come here long enough to get a body and then are called from this earth to help in the spirit world. We are here to be tested and I feel part of this test is to see what we will do with what God gives us. I believe there are enough resources on the earth that all could be fed and clothed, but in many cases it costs a lot of money, money that many people are unwilling to spend on such an effort. So some of Heavenly Father's children suffer because of selfishness. Sometimes, we only gain understanding and empathy by doing and/or experiencing for ourselves. This is not to say we should purposely break commandments of God so we can empathize with and understand those that do. But it is true that if we experience hunger we can understand better others who are starving and can empathize with them and that can prepare people to lead movements to fight hunger and to cloth the naked because they knew what it was like and remember well that time of suffering and do not want others to suffer the same way they did. Whereas there can be well meaning people who have never felt hunger in their lives and so they do not understand the problem the same way someone who lived with hunger can. It may well be that there is a need for people who survive and thrive in adverse situations to give hope to others and to help more fortunate people see the need to help those less fortunate than themselves. It is also possible that Heavenly Fathers children that are born into suffering need those experiences to help them grow and be ready to accept the gospel when they hear it and He knowing how they are and will be after they have forgotten their premortal life has sent them into the situation which can make them most receptive to the gospel. If that is true then He is indeed showing great love to them since this life is but a short time compared to all eternity and His ultimate goal is that all return to live with him in happiness for having done all that was required of them. I'm sure there are things I didn't think of and in know way am I implying what I typed is doctrine of the church, but these seem to me to be possible answers to your question.

More than 7 years ago I was in the same ward that Senator Orrin Hatch attended (at least when he wasn't in Utah). If he had body guards there, they were dressed for church and did not stand out. My guess would be he didn't have body guards there.

I'm surprised they would go to the memorial for those who were victims. Do they really think it helps to try to make it seem like the victims were hated by God? It would be nice if the media would ignore them to see if they would stop.

I don't know if your club allows people you barely know to join, but if it does, can I join?

Interesting responses. Here are mine. 1. I never learned how to use speed dial so no one. 2. 5 3. Pig's stomach. My friend from VietNam got me to try it. 4. I'm not observant enough to keep track, so don't know. 5. I remember traveling from southern California to Okinawa, Japan. It took 17 hours. I've also driven from Utah to Virginia or from Virginia to Utah. But those trips had stops for sleep. Took me 2 and half days alone. About 4 or 5 days when with my family. 6. My children's mom. 7. Lost was the first word that came to mind, but peacemaker is likely more accurate. 8. About a hundred or so. I'd check but my work blocks Facebook. 9. 5 foot 6 inches. 10. My first thought was to give some to everyone in the world and ruin all economies. But really, I'd use it to get myself a beach house with private dock in a remote area near a big city, buy a sail boat, and write books to publish. Then I would start helping people where I could with my new found free time.

I like it! I like building in Minecraft. I've always played on a survival server but have played in creative mode at times. Do you often do cooperative builds?

I probably wouldn't realize the person was willfully misinterpreting what I said or wrote and would think they misunderstood me and try to repeat it a different way. I may try restating things one to three times before realizing there is no way for me to clarify what I meant. I always try to be kind and gentle as I restate what I meant and strive to not make it sound like I am correcting someone. I would not call them a liar. I have done and would ignore someone after trying to help them understand what I was trying to communicate. My reason for ignoring someone would be to avoid an argument which I don't like and the way I see it if only one person is talking(writing) then there is no argument. Everyone on the forum will be able to see my attempts and unless I am really not able to communicate will be able to tell what is going on. Too me, it doesn't matter if I know a person is intentionally misinterpreting me or not. When something is stated clearly and purposely misunderstood or misinterpreted then the person purposely doing it is responsible. In cases such as these I sometimes figure that someone simply read what I wrote too fast or skimmed or something and missed a crucial part of what I meant.

Two examples come to my mind. The first seems clear to me and simple. The commandment, Thou shalt not steal. The letter of the law and the spirit of the law seem to me to be the same. If it is not yours don't take it unless you are putting it in a lost and found. The second is different. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. If I were to take this commandment literally or the letter of the law. Then it means I don't tell a lie that would get my neighbor in trouble or implicate the neighbor did something they did not. So if I were to say I saw a squirrel as big as a bear that wouldn't be covered by that commandment (according to the letter of the law) because saying that harms no one. The letter of the law does not seem to cover being deceitful or failing to say something when you know the facts are different and letting someone assume they are right because you fail to say something you happen to know. Lets say I saw person A carefully carrying a glass bowl and person B was horseplaying and bumps into person A causing person A to drop and break the bowl. I am asked by someone who dropped the bowl. I say person A and nothing more. This could lead the questioner to assume that person A is at fault and I could think I have said nothing to break the commandment to not bear false witness and have complied with the letter of the law. However, the way I understand it I have not complied with the spirit of the law because I did not tell how person B contributed to person A dropping the bowl. In this case the spirit of the law seems more comprehensive than the letter of the law.

I don't like laundry either. I'm a single dad and was granted custody of my four children in 2006. This is the system I developed after I got tired of spending 3 or more hours every Saturday doing laundry. I have a basket for each child in the laundry room, one for me, and one or two for towels, sheets, and other items that don't really belong to anyone but are used by everyone. In each room their is a laundry basket and one in the bathroom that has a shower. I put in one or two loads each day, as soon as their is enough dirty coloreds or whites or I know we are running out of something (such as when I don't have enough money to replace clothes and holes in knees cause them to end up with only two wearable pants). When I pull the clothes out of the dryer I sort them into each persons basket. Each evening my children are expected to bring down the dirty clothes and take up the clean clothes and put them away. Due to changes in my schedule and my children being out of school my children haven't been doing their part as much as they did and so they end up going to their basket of clean clothes in the laundry room when they run out of what they need in their drawers. As for storing stuff, I store what one of my boys could grow into and put it in some plastic bins I got from WalMart and place those bins on the top shelves of the closet of the boy who they will one day fit. Since I only have one girl their is seldom any clothes laying around that will fit her in the future unless someone from church has given me some for her.

I haven't heard of this. My understanding is that you fill out a tithing slip when you have tithing to pay. If you had none for the year, then in tithing settlement the bishop would have a printed paper with zero on it and he would just ask if that was a full tithe.

I bought the movie and watched it and remember liking it. I think some of my children watched the movie with me. After a friend of mine pointed out things about the author and the book, I examined the book at a book store, and then I got rid of the movie. I would have been worried that my children would decide to seek out the books, as you have, based on the movie. It's been a while and I don't remember what I didn't like about the book, I just remember it is on my mental, never to be read list.

I was in the US Military. If the Canadian one is similar then there is plenty for a parent to worry about. I was not very active in the church the first year or so of my time as active duty military and then I returned to the church and had to wait 2+ years to get out of the military so that I could go on a mission. It seemed to me that there was a higher concentration of pornography, soldiers talking about sex, infidelity while forced to be separated from their wives, swearing, and other things with less chance of being able to avoid it than with other professions. Open squad bays where I had to keep my eyes down to avoid seeing things I didn't want to see. Cigarettes and alcohol easily available and shared on base. By his parents not signing his papers they get just over 6 months to help him decide to serve a mission or at the very least to strengthen his testimony a bit more before he moves out. And since they know he is going into the military they can focus on preparing him spiritually for the temptations he will encounter there.

My main doubts come from what I perceive as prayers not being answered. Since I still believe God answers all prayers I end up left wondering if I missed the answer or if I just have to be more patient. But my children aren't getting any younger and so this leads to frustration. Posting this thread is one of my attempts to work through this doubt/frustration by reading what everyone is saying about this. And this has led me to the decision to look in the scriptures for more understanding about prayer and I have made a note of the book someone recommended. As for tough experiences, I've had plenty of those and to be short on that subject I'll just say that I don't care that great growth comes with tough experiences, it would be real nice in my opinion to go a few years without such experiences so I can see how that feels for once. Probably a bad attitude to have but it is part of mine right now.

Another way to look at your situation is to remember how you were taught the gospel and what led up to you joining the church. Remember the things the missionaries asked you to do and how they asked you to commit to obeying the commandments. You can do the same things again. Also you could ask the missionaries for help too. I was raised in the church but left it for a few years. It was while I was in Okinawa, Japan for six months while in the military that I heard a program that told me how the music I was listening to had messages from Satan in them. Three days later I decided I would start attending church again once I got back to the US. I started praying again and asked my parents to send me a Book of Mormon and began reading it. After returning to the US, I found a singles branch and began attending church again. Praying will help you draw closer to God and to feel his influence in your life. Reading the scriptures will strengthen your testimony and help your faith and testimony grow. Going to church and being with others that believe as you do will help you feel less alone even though they are not your age. I've generally been fine with being alone, but after many years of this I find I am wanting to be with other people more often and feel as if I am part of a team. I have felt alone even while going to church because I have few friends at church and am unable to find help from members when I feel a need. I've always tried to help where and when I can but while my children were young it was not so easy for me. Now they are getting to the age where I can leave them home alone when they don't want to participate in church related or other activities outside the home. This has helped some. Now I have been going to the house of a member once a week to help their 10 year old daughter learn English better (I attend a Spanish speaking ward) and I take my 11 and a half year old daughter, Sharleen, with me to play with their other girls. I've started sailing and this puts me in contact with people who drink. When they offer me something I decline. I always accept water when they offer. So as others have said it is fine to be with people who do not believe the same as you and in fact your example can help them. I would think you can find people your age that don't drink nor smoke nor swear who will accept you even though you are LDS. In the military I found people who did accept me, many I worked with would buy soda along with the beer so that I would come and hang out with them and I did. I drank the soda and they drank the beer.

Thank you everyone who has taken the time to reply! I must say I was surprised by some of the replies. It never occurred to me that I could possibly rely too much on God. But as I think about it I am trying to do the same thing, help my children learn that they are capable of making decisions on their own without asking me for permission or for guidance although I am ready to offer advice when they want it. Some of the things I pray for seem to me to be in line with the gospel, such as asking for help in switching my career to one that would allow me to work from home. The reason I ask for this is because I am divorced with custody of my four children and I believe that I could help my children more if I could have more time to raise them and not have to pay for others to watch them and have them pick up attitudes and phrases best not to have nor use. I'm willing to take a dramatic pay cut to be able to work from home but anything I come up with requires time to do and/or money to start up for which I can't do while working full time. In many aspects of the gospel my faith is strong, but where there is doubt and/or lack of understanding I grow frustrated. I still pray often, in spite of my recent frustrations with prayer. From your replies I see there is so much available for me to study and believe that a focus on that and the nature of God should be of much benefit to me.

I'm wondering if anyone else feels the way I do about prayer. I've often heard that God answers every prayer even though he may not answer immediately nor the way we want him to. I still believe this, but it is so frustrating not knowing if I've received an answer or not to important prayers or the wondering if I missed the answer. Prayer works wonderfully when I understand the answer, even if it is not what I wanted to hear and things don't go the way I asked for. I've had prayers answered in seconds and others that have taken longer for me to realize I got the answer. My thinking these days is couldn't God have devised a better system for communication between him and us? I mean we have cell phones that seem more reliable than his communication with me. There are times when I don't even bother to ask him for things since it doesn't seem to help anymore or I'll ask him to bless others since he doesn't seem to be helping me in the areas I feel I need help. And I've heard that you have to do more than ask but do all that you can on your own. Well, there's only so much I can do on my own and that doesn't seem to be enough. And sometimes I just ask for ideas since mine seem to have run out, I feel I get good ideas, but no way to implement them. Anyone else wonder why prayer doesn't seem so reliable?

I doubt I am a good motivator but I do have some thoughts about this that I hope will help you. It may be time for you to switch how you read/study the scriptures. Instead of reading the Book of Mormon from start to finish, choose a subject you want to know more about. Since you mention the basics you may want to find a theme that goes beyond those basics you've been taught and see what answers the scriptures hold for something else. You've mentioned prayer also as an area where you lack motivation. Perhaps reading scriptures that focus on prayer and things about prayer that may be frustrating you will help you with both areas. If time to read in the scriptures is part of the problem, then just read a verse a day to start out with or for a few minutes. I have found that it does help me to remember to read in the scriptures if I have a set time each day when I read. For me that time is when I am going to bed. The scriptures are near by and I always remember to pick them up and read in them. One thing I have found that was a problem for me when I have had difficulty reading consistently in the scriptures is that it was because I didn't have a goal to read in them. So if you have no goal for reading the scriptures then I believe setting one will help you do it regularly until you find more motivation to do so. Set the goal small to start with so that it will be easy to meet and then steadily increase it as needed. I've found the feelings I get from the Holy Ghost every time I read the scriptures help to increase my faith and testimony even when I don't notice gaining any new knowledge or understanding. I hope you find the motivation you need to read in the scriptures regularly and to pray more often.

I guess I'm nit picky too. I chose the option for something else because I believe the story more than the more or less option would seem to me to indicate. Of course it is possible for faulty memory or something else to influence any detail of the story but too me there is no reason for me to not take the story as completely true as told by the Prophet. I'm not going to worry if minor details of the story were wrong for whatever reason and if I ever learn that he did get some of the story wrong I'll just count it as him being human and that it was not intentional.

I've enjoyed the trilogy and watched it many times. I look forward to watching The Hobbit. I've always liked fantasy. I'm pleased to see they've managed to bring back a lot of the same people to play the characters we know from the trilogy.

Bishop's are different from other people in that their calling gives them the right to inspiration for everyone in their ward. Any time they are functioning as a counselor and using inspiration from God that is all the qualification they need and what they say at these times is exactly what you need to hear. I believe in almost all cases that is what is happening and so we should give careful consideration to what they say and what they mean. In the few cases that this doesn't happen, those would be the few times the Bishop makes a mistake. If you ever doubt what a Bishop says you can pray about it and get a confirmation from the same source the Bishop got his from.

I am not sure on how fast it can be done. Of course they could have taken the sample and then do the burial at sea anyway and then confirm later if they can't do the test so quickly. I got the impression from a news report that they could do it quickly but I may have misunderstood.

I wasn't trying to dismiss what officials were saying and no doubt it would have been difficult to find a country to accept his body. But it would not surprise me if there were additional reasons for the burial at sea. Some the news reports I heard indicated that for years the US government has been obtaining DNA samples from Bin Ladins relatives so that they could make a match when they did get him.

I heard about this as I was going into work this morning. One thing that one report mentioned is that this sends a message that when the US decides they will go after someone they will get that someone eventually. I am guessing that many in Al Qeada perhaps even Bin Laden thought that he would never be found especially with how his residence was in plain sight. Well, now they know they were wrong and as another report indicated they are more likely going to be worried that we know where other important leaders and places are and go after them. I don't believe that is all there was to why he was buried at sea. Everything about this operation sounds very well planned. Since the body is now gone no one can build a shrine and say Bin Ladin's body is there. There is no where for people who liked Bin Laden to go and visit his grave. It will not surprise me if people try to say Bin Ladin is still alive. I doubt the US would say he was dead if they had not conducted a DNA test and confirmed it was him. I don't believe it will matter too much if people say he is alive, those in Al Qeada know and will be worried about who in their organization will be next.

I believe, and no I don't have any references handy to support this, that when we hear a still small voice or ideas come into our mind that it is the Holy Ghost we hear and He is the source of our inspiration. It would not surprise me to learn that it was Jesus or God who told the Holy Ghost what to say to us and what inspiration to give us. If after praying I get an answer to my pray I will count it as God answering my prayer but that he let the Holy Ghost deliver his answer to me. I believe that the times that Jesus and God talk directly to someone they actually visit that person and talk face to face. All this doesn't mean we can't hear God's voice or Jesus' voice but it seems to me that the above is how those three communicate with us. Nothing clear is coming to me about the light of Christ or spirit of Christ and so I will leave that for someone else to talk about.

Wow, people think going without these things is that indispensable? I have four children and will be happy to send them all on a mission if they choose to go. I served a mission and know it gave a great boost to my understanding of the gospel and my testimony. What I learned in those two years you can't learn in two years of being connected to all the technology this world has today. And I believe that there are few if any other ways to grow closer to God in a two year time span. Keep up the excitement. Let those people at work know that your son will be informed of anything he needs to know from his mission president , other missionaries, and the people he talks to as he shares the gospel.