Heather

I've been to Scotland and England and really enjoyed my trip, but my best vacation ever was to South Africa. My husband and I went over there one Christmas while my parents were serving in Jo-burg. So many things to do and see there, the history is fascinating, and the safaris were unreal. (You will never look at visiting animals in the zoo the same way again.

Here's what I think of chances: I think a lot of what happens on the internet isn't based fully in reality. I know a lot of people like the idea, because you can fall in love with the real person, and not judge by appearance. But when you meet up, there still has to be some level of physical attraction. The fact that he says he wants to marry her, and hasn't even seen her, sends up red flags to me. I don't want to judge the guy, but I wouldn't marry anyone or even consider anything near that until I had actually been with the person. Anyone wanting to marry me who hasn't seen me would fall into my category of psycho. That's just my personal beliefs on it. It's so easy to get a picture scanned in or take one from a photo disk--if I was getting serious with someone, serious enough to meet them, I would really be questioning why they're not taking a little time to send a photo. There is so much more to a person and so much more to a relationship that can't be experienced online. The best way I can compare it to is the first few dates with someone, and how you feel so "in love." You don't know any of their "flaws" because they don't show you any of that at first. (And we all know we have them.) On the internet it's even worse, because it's so easy to mask all of the flaws and become whoever you want to be. She shouldn't be looking to rush into anything. She should look at this as a "lets meet him and see how it goes." I don't think they shouldn't be walking into it with so many expectations. Marrying and living with someone is a huge wake-up call. No one should rush into that, especially when you consider our beliefs that you're going to be with this person forever. Where they have both been in a long term relationship before (assumption with being a mom and a divorcee) I would think that both of them would want to make sure that this was the right choice and take the time to find out. Besides that, where do they plan to live? Have they considered immigration laws? If he wants her to move here, why would she even considering uprooting her child and moving away from family unless she knew for sure this was the right guy? So chances? Anything is possible. I say their chances are the greatest if they take the time to make sure it's right and plan everything so that it will be best for both of them.

There are quite a few who have met here and gotten married. Just need to be careful. She could run a background check on him if she really wanted to. Also, one thing I would recommend is Vonage. It's telephone that runs through your high speed internet. I pay $25/month for unlimited/free long distance anywhere in the USA and canada, and $0.03/minute to the UK. (If you're interested, let me know, and I'll send you a referal. I get a month free, and you get a month free if you sign up that way.) We have saved so much money getting all of the phone features (voice mail, call waiting, caller id, etc) included and where we have a lot of family in Scotland, it has really cut down on our phone bills.

It'll be fun to see where all the members are from LDS Talk. No more thinking everyone is in utah!

I've installed a member map for the site. You can get to it by clicking on "Member Map" at the top of every page, or click here: http://www.ldstalk.com/forums/index.php?act=gmap If you follow the instructions, you can input your zip code, or city/country and a balloon will be generated to show your general location. Only members of the board can place a balloon on the map.

There have actually been quite a few who meet here and were later married.

That's actually because the links page hasn't been put back in yet, so it doesn't know where to go. The portal link is back on the site now though. I'm still looking for a mod that will do a links page

It's that main page where you can see everything goin gon in the site. You can find it here now: http://www.ldstalk.com/forums

No please do. That's the only way to get things fixed :) The portal is in, but not linked right. It will be at http://www.ldstalk.com/forums so you will need to update your bookmarks

i'm thinking because the file is too large and it was one of the ones i deleted. try to email it to me: [email protected]

What part of the site are you trying to post in? And what error does it give you? In My Control Panel/Change Personal Photo/Update Photo...all that shows is a red X next to our photo, but no picture displayed. Did you try to reupload it? I deleted a few of the pictures on the site that were around a half meg in size. they need to be like 40k

Yes I'm working on this. it's because invision board 2.1 is so new, and there aren't a lot of modifications for it. the only portal available only runs in the root folder, so the portal would be at ldstalk.com/forums. The one i had before could run anywhere. I will be putting a portal back in, but didn't get the chance to last night.

What part of the site are you trying to post in? And what error does it give you?

still working on it. :) no portal just yet

That should just about do it for now. I know there are things missing, like the spell check, and the emotes aren't organized. Also, there isn't a portal mod yet for 2.1 that works out of the root forum, so need to wait on that one too. Use this topic to post any errors.

Hello everyone. I'm doing a major overhaul on the site. please bare with me. Once I've done the complete update, please let me know if you find any bugs.

The site truly has exploded in the past 5 months since I got my act together and redid the whole thing. This truly is because of the wonderful users and the dedicated moderators. Each and everyone of the moderators has been truly exceptional, and I want them to know how much I appreciate them. (You should too!) Just to give you an idea of how much the site has improved: we had 78,065 hits in July 2005. Last month we had 502,930. This month already we've had 260,662. It's reaching the point that I'm going over in bandwidth every month and will need to be increasing my hosting plan. That's awesome! This site would be nothing without those of you who participate in the discussions. I truly am interested in making this site a place everyone can enjoy and would love to hear from you if you ever have any ideas or concerns. Over the next few months I am going to dedicate myself to improving search engine rankings and bringing even more users into the site. So here is how you can help: - If you have a website, blog, or even post on other forums, add a small link to http://www.ldstalk.com in your signature. (For example: I like to hang out at LDS Talk. Come visit me: http://www.ldstalk.com) This is called backlinking, and tells the search engines that ldstalk.com is an important site. LDSTalk.com has a Google rating of 4/10 right now. That actually is very good. LDS.org has a ranking of 6/10, just to give you an idea, and it has thousands of backlinks. - Be sure to submit your site to the links section of LDS Talk. This will increase your web exposure as well, and it will continue to improve it as LDS Talk's rating improves. - Invite your friends to join LDS Talk. - Continue to use the report a moderator link the moment you see anything questionable. The users on the site truly are our best moderators, and there is no way we could maintain the standards we've set without you. Here is my plan of action: 1 - Double bandwidth and webspace for the site 2 - Update to Invision Board 2.1 3 - Add Photo Gallery and E-cards 4 - Invite more LDS sites to post in the links forum and ask them to reciprocate 5 - Listen to the users and work on ways to improving the site

What about free webspace to create your own website entirely?

One other note. if you click on the "?" it will take you to the chat help page, which should explain just about everything you can do in the room. Or click here: http://www.ldstalk.com/chathelp.html

Hiya Josie, have you tried to chat by clicking on the separate window button? At the bottom of the chat, below where you type in, there is a button that looks like two pieces of paper. It's the third from the left, next to the "?" button. Click on that, and it will open the window in a new screen. Then you can make that screen as big as you want. :) Let me know if you have any questions

I think the name changing is annoying to someone who didn't ask to have their name changed, and has no power to change it back. That's why the rule was made that mods can only change names of those who ask. The whole point of having an integrated site (one login to access it all) is so everyone knows who everyone else is from forums to chat to blogs.

moved to general

moved to general

Please post any of your ideas on improving the site. If you've used a certain feature at another site and enjoyed it, tell us about it.

Please also let me know how many images you think you would like to be able to upload. This is the link to what I'm debating about buying: http://www.invisionpower.com/ip.dynamic/pr...lery/index.html