ploomf

I loved it.

Am I the only one who puts whipped cream on her hot chocolate? Lots and lots of yummy whipped cream.

I knew that innocent looking cookie was just a front!

I'm not sure what her goals are beefche. To be honest I didn't even know she was writing these books, she writes under a pen name and since I don't read romances I have no clue who's writing them. This all came up in a conversation we had a few days ago, she mentioned she really missed church and wanted to start coming back, I told her she should come to church with me, she said she wasn't sure if she could come back, I asked why not, she told me she wrote romance novels and would probably get in trouble with the church if they knew what she did for a living but she was under contract for two more books, I made some bad jokes about romance novels in general, she threw a pillow at me, I told her she should just come anyway, it’s not like a siren would go off the moment she walked in the door and she would be tackled and hauled to the branch president for interrogation. From what she said after that I think the problem is, if she became active again she would have to talk about with her bishop at some point, especially if she is given a calling or something like that. There was also some concerns about this being a singles branch and dating but those aren’t really important to her right now. I think she’s really really scared to talk to a bishop about this but I’m not sure what else to tell her. I’ll try to convince her to just come to church again right now and worry about the rest later.

Hmm house rules?? Well most of them apply to me and my cat enforces them. For instance... The cats breakfast must be served no later than 10am or cat will jump up on my bed and start chewing on my nose. Or ear, or arm, or really any body part she can reach. The cats litter box must be cleaned every day or said cat will hunt me down and let me know of her displeasure. Ever been jolted awake at 3am by a cat letting out a yowl right in your ear? Yeah not fun. Water must be changed everyday or the cat will shred my toilet paper. My lap must be available to cat to sit on at all times.

So I have a friend that I've known since high school. She was very active in the church but her family were all inactive members and she didn't have a lot of support. After we graduated she moved away and stopped going to church. She says there were no real doctrinal issues with the church but she is very shy and the ward she was in wasn’t very welcoming or nice. She says going to church became more of a burden than a joy and she left feeling spiritually exhausted instead of uplifted so she just stopped going. She still obeys the word of wisdom, prays, and all that she just doesn't go to church. Well she just moved back to our town and she’d like to start going to church with me but there is one problem that she isn’t sure how to handle. Her job now. She has started writing romance novels for a living. You know the ones with the half naked people in very uncomfortable positions on the cover? Yeah those kinds of novels. She has one published, is working on her second one, and I think she said she has a contract to write two more but I’m not sure about that. She’s not sure how to handle this if she goes to church again, the novels are really her sole source of income and she enjoys doing them and doesn’t want to stop. She wants to know if this would be something she would need to speak with her bishop about or if she would get in trouble with the church for continuing to write them. I didn’t know the answer so I told her I’d ask you.

I was impressed with the judges sentencing too. I guess I just don’t get the parent’s point of view, why would using modern medicine mean that you didn’t have faith in God? I don’t get that. It goes back to that phrase, God helps those who help themselves. I don’t think God expects us to just sit there and wait for Him to fix everything for us.

I've never heard of any church leadership counseling us to shun people who have left the church. I have several relatives who left the church (long time ago before I was born) and their biggest complaint was that they couldn't get members of their old wards to leave them alone. I guess it could happen, anything is possible, it just doesn't seem likely to me.

That's so cool. I'm starting to run more to try and get into shape. I can barely run half a block without wishing I could collapse and die so I really admire anyone who can run an entire marathon.

So I'm confused Gnat. You're saying people should have the right to barge into a church and protest but shouldn't be able to protest outside a church? That doesn't really make sense. As long as they are not on the churches property the church and the government really shouldn't have any say over what they do.

I agree yenni. I wouldn't have any problems dating a divorced man with children. I don't care that much about a mans past just what he plans to do next.

I don't think you need to commit "big" sins to appreciate the healing power of the atonement. Even the smaller sins we commit every day can add up and bring spiritual pain. And really when you compare our lives to Jesus’ life, we’re all in pretty bad shape and we all need the atonement.

You drive a hard bargain lost. Chocolate coins it is. (What? It's coin shaped and gold, sounds like money to me)

Yay Lbybug!!! Congrats Soo umm tell us. For those of us who haven't been awarded this great honor, how much chocolate did it take to bribe him?

Or if somebody breaks into your home and is threatening to kill you? You are not allowed to defend yourself?

My favorite is the Idaho Falls temple. I drive by it every night on my way home from work and it's just a nice way to end the day. It's the temple I hope to get married in some day.

I totally agree with your post PC. For me it's a balancing act. I have to try to keep the commandments and I do try to keep improving myself but when I mess up it's OK. I can repent and try again. Because Christ has already paid the price for my sins. I prefer to focus on Christ's love and grace because otherwise I get overwhelmed with all the commandments and laws I have to try to keep and I start to despair because I mess up a lot. But knowing that He has already paid the price for my sins doesn’t keep me from doing the best I can to keep his commandments. But I have known some people who think they can just grab salvation and run. I remember reading an article after that guy shot all those women at the gym before killing himself. They were interviewing his pastor and his pastor believed that he was in heaven because he was saved and they believed that once saved always saved. I also remember a after school bible study I went to when I was little. The woman who held it asked us the first day if we wanted to be saved. I came from a home with two very unreligious parents, I had no clue what being saved meant. I had a very shaky idea of who God and Jesus were. But I said yes along with everyone else and she gathered us in a circle and prayed for us and then said we were saved and going to heaven and we didn't ever have to worry again. We any of us really saved at that point? We were really little kids, I know I still had no clue what being saved meant but heaven sounded nice. My brother was in that group. He is now closer to being an atheist than anything. Is he still saved? According to the woman who held that program yes.

Honestly, as erratic as your husbands behavior has been lately I'd sit down with a lawyer at least once. Right now he is cooperating with you but who knows how he'll feel tomorrow? So yeah I'd at least talk to a lawyer.

I didn't think he sounded angry at all. He didn't sugar coat his words and he was passionate but I liked his talk.

Welcome to the forum. :) I took a look at your blog but didn't have time to read much. I'll have to take a closer look later.

I'll admit, dork that I am, it didn't occur to me that some very nice person had removed them. I checked twice to make sure I was logged in and opened and closed my internet window three or four times. I'm such a dork, I really wondered for a moment if something was wrong with my profile.

I think if it interferes with your family life and other obligations then it's too much. Are the people raising concerns family members or other close friends? Or just acquaintances?

Poor girl. It must have been horrible for her to have to testify in court about all that. She's a very strong person.

My family always has fun with costumes. When I was in pre-school I was a devil-angel. I wore an angel dress and wings and a pair of devil horns and a devils tail. One year I was a witch and my mom got some of that fake flesh and made me a big hook nose and some warts and used face paint to paint my face green. I still have pictures around somewhere. When I was a 11 or so I saw a sexy witch costume at the store and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I staunchly ignored the fact that my short and slightly plump self would not look the same in the skin tight and short costume as the tall, stick thin model. But my mom said no, the big meanie. But all was not lost! My aunt offered to sew me a sexy witch dress, which put her on my coolest aunt ever list for a while. But then I saw the dress. The only thing sexy about it was that it was red. A red, floor length, long sleeved, and high necked dress. And once I'd put it on (with the sweaters and sweat pants that I had to wear underneath it because it's COLD in Idaho on Halloween night) I didn't look sexy just lumpy. As an adult I appreciate the fact that my mom saying no, as a 11 year old girl I was crushed (Ok not really, I was pragmatic enough to know I would have frozen my tush off in the other costume but still). One last cute costume story, my cousin's daughter was Stinkerbell for Halloween a few years ago. She wore a ballerina costume with a skunks tail. My cousin bought a wand and took the star off the end and glued a little stuffed skunk on. When she gave her daughter the wand she took one look at where the star had been and got a horrified look on her face and asked in this quavering little voice, why? She spent the entire night telling everyone her mom had taken her star away.

I've had dream's like that too lattelady. My most memorable one was in high school, I was awake but I felt numb and I couldn't move. It felt like there was this great weight pressing against my chest and I couldn't breathe. The scariest part was I could hear what sounded like two men talking about me, I could hear my name but couldn't hear what else they were saying. It was really frightening. When I do dream my dreams are always very vivid. Does anyone else visit the same place in their dreams? I sometimes dream about this place, it looks like it's in the mountains, I can see pine trees, I start out running down this steep slope into what looks like a valley, if I look up I can see farther off a small group of little wooden huts with smoke rising from the roofs. I always feel like I'm being chased in this dream but I'm not really scared. It's a very odd dream.