EandLDOW

Jamie123, actually I have not "built my life around" the gospel. I was nearly 30 when I was baptised and became a member, and it was a couple of years after that when I found out and "knew", before that I had "believed". Glad you know you're a sinner, we all are. And more glad you know that God hasn't, and won't, give up on you. He loves you. why doubt? As for how I know, and know I'm not decieved, it's like explaining what salt tastes like. I know it was the Holy Ghost for a certainty, just can only say when you know, you'll know, and you'll know you know.

All I'm saying is that when God advises you to do or not do something, it's for your own good. Why not follow the advice of God? What exceptions could there be? Do you think God would tell you to do or not to do something and that advice would be harmful to you in some way?

Let's see. God is a god of truth, cannot lie, He loves his children, will not lead them astray, He's perfect in every way, and is unchanging. The Godhead included Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. All are "God", perfectly united in their love, knowledge, power, motivation, purposes. God, in this case the Holy Ghost, has told me clearly that the Church is true, that Jesus Christ is our Savior, that Joseph smith is the Prophet of God through whom Jesus Christ restored His gospel, His Church and His Priesthood, and brought forth the Book of Mormon for our benefit, and that Thomas S. Monson is God's Prophet living on the Earth today. So, since God told me these things, then yes, I do "know" them as true fact, incontrovertable, beyond any doubt or question.

Hopefully we'll all study it carefully after it's introduced to the Church in the November Worldwide Leadership Broadcast. It would be really nice if every one actually followed it. I can hardly wait.

"I'm not trying to justify anything it was merely an example. perhaps if you reread the previous posts before mine you would understand why i said what i said. The statement was made that feeling comfortable or being willing to do something in front of the savior was the measure to use when determining what is right or wrong. I simply disagree there are a number of things which many people would feel comfortable doing in front of the savior which are explicitly not ok." That's easy to say, but I have to believe they think they'll be comfortable simply because they don't really know the Lord and what His standards are. When the time comes that they do stand before the Lord, they probably won't be so comfortable. "well of course one will receive more blessings and be closer to god for fallowing all commandments and council. however to get back to the original purpose of the thread, is there a fundamental difference between council and commandment?" Did you just answer your own question? When we know the Lord, that he is perfect, loves us perfectly, took upon himself all our sins and ailments, heartaches and disappointments, and wants nothing but for us to become truly happy and become like him, and when he , or his servants, give us commandments, counsel, advice, or whatever you want to call it, that it's for our own good.......well, why would you not want to do it?? Just simply out of stubborness? Maybe pride? maybe rebelliousness?

Actually it is possible to "know" for a certainty of the truthfullness of the gosple. When the Holy ghost testifies to your soul, your spirit, that it is true, then you know, nothing doubting. Receiving a visitation of Christ in person will not make that knowledge any more certain, receiving such a visitation without that testimony of the Holy Ghost will not instill that knowledge. Many of the prophets have testified that their experience is so. Not everyone does know, many believe. Many put forth the effort and faith to find out, many fear or doubt and so don't find out. It's really up to you, according to the good time and will of the Lord. I, for one, do know.

I rated as an INFJ Idealist, with 67%, 38%, 12% and 44% as percentages, for what that's worth. These tests are too general and vague to be of much practical value. Like a horoscope or Chinese lunar calendar animal signs, they are somewhat on target and somewhat way off base.

If you put some candy or cookies in one corner of a room, a favorite toy in another corner, and perhaps some money or other object in another corner, you probably can predict which corner your child or grandchild will go to first. It will vary depending on the child's personality. Yes, Heavenly Father knows what choices we will make before we make them. But in order to preserve our agency and to permit a just judgement at the end, he lets us make our choice, and live with the consequences. Father also already knows the consequences, both of sin and of righteousness, they are set by eternal law. That's why he sends prophets to warn us of the consequences of sin, and give us the opportunity to repent and change our decisions before it's too late. An example would be Jonah's mission to Ninevah, a wicked city destined for destruction, but which repented upon hearing Jonah's testimony and preaching of the gosple, thereby forestalling their destruction.

1. We all have weaknesses to help us turn to the Lord. Just not necessarily the same weakness. 2. Could be anything, or combination or series of things, that help us recognize our reliance on Christ to get through this life successfully. 3. The Lord does allow Satan to try or tempt us, refer to Job for example. But not all temptations come from him, some, perhaps many, come from our own fallen mortal condition, seeking after riches, power, pride, vanity, etc. Just my thoughts.

Polygamy was not the abomination that the Lord referred to. He was referring to "whoredoms" in which the chosen people, Israel" took wives not of the covenant, and to David and Solomon taking wives unto themselves not by the Lord. The scriptures show that most of their wives were given them by the prophet, but they took some on their own, too, which was not according to the Lord's will.

The doctrine of multiple marriage has not changed. The Lord inspired his prophet, revelation again, to announce that the practice was no longer required of the Saints due to the laws passed by US Congress, to prevent the government from halting the work of spreading the gospel. Actually, today, if a man's wife, to whom he was sealed in the temple, passes away, he can be sealed to a second wife. Still multiple marriage in the eternities, but the first wife has already passed away. As for blacks and the priesthood, the prophets have always said there would come a time when they could again bear the priesthood. We just had to wait for the Lord's own time to come to actually implement it. Many other things are the same way, we know it's coming, just waiting for the official word from the Lord to His prophet to tell us when.

Yes, it's possible, but again, it would need to happen repeatedly in a small area to permit those altered to interbreed and establish a viable self-sustaining population, and the altered population would also need tu survive the natural disaster that led to the viral genetic alterations. Quite a stretch of laws of probability. Naturally, people could genetically engineer the DNA changes and manage the breeding, but then that would be intelligent design, not evolution.

It's good to remember that the questions asked in the temple recommend interview are to establish the MINIMUM level of qualification to enter the temple. To gain the full blessings of the temple, more is required. Careful prayerful study of the scriptures and the teaching of the modern prophets will give guidance on what is needed.

Since you lied to get baptised, yes, you should tell your bishop. You will also need to show him your genuine birth certificate to get the correct information so the Ward Clerk can change your record.

Personal revelation is God's way of giving us specific instructions or knowledge we need to help us get through our daily lives. I wouldn't say it "trumps" what the General Authorities say, but rather it supplements it and gives us guidance on implementation of their counsel in our specific circumstances. I do know that true revelation from God will never contradict anything the General Authorities have told us.

Not scriptures, but whenever I consider the callings that have come to me, I have to believe that the Lord has a great sense of humor. I can imagine Him sitting up in Heaven getting ready to inspire a calling and saying to others with Him, "hey guys, watch this, this is going to be rich".

I'd say just keep trying, it will come in the Lord's time. Be sure you want it to, and that you're really willing to do whatever you need to do when it does come.

The scriptures clearly tell us that a third of Heavenly Father's children followed Lucifer and rebelled against the Plan and were cast out of Heaven into the Earth. Sounds to me like there are lots of ghosts around here.

Pardon the intrusion of a newbie. I think Darwin's theory has been over-extended by subsequent people to go far beyond what Darwin discovered or intended. As an example, Darwin found finches on the Galapagos Islands that had evolved to fill certain niches in the ecology of the Islands to the point they became different subspecies of finches. However, the facts remain that they were still identifiable as finches, and that their ancestors originally were finches which came from someplace else. It is notable that no finches evolved to become pigeons, parrots, hawks or anything else, and no finches were found that did not have identifiable ancestors from some other place but spontaneously appeared there. After Darwin's publication of his observations and theory, others took his findings and stretched them to the enth degree, corrupting them to the point that they stated that the finches evolved from something else than finches. This is simply not true, and a sad corruption of some good scientific work on Darwin's part. The truth used to be the goal of all scientific research, beginning with the presumption that science does not know the answer and should look for the truth with an open mind ready to accept whatever the evidence proves to be true. Science originally operated from the presumption that God made everything, and the goal was to try to find out how He did it. Now however, science is a competition to defend pet theories, no matter how rediculous on their face, and discredit those of competitiors in order to obtain more funding for more "research", and is founded on the belief that everything came of nothing through spontaneous accident and random chance. That on it's face is not possible, let alone likely. For an organism, say one of Darwin's finches, to become something else, say a hawk, it would be necessary for a finch to experience dramatic changes to the DNA, then encounter and mate with another finch of the opposite sex which had undergone a similar dramatic change to it's DNA, and have their offspring mate with others similarly changed, until s population of the new species becomes large enough to be sulf-sustaining. The experience of humans trying to intentionally manipulate change in species is exactly the opposite. Examples are the mule, superior in every way to it's parents, but sterile, and hybridized crops, which must be hybridized for each years seed planting as the seeds do not reproduce true to the hybrid but revert to the characteristics of one or another of the parents. As for the "Church's opportunity to accept evolution", I guess it depends on how you define evolution. Yes, the Church does accept the reality of modern living current revelation. However, until the Lord initiates revelation to change things, I don't expect the Church's official doctrine to change any at all. I don't really expect the Lord to change our doctrine any at all because everything He has thus far revealed is the truth, and that is unchanging. We may receive new, additional doctrine, but I doubt there will be changes of existing doctrine. Just my thoughts.

I agree. Obviously if Church or Civil authorities ask for it, I will give all I have to help others. If people ask for help I will give them all the help I can. However, there is a big difference between sharing and giving help to others; and having someone come and take by force all I and my family have to live on. I'm willing to share and help all I can, but will resist with all I have the forceable stealing of our property.

A small lightweight cooking apparatus with an almost unlimited fuel supply? Look at the Little Dandy stove on Nimblewill Nomad's website, Nimblewill Nomad Home Page. It's a small stove made of sheet metal that quickly and easily assembles/disassembles and is very compact and light weight, and burn a very small amount of wood. There are a variety of home-made stove designs available. Check out rocketstoves.org and wings.interfree.it for example.

And you don't have to bring cookies to EQ. When I was in the Bishopric, we called this "moving the hole". The solution is to train someone who has not yet held a calling to serve diligently. this fills the hole, rather than moving it around from organization to organization. This training could be done by anyone, but usually the Elder's Quorum or Relief Society Presidency, HP Group Leadership, or Presidency of the organization who needs help does it, involving Home Teachers and/or Visiting Teachers as appropriate, under direction of the Bishop. Hope that helps.

Several posts have painted a bleak picture for urban dwellers. However, that is using broad generalities. In developing your personal plan, you need to look at specifics of your situation. Yes, things will generally go bad faster and on a larger scale in cities than in rural areas. However, if your neighborhood has several residents who are like-minded with you and have made their preparations, you can unite to preserve your little corner of the earth as a safe haven from whatecver is going on around you. Get to know your neighbors, be involved socially at first and when you think the time is right bring up emergency preparedness, if they haven't already. If they come up with the classic "I don't need to prepare, you have a year's supply" you may point out that you have stored for your family, they should store for theirs and you'll help them learn how. Also, food is only one part of prepping, there are many other factors to consider, and by joining together, you can all prep together and do much better in case of disaster. Finally, if all else fails point out or remind them of the Church's welfare principle, nothing is handed out, it is worked for.

If you want long-term fuel storage, get a ton or two of good coal and bury it in the yard. Get an airtight stove that burns both wood and coal. You'll be set for years. Propane does not "rot" like gasoline, even white gas or Coleman fuel, and diesel does. Tanks can be underground and left filled for years until needed. Just a thought.

My original point was that if you leave, you take your stuff with you, and looters can't get it. And yes, I plan to share, but will resist being robbed.