RickJ

Wingnut - I love the sound of your Sunday School Teacher, he has the same sense of humour as I do. He didn't come from Australia by any chance :-)

Hi wingnut - that is exactly what I do and it leads in to a much more interesting conversation (to me anyway) of my conversion story; any chance for me to talk about me is a good thing (isn't it?).

anotherbrick, I am a convert to the church, I joined when I was 25. It is funny but I have found some discrimination about not having served a mission as well but mine is not from LDS females. In point of fact I have married a lovely girl who was raised in the church, to her the fact that I did not serve was irrelevant. Where the discrimination has come from for me was from Current and Returned Missionaries. 80% of those that I meet for the first time immediately ask me where did I serve my mission. I get out the line "I didn't serve a mission..." and watch a brick-wall go up and have had some of these men turn away from me instantly and start talking to other people. What I was going to say to them was "I didn't serve a mission because I joined the church at 25, was working already and had a widowed mother to support but my wife and I feel that we will serve missions together later in life." Honestly, don't let it get to you. There is a girl out there for you, the right girl and she will love you and want to be with you forever because of who you are, not because you served a mission.

1st Thessalonians 4:16-17 uses the exact term "shall be caught up" when talking about all those that will be alive and remain on the planet at the time that the Saviour returns.

At the 2nd Coming of Christ all the righteous will be caught up to meet him. My sweet heart and I have read a number of books written by Church General Authorities on the subject and these are a few of the things we have found in our studies: * ANYONE that can abide a Terrestrial existence (LDS or not) will survive the 2nd coming and live through the millennium. My mother is a devout Catholic and has lived her entire life in accordance with her understanding of her religion - why should she be denied the chance to see him come again or live a millennial existence. * All religions will exist during the millennium, but as it draws closer to and end then all people will be converted to the Church of the First Born. I think that many many people will be surprised to see the Saviour enter our chapels and temples but I think many LDS members will be even more surprised to see him enter many other religions buildings to minister to them as well. * During the millennium all people of the earth will have the opportunity to hear the message and bend their knee and confess that Jesus is The Christ. * At the end of the Millennium, when Satan is loosed again, there will be many of us who will again side with him in the final struggle even after living a 1000 years in the living presence of the Saviour. If you can try to get a book called "Behold I Come Quickly" and ... another book whose names escapes me right now, and I can't find it in our library. I'll find it and post it here.

I love the story of the change wrought in Zacchaeus by the Saviour and then highlighting it with the lack of willingness to change by the "rich young man".

hmmmm... it makes me think of the 9th article of faith, in particular the last few words: "...we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." No, we don't know all the truth at this time and I think once the millennium is brought forth and final judgment takes place we will not be LDS anymore. We will all be members of the Kingdom of God and the need for a defined religion will be gone as there will be only one. We having many truths that have been revealed to us but there are many many more yet to come. My wife and I also tend to look on our Church as the most correct church on Earth (I know, some people will look down their noses at that). All others have some degree of truth in them but we have the restored truth with us. Members of other religions will eventually be converted to the Kingdom of God - not the LDS church per se.

Files are much much worse - especially the manilla folder kind ;-p

"Eliphas Levi (born Alphonse Louis Constant), a former Roman Catholic priest, in 1856 turned the previously harmless Jewish and Christian pentagram into a ridiculous Satanic symbol. In the nineteenth century Eliphas Lévi, an Occultist, was the first to adapt the inverted pentagram as symbolic of evil." You will find most "satanists" impose it over the face of a goat, claiming it represents the face of the beast. All rather laughable really and introduced by the person mentioned above around the middle of last century.

Struth, a host of flies is nuttin. You guys should try being so hot your flat out like a lizard drinkin'. Too right, cobber, crikey its a bonza day for a quick dip. Man, am I glad I have that bit of Ockerism out of me... now I can speak normally. AnthonyB - nice to see another Aussie sitting pretty here on the forum.

Aren't there a couple of issues at hand here? 1. the bodies gender. In some cases this can become "confused" due to birth defects etc and results in some of he issues spoken about. All humans start development as a female fetus and at a certain stage of inter-uterine development hormones fire that cause the development of male genitalia. Sometimes these hormones miss-fire and un-intended differences result. 2. the brains gender. Again at a certain point during development other hormones fire that result in the development of certain areas of the brain. Should these hormones mis-fire the the result can be a female "wired" brain in a male body or vice-versa. In relation to the whether we choose the gender we want prior to coming to earth I believe that I was male in the pre-existence and was male when I came to earth.

true story... We took a long week end away at the start of November. On the Friday morning we went down to the local supermarket to get supplies for the week end. as we are wandering through picking up bits and pieces our 4 year old daughter is talking away (well she hardly ever stops really) and she is telling me about all the things she loves about being in our family. As we turned the corner at the end of one of the aisles we passed one of the "free tiny morsel" ladies setting up for the day. As we came abreast of her Emma was still reciting her list of things she loved and promptly piped up with "and i really love your guts dad, I love you guts soooooo much". Well I thought it was kinda a cute and thought "Oh, how sweet she is just trying to say how very much she loves me". The "morsel lady" was quietly giggling to herself so I gave her a smile an d thought that was it until a little voice behind me finished her statement... "Yeah dad, I love them sooo much because they are so soft and squishy when I put my head on them, they a better than my pillow." At this point I bent down to help the "morsel lady" get back up from where she had collapsed in howls of laughter.

I converted to the church 15 years ago, am very happily married have 5 lovely children and another one on the way. I am looking forward to sharing things with everyone as I enjoy this type of social interaction. Not really sure what else to say right now...

thank you, thank you, thank you.

Hi nc Bearing your testimony and having him come to support you is great. All it takes is little seeds to be planted for big fields to be harvested. I am a convert to the church and have struggled a lot with staying strong, I have not let my wife know of my struggles as I don't want to burden her with them but I keep going. She is such a rock and nothing ever seems to shake her, or at least it didn't until we lost a baby at the end of last year. That really rocked her testimony and she started to question so very much. Her desire to go to church and other meetings faded and I suddenly found that my rock and anchor in life was not as strong as I thought. Then I found that the roles reversed and for a long time I became the one that got us all off to church each Sunday and made sure that young womens and faith in god was attended. I guess what I am saying is that it may come as a big surprise one day when you discover that he is standing right next to you, walking with you and supporting you through your life as a member (whether he is a member or not) and then suddenly that temple marriage will happen and the joy that the two of you will feel will be more than you can speak of. You are part of my prayers and I hope that he continues to develop the testimony that I think he already has and has been developing while watching you do what you know is right.