Faded

Original Poster's last login was 9/22/2010 -- so right after getting absolutely blasted by some initial responses. I'm not going to say that the advice wasn't valid. It was. But anyone who can add 2+2 can easily guess how well those responses were received. I think we've all been guilty of being overly sharp and critical a little too quickly. I'm guilty of it certainly. But it certainly doesn't help this particular poster to be blasted and then they never log in again to see any further responses. We could all use to temper our advice with a lot more compassion.

It's a very poor substitute for the more targeted prescription drug. And like the OP, I very seldom touched any caffeine at all in the many years prior to diagnosis.

100% true. I do think it became a bit of a fad diagnosis with children who were struggling in school -- which is unfortunate because this led many to disregard many of the legitimate children with the problem for real. In adults, it absolutely is under-diagnosed because only the most extreme cases ever seemed to merit any action -- those cases bordering on needing institutionalization. I would be the perfect example of a person who got overlooked as a child, and was right on the verge of adulthood when I got diagnosed -- mainly because the general recognition of ADD was just becoming widespread, and frankly my mother was desperate to figure out what was wrong. She had long had the spiritual insight telling her something was wrong and that there was more to it than just "you son is an unbelievably lazy genius." Incidentally, I have a friend who used to be medicated for ADD. Let me say, he really needs to get re-medicated. He's not fully functional as an adult and now untreated ADD is creating a lot of problems for him that he doesn't have to have. He copes and he compensates, but I can tell he needs the chemical imbalance to be compensated for. It's not doing his life many favors staying off of the meds. Sometimes I just worry that we tend to go overboard on medicating everybody on God's green earth for something. Something about that doesn't seem quite right.

I'm 35 and have dealt with severe ADHD all my life, though it was not recognized as such until my senior year of High School. What I got up to that point was psychologist after psychologist after psychologist that my parents took me to. I didn't do terribly well in school, and this didn't bother them until an IQ test was run on me and they realized that their mediocre-to-poor achieving son was absolutely brilliant. My parents knowing their son was a genius (by IQ score) was a curse for me rather than a blessing. I went from 5th grade to 12th knowing with absolute certainty that I was just habitually unbelievably lazy. It also comes with a great deal of social awkwardness -- something almost anyone else easily recognizes as inappropriate to say or do, folks with ADHD will quite often impulsively do anyway. The inappropriate things even makes logical sense -- to them. High School is filled with embarrassing and awkward memories from those sorts of things. When I finally got diagnosed and medicated as a senior in High School, the world transformed night to day. I had to do a significant amount of adjusting and modifying of behavior certainly, but the world was less chaotic and more calm. If you do have ADHD or some variant of it, by all means get medicated. But I do agree with the principal of what Skippy is saying. ADD is quite possibly the most over-diagnosed mental disability out there today. Doesn't help that doctors in the USA get kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies when the prescribe a lot of medication, necessary or not. If you get diagnosed but the medication doesn't seem to make a difference, then you've likely been falsely diagnosed. At that point, stop taking it. A word of caution there: Give it a year or so to make a difference. It doesn't transform you overnight. It compensates for a neural-transmitter imbalance in your brain. You'll still have all the same habits and tendencies, but you'll have greater will power with which to make yourself a better you. With the ADD thing in mind, the best way to pray is to be actively doing something else at the time. Personal favorite for me during my childhood was taking long walks by myself at night. The world was calm and I could speak to my Heavenly Father out loud, with the backdrop of the stars and the universe above me. While driving from place to place also works. The thing that helped for me was to be able to pray out loud rather than silently. Helped focus my thoughts on the prayer. Makes it feel more like an actual conversation. Also just having something else going on other than the prayer itself helped -- the driving, the walking, etc. Kneeling and praying even to this day is not a very effective way for me to pray. The mind wanders to easily. To gain a testimony, you need to have a solid idea of what you're actually praying about in the back of your mind. wouldn't hurt to copy the Book of Mormon audio files from the Church website onto an IPOD or something like that. Start with a prayer to know if it is true, then take a walk while listening. Pay attention to the words and try to really visualize what is going on. Imagine yourself in the shoes of the Book of Mormon characters. How would you have acted in their place? Stop the audio when you want to pray and think some more about it to test and see how it is making you feel. That's just one approach among many possible approaches. I can't know what is going to work for you, but it should give you some idea.s Good luck!

It kinda goes without saying that you'll find garbage when you go looking for "unbiased" sources explaining Mormonism. There is just so much material that has been pulled out of thin air to attempt to discredit the LDS Church. The sad truth is that you will seldom ever find an unbiased account of our beliefs, leaving LDS historians and scholars to make up for it by seeking to do the non-LDS historian's job for them and publishing objective and unbiased works. Some of it uses real events and absolutely butchers the telling of them. Some of them make up facts from nothing (or cite an earlier "scholar" who made up facts from nothing.) Ultimately, we've come to expect this sort of behavior. It's a sign that follows any people of God anytime in the history of the world. The Jews and Israelites were hated. As you may remember in the Book of Ester a corrupt nobility attempted to contrive an excuse to kill every Jew in the Persian Empire. Consider the Great Fire of Rome as another example. Nero did it and everyone knew it then and knows it now. But he needed to redirect the blame such that the people of Rome with their eyes wide open would welcome the lie. So he just singled out the most lied about, hated, and misunderstood group of people in the entire empire and everyone welcomed the opportunity to massacre the Christians. "According to Tacitus, the population searched for a scapegoat and rumors held Nero responsible.[83] To deflect blame, Nero targeted Christians. He ordered Christians to be thrown to dogs, while others were crucified and burned. Tacitus (a respected historian and a Roman senator at the time) described the event:" "Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [or Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired." What had the Christians done to deserve such treatment? Absolutely nothing. The same is true today, though thankfully the world is a lot more civilized place than in the days of Rome.

The crappy TV contract is going to be the death of the Mountain West. It's helpful to nobody. It keeps teams from being seen nationally. And the pay stinks too. Seems that TCU would be a great fit for the Big 12 whenever they wake up and realize that going without a conference championship game is going to guarantee they just about never play in a BCS National Championship game. The Big East would mean longer trips for the same or weaker SOS than they have currently. I think they would be wiser to wait out for the Big 12 to try and get back to 12 teams. Of your available Mountain West teams, BYU is still their best prospect in terms of revenue. One thing that could drastically change the future of the Mountain West would be if the Big 12 eventually really does collapse or see even more defections. At that point in time, the stubborn idiot powers that be of the Mountain West needs to be willing to renegotiate everything for everyone, and if they play it right, they end up with a very powerful conference -- and maybe even get BYU back in the process. Should be interesting to watch it play out.

I say this as a BYU fan -- but it seems like BYU is going to fit in very well with the At Large Independent crowd: Army 3-1 Navy 2-1 Notre Dame 1-3 Brigham Young 1-4 It really can't be helped, but this is an absolutely LOUSY time for BYU to be looking this bad. Marching towards their independence with the worst start to a season in memory ... not good.

Welcome and welcome back!

I wonder if this is why Russell and his followers came to reject the existence of the human spirit and concluded that the unbeliever (non-Jehovah's Witness in their currently thinking) simply ceases to be when they die -- at least that's my understanding of what they believe. You might have a better way of explaining it.

I don't know if every convert to the Church has the same experience PC. Everyone's experience is vastly different, though there is frequently something that led the person to feel disillusioned about the faith they started out in. This is understandable of course, since we are most open to prompting when we're searching for God and have set aside our preconceived notions. But it absolutely is not the same story in every case. Every story is just a little bit different. The vast majority read the Book of Mormon with and open mind and pray about it. That is the biggest commonality of conversion.

Awesome, awesome thing to hear about curtishouse!! It takes me back to my own first time through the Book of Mormon (the first time I really understood it) in Junior High School. I couldn't stop reading it and it was just so very powerful! Was through it in four weeks, Isaiah chapters and all. Congratulations on your witness. It's a beautiful thing!

The same is true today, though it's Elder Boyd K Packer that seems to be the new favorite apostle to attack.Seems that those who fearlessly and unyieldingly defend truth are the ones most often targeted by critics. It should be pointed out that areas where Elder McConkie offended some people are not things that were found in commonly in his addresses to the Church. Most of those will never say anything about blacks and the priesthood or about the RCC being the Great and Abominable Church. Those were his opinions, one of which he later recanted entirely (blacks and the priesthood.) These are areas where people like to snipe and nitpick at the human imperfections of an amazing man and fearless defender of Christ and of the faith.

The above is how I did it. The memory is fuzzy because I was quite young. I do remember the feelings of spiritual elation while reading through the Book of Mormon the first time. It was quite powerful and almost felt like I was floating (though that's not the right wording for it.) When I was baptized at the age of 8, I already had a definite knowledge that the Church was true. I don't have a clear enough memory but I know I prayed and received answers. The baptism itself I remember very, very clearly. It was an absolutely overwhelming rush of the Spirit through my entire body. I could feel my heart beating in my chest. It will always stand out as one of the most powerful spiritual experiences of my life. At that time, confirmation was right after the baptism, and when I was to told to receive the Holy Ghost, the whole spiritual experience was amplified even more. I'm always puzzled by life-time members who say they either can't remember their baptism or they didn't really know what they were doing at the time. I certainly knew what I was doing, knew it was the right thing to do. So my testimony already existed. I have to guess that I was 5 or 6 when I first came to know without a doubt that the Church was true and Christ was real and all of those things. Unfortunately, I do have to guess as I don't remember clearly enough.

The distinguishing factor is that even as far back as St Augustine, the traditional Christian view is that the canon is closed. St Augustine taught this as have many Catholic and Eastern scholars. The feature that all traditional forms of Christianity have in common is the notion that the canon is closed. So the writings of St Augustine, Dante or Jerome are not given equal standing with Scripture. The Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed is not given the same standing with Scripture. Stories of faith and miracles are not given the same standing either. The Bible is held up as a closed record wherein revelation from God came with greater authority than what exists today. The Catholic Scriptures do not include the Bible + all of the decisions (cannons) of every Ecumenical Council's decisions + All Relevant Creeds of Faith + revelations to Popes through the centuries. Their scriptures specifically include the Bible and that's it. Everything else is, while considered to be valid, is considered to be something lesser than the Biblical texts. Likewise, the Pope is not held to be an apostle. He is held to be the successor of the apostles, but the Pope is lesser than an apostle in the Catholic view (as I understand it anyways.) Pentecostals and other charismatic religions believe in modern day revelation, but won't go so far as to add to the canon of scripture with anything of those revelations. Sacred Tradition is generally founded in Ecumenical councils or similar things. Anyways, it falls into following the Pope and/or the priesthood leadership of their church.

The guideline for gaining a testimony is simple enough. Read and learn about the core foundational elements of the Restored Gospel: God is real. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We are Children of God the Father. Joseph Smith is a true prophet and apostle sent by God. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. Learn what you're praying about and then take it to your Father in Heaven. The answers come quickly for some and more slowly for others. The keys to this can be found in the scriptures. A.) Study out what you are praying about in your own mind. Remember that God is merciful and that he will be merciful to you.B.) Pray to God your Eternal Father in Heaven and ask if it's true. But the scripture is more explicit than "pray and you get an answer." You must pray in faith. You must be sincere. You must have real intent -- meaning that if you know it's true you're going to live up to everything that goes with it: You will be baptized if you're not already a member. You will keep the commandments. You will heed the words of living prophets as well as the words of Joseph Smith and all that came before him. You will covenant with Jesus Christ to live as he has commanded, always remembering him and relying on his Atonement whenever you fall short. C.) Heavenly Father will reveal the truth of it to you by the Holy Ghost. The answers don't always come immediately. Sometimes it takes a long time and a lot of mental exertion in prayer in order to receive your answer. See Enos 1

It's always so neat to hear these stories of extraordinary faith. As I come from many generations in the Church on all forks of my family tree, I will never get to experience the Church in the same way that you and every other convert has. You get to discover it after years of going without it, so your appreciation for what you have found is going to tend to be much greater than mine. And you get to have the "night to day difference" type of discovery that I'll never experience. Some converts say they wish they had lived in the Church all their lives because that way they'd understand everything better. But they are so blessed by having that powerful awakening experience coming into the Church of Jesus Christ and knowing what it is like to live without it. I'm a little envious of you and other converts in that sense. I do not envy the wrongs that were done to you, but I greatly admire the faith you demonstrated in enduring such extreme trials. Is the current "eternal companion" the same guy that "threatened to kill me for it (and nearly did)" or did you divorce and remarry at some point?

The interesting bit is that you can read the Doctrine and Covenants at the same time. The revelations are inserted in the History of the Church as they happened relative to the events chronicled. I'm currently at my in-laws house and I use their bookshelf in their spare room as a makeshift desk. I'm looking at a copy of History of the Church that looks a lot like my own copy. I don't remember how much I paid for it though.

It is far from ideal when a young man or woman goes on their mission and doesn't have a solid testimony. I know I did many, many years before going on my mission. I always found tales of missionaries actually gaining their testimony while on their mission to be ... strange. Some people grow up living on borrowed light. Their parents have solid testimonies and their children take it for granted that since their parents know it's right, then it must be right. My parents were very good at impressing upon each of their children the necessity of going and getting your own witness. The Church is no slouch there either. It is possibly one of the greatest focuses of weekly services: To ensure that everyone has their own witness of the truth. One Sunday a month is dedicated to the sharing of personal witnesses of the truth. There's really no good excuse. The only reason that people can make it all the way through childhood and adolescence without gaining their own testimony of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel is laziness. Which brings us back to "living on borrowed light." Every missionary should have a burning witness of the truth BEFORE they go on their mission. The way the Missionary Training Center operates, it should be an extreme rarity to actually get all the way to the mission field without a testimony. The MTC tries very hard to be sure you've got it before you go and that what you've already got is greatly strengthened. But ultimately it is 100% on the individual to pray and find out. No amount of coaxing can guarantee they'll actually do it. Those that do get all the way to the field run into the very crisis you mention: "How can I be telling these people to get a witness of their own if I don't have one myself?" So for those that get all the way to the mission field without, the problem tends to be rectified via panic in fairly short order.

Love British comedies in general. Old-school favorite is Monty Pythons. Recent favorite is The IT Crowd. But my favorite comedian is life itself. Life is hilarious!

I guess what has me puzzled is that the vast majority of people you run into out there seem to only know one thing about "Mormons": They know that we have more than one wife -- which we don't of course. Seeing as how the one "fact" they think they know is completely false, it intrigues me. So many pastors, priests and ministers will actively preach to their flock about "the dangers of Mormonism." Clearly they're not bothering to dispel the myth. I think the majority just lie by omission, letting the mythology do the work of "keeping them scared of Mormonism" for them. Most of the propagandist garbage that Melissa569 is mentioning came from somewhere. In the 1800's and earlier in the 1900's it most certainly did come from the ministers of religion who fanned the flames of sensationalist opinions and fabricated all manner of stories to scare their followers and make Mormons sound as bad as possible. If the majority do not continue to perpetuate blatant faslehoods about us, that's a step in the right direction. But seeing how most of the lies came from their fellow ministers of yesteryear, it seems reasonable enough to expect them to actively seek to dispell the myths and right those wrongs. And yes there are some "Christian" ministries that continue to invent false information who do so with the support and blessing of the larger Christian denominations. Pastors, priests and ministers buy their books and publications as text to help them preach against Mormonism to their congregations. They're a little more careful about being overly sensationalist because in this day and age, people are a little less gullible than in generations past. "Mormons have horns" isn't likely to be believed for instance. Ultimately, what I don't see happening is an accurate portrayal of our beliefs and lifestyle being conveyed. What people have heard about Mormons and what we actually are is night to day different in almost every case.

Pray often. Pray always. Keep praying. But prayer alone is not enough. Yes God will help you but he never forces you to do what is right. What you need is a good battle plan. Start asking yourself, "How, where or when do I get myself into trouble?" Then focus on changing those things. I noticed that you mentioned going to bars leads to trouble. Well, the solution is simple enough: Just don't go. But the better answer is not to "just not go." That leaves the door open for impulsiveness and rebelliousness. The better strategy is to fill up the time you would have spend doing things you shouldn't have with activities that are uplifting or at least benign and that don't afford the chance for relapse. The same holds true for your sorta/kinda boyfriend (it's unclear how official you two are.) If being alone with him leads to trouble, then don't be alone with him. Put together group dates or only go places together where there is no opportunity for misbehaving. Try to sort out how you can best deny yourself the opportunity to give into your weaknesses. Exercising while listening to scriptures on CD or going and doing service projects or charity work are all things that work well at filling your spare time with too much good to offer a chance to relapse. If you relapse anyways, just stick with it! Don't ever give up, don't ever surrender! Living your life with Christ is not about never sinning, it's about picking yourself up every single time you fall. God Bless, Faded

Just realized I miscounted. The seventh President of the Church to go clean-shaven rather than bearded wasn't Benson, it was Hunter. So that means that Gordon B Hinckley's presidency was where the tie was broken and the clean shaven actually became the majority. The fact that there was such a long stretch of bearded prophets, followed by a long stretch of clean shaven just verifies my point: There's nothing official about it, it's just based upon the social norms of the era. Also, Brigham Young had long hair at one point when he was a prophet of God: Maybe it's not super-long, but I think it conveys the point.

I don't think a clear enough answer has been given to these concerns. Elder Bruce R McConkie lived and died as an Apostle of Jesus Christ. At no point did he leave the Church, nor was he ever relieved or removed from the Apostlehship. Nothing even remotely close to this ever happened. He is one of the brightest, most accomplished scholars in our history. His first edition of "Mormon Doctrine" contained some things that were speculative and/or unofficial. Some of the content was a bit undiplomatic as well. The First Presidency asked McConkie to amend those parts, and in so doing "Mormon Doctrine" better aligns itself with the official Church teachings. It still does contain some speculative and unoffical content on some hot-button issues, the curse upon Cain and his descendants being a major one. It's the title of the book that leads people to assume that everything in "Mormon Doctrine" is the official position of the Church. The VAST majority of the content therein aligns perfectly with the official Church stance. Some of the content goes beyond the official Church position, attempting to explain and reason out things we don't have a revealed explanation from God for. It's on those touchy, highly sensative issues where "Mormon Doctrine" and other published works of McConkie get people riled up and angry. And it's got nothing to do with McConkie actually trying to be offensive. He just speaks his mind and tells you why he thinks things happened the way they did. He doesn't ever actually contradict the official stance of the Church, but some might say he creates "official policy" where there is none. The reality is he's just sharing his strongly held opinion on the matter.

I know, the point is I'm not copying and pasting from "Mormon Doctrine" by Bruce R McConkie. I'm copying and pasting from the official Book of Mormon manual for teaching Sunday School. The manual just happens to quote Elder McConkie. The underlying thing is this: If you want an "official position" go to the books that have "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" stamped on the binding and/or cover. The Book of Mormon manual quotes Bruce's revised entry from "Mormon Doctrine" thereby endorsing that as the official position of the Church on the matter. "Mormon Doctrine" itself does not have the name of the Church stamped on the binding or cover, but most if not all of its contents are accurate. But if you want an official position, you go to official publications. Ultimately, I think the best answer to the question is that the Great Whore and Great and Abominable Church are the shepherds that lead God's children away from God rather than leading them towards Him.

For an official position, you go to the book/manual officially endorse by the Church. The Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual has this much to say: Insofar as any actual Church intentionally leads people away from God and into blindness and sin, they are doing the will of Satan and not God. Thereby they are the antithesis of the shepherds in God's Kingdom, seeking to lead God's children into eternal damnation, misery and despair. It represents all organizations that zealously attack the true Gospel of Jesus Christ wherever it appears. Insofar as the Catholic Church may have once done so in any way, then for that period of their existence they would become part of the Great and Abominable Church. The RCC of today really doesn't fit the description though. I would leave it to the student of history to determine if the RCC ever was. A better qualifier would be this: Can you think of any organizations or entities whose goals lead humankind away from God? Are there any organizations that seek to demonize and/or persecute the Restored Church and Kingdom of Jesus Christ? Yes there are such organizations and by doing what they do, whether knowingly or in ignorance, they do the will of Satan and become the Great and Abominable Church. They are the shepherds leading the sheep away from Christ and towards disaster.