classylady

I'm a huge advocate of the 2nd Amendment.  I am a huge advocate of food storage and emergency preparedness.  The church does not currently counsel you to have a firearm as part of preparedness.  The church does not currently counsel you not to have a firearm as part of preparedness.  The church teaches the right of self defense.  The church teaches you to have every needful thing.  Each person/family must pray and make their own decision.  In all my years of teaching preparedness at the ward and stake level I have never been told to leave out the part of my lesson on self defense.  I have been prompted in certain homes to leave the topic out, as I have been prompted in some homes I had not intended to include that topic, to add it back in.
 
 
My specific feelings can be found here: www.preppercop.blogspot.com.  Scroll down about 3/4 of the way and find the heading Self Defense.

I know a couple that were called this year to be Temple President and Matron. The article I read said that he was retired. I haven't seen them in years but when I did know them they were just a lovely couple. I think they are people persons, they like people. I don't think they ever considered themselves righteous, they were just a very authentic, nice couple. Nice to each other and nice to others. And if they have been chosen for such a calling, I would think that they are very faithful to their beliefs and their church.
 
M. 

I learned a lot in my Seminary classes. I'm very grateful I had the opportunity to attend.

drham3rd - Nauvoo is my temple. We drive down from Iowa, with the same corn and soybean views that you had. It always seems relaxing to see the farms, horses, and cows as we go down. It's so quiet and calm - just what you want as you go to the temple. On the way back, we usually stop to eat, either in town or on the road. It's a nice few hours and doesn't seem exhausting at all.

I'm excited to go in a couple of years.  Classylady (from this site) and I are going to make the trek there.  :)

My wife and I went to the temple in Navuoo, Illinois for my endowment and our sealing this past weekend.  Wow, what a wonderful experience!!  I'm still working through the symbolism in my mind and I understand why so many say that it takes several times going through for one to even begin to fully understand some of what Heavenly Father is teaching us in the temple!!  I was kinda of taken back by how small a community Navuoo is; we counted three restaurants and one general gift shop!  But the history was very interesting.  The church has a wonderful visitors center just down the hill from the temple and it shows the history of the church and how Navuoo was settled.  I would recommend anyone who has the opportunity to visit Navuoo and the temple to take that opportunity.  Be aware, Navuoo is really out in the middle of "no where"!  No major highways, only state routes to get there.  It took us over 2.5 hours to drive the country roads from Peoria to Navuoo…all to see was cornfield and soybean fields…we were very exhausted by the time we got there.  

She may not be searching.....the Chargers might be playing and she would be screaming at her TV. Lol

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865609123/LDS-Church-announces-feature-length-documentary-Meet-the-Mormons.html
 
For the first time in its history, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will release a feature-length documentary commercially on Oct. 10.
 
The new feature-length film, “Meet the Mormons,” highlights the lives of six Latter-day Saints who live across the globe — in areas spanning from the Himalayan mountains of Nepal, to the rain forests of Costa Rica, to the Salt Lake Valley.
 
Though the film was financed by the church, its net proceeds will be donated to charity.

I lucid dream. It has saved my sanity at times. I suppose for every good thing there are people who can pervert it for evil. Lucid dreaming is NOT evil unless the dreamer is evil. When I was seven and being molested I had nightmares every night without fail. It took me awhile but I learned to control what I dreamed and was able to sleep again without nightmares. Now I only interrupt or change dreams that have gone off into areas that are too disturbing for me like extreme violence or someone I love being hurt or killed. I believe most dreams can teach us something we need to think about so its best to let them run their course but some just have to be stopped. God gave me a blessing as a child and showed me how to lucid dream. It was not from satan. Satan probably loved my nightmares.  

We currently have a house guest (my grandson's father) that has been living with us for a year now. He does not practice the Word of Wisdom.  He buys instant coffee and keeps it in his room and is very discreet about it.  He smokes, but goes outside and smokes away from the house. Again, he's very discreet about it. I'm appreciative that he respects our beliefs.  He does not expect us to buy him coffee, tea, or cigarettes.

Do you have a device that you could utilize but would rather not download content to it, or are you limited to a computer?  I use the Hooplah and Overdrive apps, both of which connect to the Salt Lake County library system.  I don't always find everything I'm searching for, but they have much more than just the classics, and I have found enough to keep me entertained.  You can stream them through the app or temporarily download to listen offline for the duration of the "check out" time period, and they are removed from your device as soon as they are due.

As many are aware I had a near fatal heart attack on June 20 as I posted in an earlier thread. On August 12th I underwent triple bypass surgery and am now in recovery. I have quite a journey still left in this adventure, but the surgery was very successful and I am told I may never have any more heart related issues.
 
The Lord reached down from the heavens and changed me and I am SO grateful for this rich blessing that has redirected me or awakened me to life again and also for the opportunity to continue this mortal probation and the opportunity to become better, love deeper, be a better husband, father and friend and a life more consecrated to serving Heavenly Father.
 
Please take advantage of every day.......God Bless you all!
 
Brother Gainer

Relief Society teacher has been my all-time favorite calling.  I've had that calling about 5 different times and I would love to be called to that again.
 
My secret wish?  I would love to be the wife of a Mission President.  I don't see that happening.
 
Hubby and I have had a major financial setback, and the only positive I can see from it, is it frees us to serve a full time mission in a couple of years.  I've been so stressed and anxious about our finances, but the thought of serving a mission brightens my life.

This thread now makes me want to read a book regarding him.

Awww, bless your heart!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

However when one tells another poster that their comment is nonsense or baloney there can be a perception of an attack on them.
 
I think many of us (myself included), could find some kinder words to use to disagree.

Nobody has suggested the obvious choice - stone battlements.  With archer slots so you can fight off the food rioters.
 

 
On the plus side, you can design the whole thing in Minecraft to get a sense of look and feel.
 
Am I right?

I've been a 49ers fan since I was a teenager. Don't ask me how many years that's been!

You are not a horrible wife or mother.  You have been hurt by the one person who should have been there for you.  He should have been your protector, best friend and confidant, and the one you could rely on.  Now that the drinking has stopped, I'm hoping he is no longer abusive.  All of the hurtful actions that he committed will take time to get over, and I believe grieve over.  You have suffered a loss, and with loss comes grief.  I hope you know that Heavenly Father loves you, and is very much aware of your hurts and grief.  You are His daughter.  Please pray for comfort, and I know that it will come.
 
Are you planning on staying in the marriage?  If you are, then you need to do some serious thinking.  It sounds like you know that your children (and you) deserve to be in a family that is sealed together for eternity.  The Church is true.  And the teaching of eternal families is true.  I'm sorry that your husband let-you-down, but his actions do not take away the truths of the Gospel.  I hope you can hold onto the teachings of the Church, gain a stronger testimony, and stand firm and unshakeable--no matter what your husband, or anyone else, does.  Unrighteous behavior of others does not take away the truthfulness of the Gospel.
 
Your husband, as all of us, is not a perfect person.  He is in need of the Atonement, just as all of us.  Forgiveness is sometimes hard to give.  Can you forgive him?  Can you forgive him enough that you could see yourself sealed to him, along with your children?  If you're staying in the marriage, that is the goal you need to be striving towards.  Trust will take time to rebuild.  And, marriages can be rebuilt and made strong.  A good source for help is MarriageBuilders http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5525_qa.html.

Please welcome mirkwood and classylady as new members of our moderating staff.
 
They will both be wonderful additions to our moderating staff.

Before I joined the Church 35 years ago, there was an impression that had formed in my mind from attending many and various Protestant and Catholic services and Sunday Schools.  If you've been raised in the LDS Church, you don't understand this narrative.
 
The narrative is this:  God created Adam and Eve in a perfect world.  They were like joyful naked children running around, innocent.  Then they "discovered their nakedness."  I remember a little old lady who held Bible class for children in her home awkwardly trying to explain this.  I figured out later on that most Christian sects believe that sex was the original sin.  They believe that Adam and Eve suddenly discovered one another and did the "wild thing."  This displeased God and he cast them out of Eden and cursed them.  In other words, it's all their fault.  I've had some of the pastors of these denominations explain to me that Eve actually had sex with "the serpent" first, then went and did it with Adam.  Seriously.  This is what I was taught by many of these learned pastors.
 
Original sin comes to all of us because we are Adam and Eve's posterity, according to their doctrine.  The fact that you have sexual desire as a mature person is the taint of original sin.  That's why Calvin taught that man is fallen and degenerate. 
 
All through the teaching of the Old Testament, these churches taught that God was vengeful and punishing.  Then, he got a better idea.  According to their creeds, the Father (the One God of Aristotle and Plato) came down and became a mortal, died for our sins, and then transformed himself into the Holy Ghost.  Because he went through the mortal experience, he knows what it is like for himself.  From that point on, he became merciful and forgiving, not vengeful and punitive.
 
Thus, in the sectarian mind, the "fear of the Lord" comes of the Old Testament, but the new covenant of the New Testament is kindness, mercy, and love.  Over the centuries, much of the persecution that was focused on Jews by Christians came because of resentment that the Jews rejected mercy and kindness offered by Jesus and thus, they merited the vengeance of God upon them. 
 
Most latter-day saint converts come into the Church from other Christian denominations and they struggle to harmonize what they once were taught with what they now understand.  When we understand the fall properly, as taught in Genesis, the Book of Moses, and the Book of Abraham, and of course the temple ceremony, we understand how the Lord is both to be feared and respected and, at the same time, trusted for mercy and forgiveness.  When the false precepts about the fall and original sin are corrected, we see that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  We see that Jesus wasn't "Plan B" for a "Plan A" that failed.  We understand that God loves us, that he created the world for us, and that he gave us agency to choose.  We see how it all fits together. It is difficult for lifelong latter-day saints to understand the amount of false teaching that has to be unlearned and how much new truth there is to drink in after conversion.
 
This allows us to understand situations like the one in which Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered because it bore no fruit.  Jesus had the power over life.  He could raise people from the dead.  He could raise himself up from the grave when the time came.  But he also illustrated that he had power to judge and condemn.  He sometimes corrected people with sharpness.  He overturned the tables of the money changers.  He called the lawyers "vipers" and the Pharisees hypocrites.  His disciples were afraid to ask him questions sometimes, fearing his rebuke.  Yet they loved him and they were willing to lay down their lives for him.  They endured persecution for him.  When I read Peter's words in his epistles, written near the end of his life, the gravity of the reverence he has for Christ really stands out to me.  He knows, like Joseph Smith said, that "God is not trifling with you and me." 
 
In the culture of the Church we strive to show this reverence and fear of God, even though we love him.  For example, in the Church Handbook of Instructions, there are seeminly small details that show this reverence.  For example, if a ward or stake puts on a gospel-oriented play or skit and Jesus is portrayed in it, the scripted lines of the character that plays the Savior can only be scripture.  No ad libs are allowed.  Aside from the temple movie and the First Vision movies made by the Church, God the Father is never portrayed in any church play or skit.  As Jesus was careful to always honor the Father, how much more should we be careful to show him the ultimate in reverence?
 
The Lord represents the ultimate fairness in judgment.  He knows us and he has borne our sins.  He lived the live of a mortal.  Yet he felt the unwavering demands of justice upon his own flesh and he did not quit.  He has power to create, to sustain, and to destroy.  He obtained that power at great price.  He bore the ultimate in suffering.  For that reason alone, the fear of God should be upon us, as well as a loving trust in his offer of mercy, conditional upon sincere repentance and faith.

I, too, have donated plasma in the past in order to make ends meet.  I was grateful the option was there.

Going to Nauvoo for the Pageant this weekend.

Not necessarily an opinion to the original post, but just an interesting anecdote from my past career.  In my training while working for the airline industry, we were told not to have "our pocketbook" in our mind while pricing what the customer asked for.  I had to remind myself of this on numerous occasions.  For example, a customer calls in and wants to buy airline tickets from LAX to JFK.  To me, a reasonable price for a ticket would be around $400 to $650 RT.  And if a sale was going on in that particular market, then that would even be lower.  I would ask the customer what time they wanted to fly and the dates.  I would price what they asked for.  As a reservations agent, I would have enough experience to know if the price could be brought down for that particular market.  If I told them the price was $900 RT, and they said "book it", I would do so.  If they asked me if the price could be lowered, then I would start to search different flights, days, etc. for them to get a lower price.  As an agent I could usually "read" people and tell if the price was too high for them.  That's when I would tell them they could lower the price by traveling different days, or just switch to different flights for the days they wanted to travel.   It was often amazing to me that people would still purchase the higher priced tickets.  I had to learn to not put my pocketbook in their pockets. I learned to take credit card information for tickets that were over $20,000 on some international markets without batting-an-eye.

Not necessarily an opinion to the original post, but just an interesting anecdote from my past career.  In my training while working for the airline industry, we were told not to have "our pocketbook" in our mind while pricing what the customer asked for.  I had to remind myself of this on numerous occasions.  For example, a customer calls in and wants to buy airline tickets from LAX to JFK.  To me, a reasonable price for a ticket would be around $400 to $650 RT.  And if a sale was going on in that particular market, then that would even be lower.  I would ask the customer what time they wanted to fly and the dates.  I would price what they asked for.  As a reservations agent, I would have enough experience to know if the price could be brought down for that particular market.  If I told them the price was $900 RT, and they said "book it", I would do so.  If they asked me if the price could be lowered, then I would start to search different flights, days, etc. for them to get a lower price.  As an agent I could usually "read" people and tell if the price was too high for them.  That's when I would tell them they could lower the price by traveling different days, or just switch to different flights for the days they wanted to travel.   It was often amazing to me that people would still purchase the higher priced tickets.  I had to learn to not put my pocketbook in their pockets. I learned to take credit card information for tickets that were over $20,000 on some international markets without batting-an-eye.