MrNirom

Hey.. I was gonna say that!

All I think about is my poor dog hiding and whining under the bed once the fireworks start. Thank for giving me another thing to think about.

So the idea of it being near Niagara Falls is pretty well done?

I love to share the Gospel.. but I have to admit.. it is harder here. People are more willing to say things they would not normally say in a face to face encounter. Plus there just seems to be more people out there that love to argue and degrade.. no real interest. It is a goal of some of the non believers to occupy the time of missionarys.. to keep them from their goal of talking to people who might listen to the message. I have seen this practiced and taught on the web.

The Gospel according to MrNirom: Exodus 20: 4-5 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; This scripture tells us what we are not to do. How many people do you know that have the Cross in their churches.. and kneel to it.. and pray in front of it? Carry it and kiss it? Almost in a way.. worship it? This is the 2nd Great Commandment. We choose not to be associated with the "Standard Symbol" of the rest of the Christian World. We are a peculiar people.

Before I started my way back to the Church.. it was not because of reading the scriptures. I had already done that. What actually brought me back to the Church was prayer. I had a smoking habit. I needed it gone before I could come back. And to get rid of the smoking habit.. I had to get rid of the drinking habit. I could not drink.. and expect not to smoke. I told myself everyday for 20 years.. "Boy.. I need to quit smoking!" So on the 31st of December 2007.. I prayed that the Lord would take this desire from me. For the next 6 weeks.. I was so sick. I had no energy to even get out of bed. I had no desire for anything. I slept all day.. and nights too. I had no desire for a cigarette. By the time I felt better.. my smoking habit was gone. I never had a nicotine fit.. nothing. It is now been 6 months. Cigarette and alcohol free. All based on prayer.. that was really all because of Scripture reading when I first joined the Church.

I get the knowledge. Its like.. I just all of a sudden know its right. Not that I heard the words or anything.. it's like asking a question... going to the library.. and now you know the answer. I just get to skip going to the library (most of the time) Sometimes I get the answer from the library.. LOL Book of Mormon On Line

Thanks.

I can not add to what has already been said. WELL DONE PEOPLE!

Here is my opinion.. for what it is worth. Since The RLDS Church or Community of Christ rejected plural marriage, the progression of the Church and many other things (including the first vision).. they are small in number and now virtually indistinguishable from Protestants.

Here is one from me. If there was progression available to go between kingdoms.. and the Lord told us there was.. Don't you think that most people would probably do everything they wanted to do here on this earth.. and repent later? After all.. if you have all eternity to do it in.. Such is the nature of man.

Can't people change their mind? Maybe... find God? You never know what the stresser was.. but it does happen. :)

I suppose for many people.. who have never "experienced" such things.. it is easy to conjure up all kinds of images of what is being done and said. I am not trying to convince anybody here to change the way they feel about it.. but let me give you "my" experience. My son was accused by his step sister of having intercourse with her. He was 17.. she was 11. He told me.. Dad.. I did not do this. What more could he say? The Government determined in a secret grand jury that he did have sex with her. They set his bail at 1 million dollars. A year later (yes he was in jail the entire time) he had his trial. This child said he did it with her 35 - 40 times in a two year period. She did not give a date that it happened nor a particular weekend nor was she required to. In other words.. there was no way that my son could establish an alibi. It was.. his word versus her word. All I had was his word. He said no.. I did not do it.. she said yes.. you did. This is in a house of 2 adults and 6 children.. and nobody ever saw anything. How could I really know if my son was lying or not? In my mind.. I was told "he didn't do it." I then went to two psychic mediums. A gal by the name of Laurie McQuary. She has appeared on psychic detectives many times. She has helped the police solve many cases. I went to her... and she told me exactly who did it.. that my son did not.. she told me where this person lived.. everything. She also told me that this little girl was exaggerating and adding more to her story to get the attention of her mother. I went to another medium.. (I did not tell either of these mediums why I was there) She connected with my ex wife. The medium said to me.. I have a woman here who is telling me.. it's not my son.. it's not my son. She then went on to explain that my son has been accused of crime he did not commit. She told me that this other person was close to my son, did it.. but that it was not my son. Now I had 3 different sources that told me he was innocent. Yet, he was convicted and sentenced to 12 years.. no probation allowed nor no time off for good behavior. That was 4 years ago. The jury simply believed her story. His story was: "I didn't do it". Now.. some people will say.. Yea.. God did the right thing by putting your son away. If he got convicted.. he must be guilty. God's justice is good. I had the proof I needed to know he was innocent. I gave this info to the police.. but they felt they had their man.. and would do nothing. I could not prove a thing. I still today know that he is innocent.. and there are people who don't believe me. Mediums tell me it is like a water faucet in their mind. They open the faucet.. and the messages come pouring out. To have their mind quieted.. they "turn off" the faucet. So personally.. I believe people do have the ability to do this. But I am sure that God does not want us spending our time pursuing this.. as it as no value in our salvation. Me learning what I did.. did nothing for me on an eternal level. And like most things.. we humans have the ability to "obsess" with many things. It is easier.. to go to a medium.. and hear something from the other side.. than getting on our knees and praying. There are many things that are real and are of God.. that go on in the background. ie.. Guardian Angels. We all talk about them.. believe in them.. but are not told much about them.. Like who they are.. why they do what they do.. etc. There are many things that Joseph Smith said that he was not allowed to tell us about.. Things that we did not need to know about.. yet they were still real and there. I no longer visit mediums. But I can not deny what I have learned from them.. It is just more information I received on things that don't really play an important part in my salvation. Kinda like knowing that Jesus Christ created worlds without end. We only see and hear about our world.. and are told not to concern ourselves with all the others as their existence is not relevant to us. It is information we have..but in no way does it affect our salvation by either knowing about it.. or not knowing about it. But Satan can easily convince people to "believe" more in the mediums that in the spirit of the Holy Ghost. And there is where lies the deception. That is his "hook" to be deceived. We know that Satan does divulge truth.. to capture. Teach a little truth here.. a little there.. and so he allows the truth to be taught through the mediums. The more you listen to the mediums.. the more you believe.. the more you believe.. the easier at some point in time to be deceived. Is that not what we believe about all the other churches? They have "some" truth.. just not all. That there is a little truth here and a little truth there. People from other religions feel the Spirit of the Holy Ghost testify to them. What is he testifying to? The truth that is being taught at that time.. right? Is that not what non-Mormons claim about us anyway? They too feel that we have been deceived by Satan and have been blinded by our faith by believing in a "seer", a "revelator", named Joseph Smith? A man who saw and talked to Historical and Biblical people who are "dead". The parallel is amazing. So I do understand the warnings... and I do heed them. :)

I was just reading about this this morning. It is from Fair See here It is often not the Lord's pattern to give reasons for His commandments. Any "reasons" which we attach, in retrospect, to plural marriage can only be based on supposition and intelligent deduction. Any such list as this is tentative. But, it reminds us plural marriage may have accomplished more than we sometimes appreciate. Some benefits which have been suggested include: 1. It was to try (prove) His people. Polygamy stood as an Abrahamic test for the saints. The willingness to obey a commandment that was inherently distasteful to the vast majority of the members of the Church allowed members to draw close to the Lord. 2. It was to "raise up" righteous seed. Specifically it allowed a relatively few righteous men to become very prolific in a time when the West was very wild and there were many unrighteous men. Children were raised in more households with a strong gospel commitment. 3. It served to "set apart" his people as a peculiar people to the world. This social isolation that gave the church space to solidify itself into an identity independent of the many denominations from which the membership was derived. Sociologists have discovered that in order for a religion to successfully grow it has to be demanding and it has to experience a moderate amount of tension with its host society. The RLDS Church rejected plural marriage and coincidently are small in number and now virtually indistinguishable from Protestants. 4. Polygamy was part of the "restoration of all things," and a way for Mormons to feel connected with prophets like Abraham and Jacob. 19th century Mormons gained a greater appreciation for covenants that these forefathers made with God. 5. Numerous family ties that were created, building a network of associations that strengthened the Church. 6. Arguably polygamy affected higher natural growth rates. Ironically plural wives had fewer children than their monogamous Mormon counterparts. [2] 7. Polygamy created a system where a higher percentage of women and men got married compared to the national average at the time. [3] 8. Plural marriages increased competition in the marriage market, so the "slacker" and "loser" men had to work to improve their standing to compete. They had to clean up, try to get good jobs, and treat the women with respect. It gave the women more options as to whom to marry. 9. Out on the frontier in 19th century life expectancy was low and women were not as economically independent as they are today. Therefore there was a large amount of widows (and orphans coming of age) that needed to be taken care of. Furthermore Brigham instituted the most liberal divorce in the country so women (but not men!) could get out of unhappy marriages. Kathryn Daynes estimated that 30% of plural marriages came from married-before women. [4] 10. Church Historian Elder Jensen's observed how Mormon polygamy enabled women more freedom to earn college degrees and join national women's rights organizations at the time. [5] 11. Polygamy helped integrate foreign immigrants into Mormon society. With the marriage market operating so efficiently and women highly sought after, Utah men had to sometimes marry outside their preferred cultural boundaries. This provided a great way to redistribute the wealth to the immigrants families coming. [6] 12. Plural marriages provided a social support network while the husbands were off on missions. Concerning blacks and the priesthood.. again from FAIR. Circumstances which preceded the 1978 revelation In 1954, after visiting the struggling South African mission, David O. McKay began to consider lifting the ban. In a conversation with Sterling McMurrin, he said, "It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice will some day be changed."[4] This was a departure from a 1949 First Presidency statement defending the ban as doctrinal, indicating a shift in his opinion. Leonard Arrington reported that President McKay formed a special committee of the Twelve that "concluded there was no sound scriptural basis for the policy but that church membership was not prepared for its reversal."[5] However, David O. McKay felt that only a revelation could end the ban. Sometime between 1968 and his death in 1970 he confided his prayerful attempts to church architect, Richard Jackson, "I’ve inquired of the Lord repeatedly. The last time I did it was late last night. I was told, with no discussion, not to bring the subject up with the Lord again; that the time will come, but it will not be my time, and to leave the subject alone."[6]. As McKay's health declined, his counselor, Hugh B. Brown, attempted to lift the ban as an administrative decision. However, it became even clearer that a century of precedent was difficult to reverse without a revelation, especially when some members and leaders—echoing George Q. Cannon—felt there might be a revelatory basis for the policy. As the church expanded its missionary outreach and temple building programs, leaders continued to run into problems of black ancestry preventing the building of local leadership in certain areas, most notably Brazil. The prayerful attempts to obtain the will of God intensified. Finally in June 1978, a revelation that "every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood" was received and later canonized as Official Declaration 2.

Whoops.. if it sounded like I was saying the children were of Satan.. that is not what I meant. I meant the ability. Sorry.

So.. the picture I am getting from everyone.. is that these children with this ability.. are of satan. No members of the church have this ability to see or speak with the other side. It is only given to "outsiders". Is that correct?

D&C 137:9 9 For I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts. Only the Lord knows the heart of man.

I just knew there would be one in the crowd.. LOL

Some rag on the Church if they do say something.. and then rag on the Church if they don't. You can't please all the people.. all the time... So why try? Just please God.

Where's the missing link? LOL

I was watching a program last night that was about two children.. ages 12 and 14 who had the ability to see, feel, and communicate with those who have crossed over. While I was inactive for 20 years.. I had several opportunities to visit with psychic mediums. In all honesty.. they do have that ability to speak with loved ones. And I have learned much about "the other side". What my question is here.. is why do we think.. (that children who can be as young as 4 or like the two children I mentioned above).. that these children are given this ability? From the program.. these children did not want or seek their "powers". But now that they had them.. they had to learn about them.. and what to do with them. As a member of the Church.. do you know of anyone in the Church with these abilities. If so.. what does he/she do about it.. and what does the Church tell us? It seems to me to be more prevalent these days. I can say from my experience.. that it has given me less faith.. and more knowledge.. that there is life after life. I have experienced first hand communication from my Mother and my ex wife and others who have cross over. Just wondering if anyone else has?

The Lord knows what is in your heart. I am sure he has no problem teaching slowly so you can "get it" The main thing here is you are trying and moving forward. One step at a time... with your goal in mind. Bless you. Your spirit knows the truth. Just Listen.

I have heard nothing on this topic. Though we can speculate.. and it seems plausible.. I personally will not be teaching this. I won't have to worry about it until I get to the CK anyway.. and I am sure I will be enlightened at that time. Until then.. I got my nose to grindstone and shoulder to the wheel. :)

Women can only be sealed once. If she was sealed to her first husband.. she would marry her next husband "until death to they part" only. Same if her 2nd husband died and she married a 3rd. Now.. there has been cancellations of sealings for women so they can be sealed to another for all time and eternity. But I don't know what the rules are for that. From my understanding.. the First Presidency are the only ones who can cancel a sealing. If someone else knows different.. speak up.

I am thinking out loud here... but he mentioned "Voice of the Martyrs" So I am guessing it was a tie in somehow because Joseph was martyred.. and we remember him on this day for that... so he was bringing up other people who have also been.. Just my thinking here.