ConnieM

Welcome

Satellite - Lena Meyer-Landrut

Thank you all for your help, for sharing something personal or your experience. :) There has been a huge discussion here, in Germany, in that ward about it and I feel the need to be more informed. My friend also is doing some research but we could not find any official church statement about intercultural or interracial marriage. Thank you for the links! @wingnut: it was indeed helpful! thank you. @funky town: a very good quote, thank you :) I never heard about this site... it's not from the church, is it?

Hello everybody. I have a close friend who has been involved in a conversation about marriage last weekend where someone else told her that the church stated somewhere that one should marry someone from his or her own cultural background. She asked me about it but I could not find anything about this in particular. Do you know any sources with a statement like this or have you heard talks or statements of members concerning intercultural marriage?? Thank you!! Connie

Hi there, going to the military or serving a mission both is a big commitment. And both possibilities are quite tough. Make sure you're doing really good before you take a step like this. And I think you should go and find new friends. Get to know people and try to build up relationships so that you have someone to stand by your side and lift you up. Everybody needs that. Especially in a time when you feel depressed or fight hard against addiction. Take good care.

Hello Celia, did you already go VT yet? I think VT is a great opportunity to get to know the sisters and bond with them. The message does not need to be a long part of the conversation but if you share your testimony with the sister you visit, I'm sure it's gonna be successful. :)

Thank you. This helps to clarify the term. Translation is such a difficult thing... I mean, I cannot find a good translation for agency into German. Perhaps that's why they stick to the term "Entscheidungsfreiheit"?

You're right. It gives me only German words that would not have anything to do with free agency as mentioned in the scriptures. When I looked up "Agency" in a dictionary this is the result: This shows that agency covers at least these 5 meanings and in the German language these different meanings have their own words. 1=Behörde, 2=Agentur, 3=? no equivalent, 4=Vertretung, 5=Wirkung oder Hilfe. Do you think that one of these definitions helps to understand the word agency in relation with the gospel? Or would you say that the use of the word agency found somewhat a new definition in the church? Because most of the translations in the German dictionary list words meantioned above but not one that can be truly meant in Doctrine and Covenants. And... the word agency developed from the latin word agere, agentis meaning to act. Well... Selbständigkeit (synonyms would be for example: Unabhängigkeit = independence, and Selbstverwaltung=self-government) literally means that someone is able to stand by himself = selbst stehen. And developed into a meaning that refers to someone who can do something by himself and does not need help. Entscheidungsfreiheit can be translated into English as freedom of decision-making. In many German dictionaries you cannot find it! In German we often put some nouns together to describe something if we lack a word for it. So in this case it could be that there was no true equivalent to agency and that's why they came up with this...

This is interesting. :) I'm German and I cannot contribute something now... But I love to read more about it!

I like the article. I have to say that I still have questions about this topic. Oh, I don't mean that I have doubts... I'm just curious! Bruce C. Hafen explained: A) The veil does two things: 1) It keeps us from remembering our premortal past. 2) It keeps God, his angels, and their activities hidden from our sight. This is clear. But I have a question. Do only human beings have a veil or does every living thing? We know for example that the earth was born out of water, baptized and received the Holy Spirit, will burn and die and resurrect and be perfected. Would you say that the earth has a veil? I would guess so. And I would furthermore guess that Nr 1) describes the task of the veil every human has whereas Nr 2) could describe what the veil of this earth creates. B ) This is interesting. It says:a) If they won't listen to the prophets here on earth, b) they also would not believe if they actually would be allowed to see. Believing is such a fantastic topic. Well, it does not make a difference to the people who don't believe whether they see or don't because it would not change their state of belief. This means it only makes a difference to the believers. C ) I also think that it is interesting why we have to learn by experience. I know we have to in order to undertand and progress. Bruce C. Hafen said the Lord Jesus Himself had to learn by experience. I think we can learn a lot of theory without experience but we can hardly learn to use this theory if we don't try it. And since our goal is not only theoretic but very much concentrating on action (creating lives and worlds...) we need to prepare for it by experience. D) Wow, never thought of this before.

Wow, I'm surprised. And I'm a German... lol. We don't have any musical with our Frau Merkel... :)

A few years ago I tried to mark scriptures with different colour each topic when I realized that most of them rely to more than one topic. Now, I rarely colour anything anymore but underline things that strike me and if there is a scripture that really got me thinking I will either draw an exclamation point next to it or write down my thought.

Thanks for the link. I will read it...

I talked with an investigator and the missionaries about the plan of our Heavenly Father and thought about it. I think the plan of our Father is not only wonderful and fascinating it also is very logical in many ways. I'd like to find out more about the veil and wondered if anyone of you studied this topic and/or can help me to learn more. Why exactly do we need the veil? Who will finally experience the veil to be taken off? And when will this happen?

Hey there, I looked the scriptures you quoted up in the German Bible and found out the following: Well, every time it says "for ever" in the English King James Version it says "als feste Regel" in the German passages. It does not mean "forever" if I translate it into English. But "as a rule" meaning a rule that is firm and unshakeable. I know that the German text is not the original one but it might be interesting to compare the two.

There are some verses for example in Weisheit 19: 18ff It says that elements are changing and this can be observed. There were animals who lived on land and then were transformed into animals of the sea. Swimming animals went out of the water to live on dry land. Fire was not put out by water nor did it kill animals. Sorry, my translation is not really well done but it sums up the important things here.

Thank you for your comments... I think if it was important to our understanding of the gospel to know more about her, it would have been given to us to k now more. Yes, it might just be a legend or a myth. I found it interesting to hear a rumour that she used to be the first wife of Adam.

Well, what if the spirits who did not enter the covenant went down to earth and fight their battle here and then end up in the outer darkness. Could the spirits who entered into that "covenant of peace" get another chance and were (fully?) restored in their first estate? Could it be that they also went to earth with a physical body?

I agree with you. Any ideas about the Waters of Sidon in Alma? What they could refer to? Also, it is mentioned that the loss of people on both sides was immense. Thinking of the war in heaven, we know that one third went with Satan. That also is a great number of souls!

Physical evolution and the earth's age are highly interesting topics! I have no clue if there are any threads around discussing these... did you know that in the German Bible there are some verses referring to evolution?

That is why I started to think of it differently. There are so many stories and she is mentioned in different ancient texts... it just got me thinking... Oooh, interesting. :)

I know what that feels like! Yes, right. The question is, if we compare Alma 43 and 44 to the War in Heaven, did the spirit children who fought with Satan in the pre-existence also die in a sense that they had to give up their spiritual body? That's another great topic. One of my favourite study topics of last year. Intelligence and intelligences. I wonder if there is already a thread to it... ? Mh, there were two sides... The defeated had two choices... either death or a covenant (but their leader didn't believe they could live up to it). 1. If death would have meant to be stopped in progress and to be cast out of the presence of God, it could mean the coming to earth without a body. 2. If death would have meant to stop to exist in the manner of a spiritual being, it could mean that those who followed and didn't enter this covenant of peace were disorganized in a sense that they lost their spiritual body and went back to matter/intelligence without any form or body. This is getting to a very hypothetical point now. (I love it!) If 1. is true: In this case Satan's followers cannot progress. We know that without a body progress is a limited option. And cast out of the presence of God is what could be described with "thrown out of heaven". The next question would be, for me, what happened to those who (might) have covenanted. Could it be that the ones who did make a covenant of peace were able to receive a physical body after all? Could that give light to another great topic as how Cain was able to come to the earth!? If 2. is true: Every spirit denying the covenant would have been disorganized and lost their spiritual body. This would also imply that Satan and his followers who are on this earth now are bound to a covenant... Isn't it said that giving one's word is not connected to such a strong impact anymore? I think as a Latter Day Saint our word needs to be just like the word of God in a sense that our Yes should be a Yes and our No a No. (This is another wonderful topic!!) Sorry if I get too far off here. I really appreciate this thread! :)

This really is interesting and I'm glad I've found this thread in here. Thank you for all this information on the names. liebe Grüsse, Connie

Do you know the story of Lilith and what do you personally think about it? When first introduced to it I did not really took much interest in it but lately my personal studies crossed this topic again and I found out that Lilith is not only an old jewish tradition and once referred to in the Bible, Lilith is also mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in various sources in literature. This is interesting though. I don't know if it is true that there was Lilith before there was Eve. But I'd like to hear your opinions about it. Thank you.

Salut Guillaume et bienvenue sur ce site. Je ne sais pas si tout ce que j'ai écrit est correct mais je suis heureux de pratiquer mon francais. ;-) Comment est-ce que tu a trouvé ce site?