estradling75

The bolded part is where you (and your parents if they truly believe it) are getting it wrong... The parents can not save a child... Only Christ can. The parents Faith in Christ can trigger miracles from Christ in reclaiming the wayward child, but they can not save them of themselves. In your 40 years of the Church I am sure you heard of the conversion story of Alma the younger. Your parents are hoping for something similar in the case of their wayward children. Don't confuse the Lord's promises to the faithful, to saying the the faithful themselves do it.

I'd call it an Apples to Oranges comparison ... The Apple is us uniting and living the gospel so well that no further guidance is needed (aka unity of faith and you can judge for yourself how likely that is.) The Orange is God calling prophets and apostles to try to build this unity and then people turning around and killing, stoning, and disobeying them to the point that God executes judgement against them, pulls out the prophets and apostles, leaving the people experience the pains of disobedience. This lasts until God in his judgement again gives us a chance to (re)learn his ways and stop rebelling against him. Or to put it simply the first one would be God saying the work is done... The second one is us trying God's patience.

I guess it would depend on what you mean by ongoing... If you mean that it is possible that at some future point collected Body of Christ(aka all the believers) will get its act together and no longer need Prophets and Apostles then yeah, sure I can believe that. If you are trying to make the case that it already happened... Well then I have to look at Ephesians 4:11 and say... I am not seeing the unity of the faith that I think is required for them to be done away with.

There are many things that holds true for... However if the OP is going to try to get back into that group it is probably more useful for her to have some insight on to what the mod might have been thinking. It is much less helpful to be focusing on what might be seen as a flaw in the mod

I can't tell you about this moderator on that FB page ... but in my experience moderators are generally given a thankless job... They are suppose to maintain a certain purpose or feel for a site but there are plenty of arm-chair 'moderators' to tell you how they screwed it up and should be doing a better job... and yet when the mods do try to moderate called out as being worst then the Nazi gestapo with their censorship. You posted something the mod thought was objectionable so they deleted it.. not a big deal really... it happens... But then to the Moderator it most likely appeared that you dug in your heels and were going to make a fight out of it... That you were going to make sure that everyone knew that your judgement was 'superior.' The more experienced the mod the more likely that they are to have done that song and dance many many times and so they have a very good idea how it will go. Its not surprising then to see them cut to the end game of kicking you out, because that is where it goes most of the time, and they really do have better things to do then to get into another pointless argument

I'm of the opinion that if you can't or couldn't make it work in this life its not going to magically fall in place for you in the next.

paw722, Lets see if I can help set your mind at ease about being excommunicated.. While we can't speak for 100 percent certainty what your bishop will do, because it is not our calling. The general tone and thought of everyone that as posted here so far is that from what you have said, its seems very unlikely that you will be. We are simply forced to hedge our answers because it is not our place to give it. Ponder this though... One of the purposes of excommunication is to see if the person has really had a change of heart and desires to change to do what is necessary to come back. You already have that, your already showing that to the bishop. Seems unlikely that he would do anything more then to encourage you to continue. Now lets take your worse case, lets say he does excommunicate you... That doesn't mean you can't come back, excommunication never means that. That just means you've got a bit farther to go then anyone here expected from what we have been told.

Talk to your bishop... He will know the details of how to set you up to receive a Patriarchal Blessing. On a personal level to prepare for it you should refocus on the basics of prayer, scripture study, and fasting. I know they seem very basic, but they are the basics for very good reasons

Paw722... See yourself as the lost sheep or the prodigal son from the parables.. they didn't get chastised when they where found or they returned, there was celebration and joy instead. Go talk to your bishop, unburden your soul. For everyone here is just an anonymous name on the internet, but your bishop is there to help you make right what ever it is that might be needed to be made right. (Although I don't really see anything in what you posted that is excommunication worthy)

Release the guilt... Barring you getting excommunicated you still are a member of the LDS church (assuming you were baptized into the church at 8 or so) Your baptism into the Lutheran church did not change this, although clearly you were not active with the LDS at the time. All the blessing of the church including those from calling are yours to reclaim if you wish (with the guidance from your bishop) From the LDS church's standpoint your coming back and taking a calling are all positive things.

Introducing Blue Ear: Marvel's Newest Superhero Sometimes people do some really cool things. Way to go Marvel.

When I read this my thoughts went to communication failure. Generally when I respond to my wife with a simple "OK" without any further follow up, its because she has given me what I regard as an info dump. Such info dumps can contain such things as "I need to go shopping," Or "The kids needs new shoes." While these are clear expressions of needs in the family she usually handles them so for me its simply a heads up that she is going shopping or that the kids will shortly have new shoes. There are also the times when my wife softens the request to the point that I don't realize it is a request. For example recently my wife ask me, "Could you go get my cell phone out of the car or should I?" What she meant was, "Will you go get my cell phone out of the car?" but she added the rest in an attempt not to appear bossy. What I heard was, "Lets discuss who should go get my cell phone out of the car?" Weird subject but ok... Needless to say that did conversation did not go like either of us expected it to. Now I will admit that when the subject of Priesthood blessing comes up I am less likely to parse statements as info dumps or desires to simply discuss, but that comes from experience and training which the Husband in this case might not have. So to answer the question this is how I would do it. Ask again, when he says ok again follow up with, "Great. Priesthood blessing fall into your area of responsibility. You need to make it happen. When can our child expect this to happen?" This should bypass any communication problems, if he lacks experience it begins teaching him his role. It also lets him set the time frame which gives him some control while also giving a lever to hold him accountable. Be advised that this would also have a very good chance of bringing to the surface any potential issue the Husband might have. Not a real big deal if it is lack of understanding or experience, much bigger deal if it is worthiness or failing faith. Personally I think if it is a variation of the last two it should be brought out so it can be dealt with, but its not my relationship and not my call to make.

My mom gave me an An Uncommon Common Pioneer as a Christmas present several years ago. Its been sitting on myself unread all this time

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You probably did what I did and what Dravin pointed out as a problem... I assumed they would always ask me to pick the candy... They switch it up and if you don't realize that then you can get very confusing results.. as in "I picked the one they say was candy why do they say I got it wrong?' kind of confusing

I'd say... they are not investigating you, so don't give them an opening to do so. If at all possible have the meeting/interview at a neutral or third party location... Anything other then your house. Have your son be with a sitter at the time. During the interview only offer inputs about the other kids and what you have seen of them. I know this is a very paranoid suggestion but sometime you need to listen to your fear, and in general CPS groups don't have the best track records. Now you might not be able to avoid having them in your house or seeing your son but the idea of not giving them an opening to look into remains sound.

Oh good catch... I was unclear... I was meaning serious injury, not normal day to day bumps and bruises, but I did not express that clearly (or at all really) in my last post. Given your experience in the legal field could you give a rough estimate, on how long it might take from the first report of abuse to potentially being found guilty? (In a trial not the various short cuts legally allowed) If that is too variable then a list of steps that need to be taken and about how long they might take?

Indeed it was a loaded question... It reinforced the absurdity of the idea. For the rest of your post if the parent or guardian (or other person responsible for the welfare of a child) is it unreasonable to ask for an explanation for why the child needs to have medical care? Is it unreasonable to call for some accountability when injury has occurred? I don't think so ans I am hoping I am not the only one. And if such answers don't make sense or aren't forth coming, is it not then reasonable for it to be bumped up to people that have powers and authority to investigate further?

Ideally every child would be raised by people that love them and no one would have anger management issues. However we don't live in that world, we live in a fallen one and that means we have to deal with ugly situations. When we hear or see signs that a child has been abused/killed by a parent or guardian generally we get outraged and demand that something be done to stop it from happening. Usually it takes the form of some legal remedy. The problem is any remedy that empowers someone external to step in and put a stop to things, is that it becomes a tool that can be abused to hurt good people and families (like your sister). So it becomes a balancing trying to protect the kids that need it, while also protecting it from being abused or misused. Now SpringGirl made the claim that the government as already gone too far in this issue. She used the example of hospital questioning, with the possibility of people not going because of the questioning as her support for her point. I found her offered support to her point to be lacking. So I disagreed with idea that we should roll back the hospital questioning based on the idea that people might not go to the hospital because of it. Now had she tried to make the point that it wasn't effective, or the point you made with what happened to your sister, it would have been a better point. But that wasn't what she did. I know that a lot of factors go into a parents choice on if they should take their kids to the ER. I do not believe that in very many cases the final choice will hinge on the parent feeling uncomfortable being asked questions on what happened. While I admit it is possible, I expect it to be rare and thus the possibility of stopping abuse by doing the questioning is the greater good in this situation. You supported my point when you said that your sister, who has every reason to be distrustful of the system, would still submit to it if she felt her child needed it. You showed it to be a rare case indeed.

Then you aren't countering my point, your example supports it. Your sister after getting shafted by the system will still continue to seek out medical care for her children when they need it.

Like with all systems run by man it is not perfect, and we have to balance the negatives with the positives. Your sister encountered the negative so now the question becomes... After all your sister experienced... if she became convinced that one of her kids needed immediate medical attention, would she let them suffer because of her fear?

I have to disagree here... A short while my 6 year old broke my 2 year old's foot while goofing around... Did it bother us that everyone we talked to at the ER asked how it happened? Only in the sense that it got really repetitive after awhile. I understand why they are doing it, and while I don't like why they feel the need to do so, I do accept it. So knowing I am going to be repeatedly asked about it is not going to keep me from seeking medical help for my kids when needed.

There is also a very real possibly that leadership is someones 'refining fire.' Just like we shouldn't judge someone because they sin differently then we do.. We also shouldn't judge people because the Lord uses a different 'Refiner's Fire' on them then he uses on us.

In my opinion even if it started with a man the moment the Lord confirmed it the Lord owned it... And between the time it started and the time it ended I am positive the Lord got asked about it many, many times. For me I have no problem believing that it was both. I believe it was of God, adapted by God for the weakness of his saints. Once we became able to bare it (and I mean collectively as a group, as a society, as a culture, not individually) it became time for it to be removed and it was.

Excellent and now that you are an Elder Quorum President... are you one of those privileged few that have enough active and dutiful elders to fulfill all the Home Teaching assignments every month? So that all your active and less active member get a visit? (I hear such wards exist but I have never seen one.) Or do you find yourself needing to make hard choices on who is going to get visited, because you know that some of your elders simply will not fulfill their assignments?