pyxiwulf

maybe they're charging so danged much because they have to make up the money for the people who sneak food in... just like shoplifting raises the prices of the products, not buying your snacks inhouse that they budget in for each ticket sold causes the need to make more money on fewer sales.

Well, I haven't been through the temple yet, but DC is my favorite. I grew up in Baltimore, and drove by it as a child all the time never knowing what it was (there was a time I seriously thought it was the Emerald City from Wizard of Oz; fanciful child I was). Moved west to Hawaii where I got to go to tour the grounds of the Laie, Hawaii temple still not knowing really what it was. Then off to California where I FINALLY converted and always felt a little disconnected from the idea that I would be endowed in Oakland. Well, I wasn't and here I am back in DC and I'll be endowed there, and with any luck, my husband will convert and we'll be sealed there. Full circle. It might just be my Emerald City

I like this one! I can stick a little glue stick in my bag and pop them in there right then!

What do you do with all those hand outs, little pieces of paper with quotes, etc. that are handed out during classes? I hate to throw them away, but I need a better solution than collecting them in my scripture bag and using as bookmarks for my scriptures. Does anyone have any neat ideas?

I know this topic is a couple weeks old, but it's near and dear to my heart being a convert married to a non-member who does wedding planning on the side. When I got married to my agnostic husband in a congregational protestant church, the ceremony wasn't about those other people in the room, it was about the two of us and the covenants and commitments we were making between God and each other. We had them there because we could, but we didn't care if they were and in fact many of our closest family on his side weren't there because they were preparing the reception. The reception after was all about honoring and celebrating the new family we had created as opposed to being a party to celebrate us. As for the exclusion of people from the ceremony, it's not uncommon for secular and religious non-temple weddings to exclude people and invite them only to the reception party. In fact, in American wedding etiquette, this is the proper order of exclusion. If you cannot have everyone at both, the proper part to include everyone in is the reception not the ceremony. People seem to be accepting and understanding (for the most part) when a couple cannot have a full guest list due to secular issues such as size or location constraints, but they close their hearts to a couple's deeply held religious beliefs as wrong. I hope that the additional perspective helps someone.

This is what I have been trying to hold to. LOL, this is something I think I struggle with because my best friend and the only other member that I socialize with locally is the RS 2nd Counselor, her husband is EQ 1st Counselor, and they seem like the model mormon family. So that's the bar I see We do need to talk about it, I think it's probably mostly my insecurity combined with the fact that I know internally he thinks all the stuff we do as mormons is unnecessary. I would feel a lot less apprehensive about the FHE issue, if I was a lot better at making sure we did our religion curriculum during our school day. Slipping into isolation is exactly what I am trying not to do, but I'm not doing such a good job. My best friend who we have standing appointments with 2x a week is really bearing the burden of keeping me from drowning and that's not fair to her. It's funny you mention adjusting callings, because I meant to mention in the post that I don't have any which I know is hurting. I wish I knew of any other part member families, but as far as I know there aren't. This may not be a worthiness issue on the surface, but I do need to confess and I'm really having a hard time with the lay clergy thing. This is the first time that I've felt uncomfortable with it, but it's really hard for me to trust in confidentiality when he'll be at work with my dad in the morning. I'm sure it's the adversary, but I don't know how to get past that. Thank you all for your words. They've given me something to chew on.

Hi, my name is Shelli and I'm a 30 yr old mother of two married to a wonderful man, and living in Virginia. I converted in 2000 after years of wanting to but never making the commitments that I needed to. Within a couple of years I fell inactive and made excuse after excuse for years. I've recently found my way back though friends and realizing my oldest is turning 8 soon and I was hurting her with my excuses. So far it's been a struggle. My husband is agnostic and when we married, we agreed I would lead the home in matters of faith and that's held up, but it's hard. I feel like he's secretly rolling his eyes at me and as a result our home is not the "Mormon Home" I want it to be. For example, we have FHE weekly, but maybe one time out of 10 do we do a faith-based activity and we have never prayed before. I try to find time to sneak away to pray at night, but even that's hard. I remember my best friend growing up who really brought me into the church had nightly scripture with her family and they were so dedicated to it, that her mom would send her to the next town to pick me up each night to participate. My kids don't get this. And you'd think as a home schooling family this would be much less of a struggle Add to this that my testimony is struggling, which I NEVER thought would happen. I had testimony of our beliefs as Mormons when I was a 6 year old girl in Catholic school attending mass 6x a week and had never heard of The Church. Testimony came easy to me, but now I feel more like I'm just going through the motions. Plus I love my ward, but I feel like an outsider. I try to attend nearly everything, only missing 1 or 2 things in the 4 months we've been back, even giving a talk at enrichment and trying to reach out to other women that expressed additional interest in the skill I talked about, but I just don't feel like I can break into the crowd. Oh and big coincidence, my bishop works with my dad who lives 60 miles away in another state. So I am having a very hard time feeling like I can talk to him due to some old background. Anyway, that's why I googled for this forum and am glad to find it. Thanks for listening.