LeKook

The saying, "I'm perfect, except for when I'm not," comes to mind. LOL!!! More troubling to me is how many folks I've met in the LDS church who have never read the Book of Mormon...? I just find it really odd. Or who never study it. Or the Bible. But remember, I'm perfect, except for when I'm not...!

The Jehovah's Witnesses may be on to something by admonishing their members not to seek higher education. Although their reason has nothing to do with the expense for the most part. They just think the world is going to end at any moment. LOL!

"Cheers" I think it was...

I've learned not to bother sending cards or gifts -- whenever I do I get phone calls from whomever I send them to, they ask me why I sent this or that particular card or gift ("Did you mean something bad by sending me THAT?"). Usually I just call on special occasions and the calls are as brief and light as I can make them. My family is (rabidly!) anti-LDS and at this stage they don't even know I've been baptized. I had to discuss this with my Bishop, because it really bothered me not to say anything to them. But the sheer toxicity and distance in the relationships is reason enough that they don't need to be told right now. I'd much rather tell them in person as I do occasionally see them. It's likely they would take my baptism as the ultimate betrayal. Not like at this point there'd be much to lose as far as relationships go. The last time I spoke to my Dad, after another recent major family-related fracas, he said, "I love you, everything is okay here." I wanted to say back to him, "I love you too, Dad, but how can everything be okay when I get physically ill just seeing your number on the caller ID?" Because I know if he calls more than once a month, it's drama, usually started by my stepmother. They're in Idaho; I'm in Maryland. I need to deal with this why, exactly? Just sharing what goes through my head when all this stuff starts blowing up. My Dad is 82 and I miss him terribly. I don't visit him because his wife is just impossible to spend more than a couple hours with, and she won't let him come here by himself. So I'm looking at potentially never seeing my father in person again. Last time I saw him was 6 years ago. My brothers (by blood) are easier to deal with, they do try to get along and mostly do, but once anything about the parents gets brought up, the drama begins there, too. Plus they are dealing with losing their jobs and homes just like I did. I have a half brother who never speaks to me, and I still don't know why, one stepsister who never communicates and has too many of her own emotional issues to contend with, and another stepsister who, thankfully, I am very close to even though we don't see eye to eye on religion. She knows I am baptized but broke off ties with my Dad years ago because of her mother (my stepmother). She has no relationship with her mother at all. I think it's been close to 12 years since they've made any attempt to communicate. She doesn't speak to my brothers or vice versa, though I don't think there's much contention there, they just drifted apart. All that to say, it's a mess. LOL!!! And rather than dealing with constant stomach ulcers by trying to deal with them, I've found it's much better to not deal with them to the extent that I am able, and leave it at that. It's just weird, belong to a church that is so pro-family, and not having (much) of a family at all. I think of my family as my husband and our dog, LOL!!! :)

Yeah I don't know if information like this gets saved somewhere to study effectiveness of missionary work, LOL!!! I know with the JWs a lot of this sort of info was tracked, not sure with LDS church though. I'd go with your observations as a missionary any day. :)

When I was asked the first time (and second, and third, etc.) I wasn't asked in this way. It wasn't conditional. But I had solid witness from the Holy Spirit that whatever was going to be taught to me was going to be true, LOL! Not sure if my situation is the norm or what. I just knew from the first time lessons were given that this was the truth and never questioned it from that point on.

My family puts the "funk" in dysfunctional, LOL!! Seriously, it sort of makes me feel like an outcast where the church is concerned... not only can't I feel the intensity of the love I see in many of the families in my own ward, but I see a lot of failure on my part to get things put back together. Yeah, I know it's not all MY responsibility to get the family back on track, but after so many failed attempts, it just feels like my failure, you know? I just can't get people who don't trust each other to trust each other again. I talk to my immediate family once a month, sometimes more, but that seems to be all they can deal with. My extended family (uncles, aunts, cousins) I have no relationships with because of things my immediate family did to destroy their trust. So here I sit. For my part in the mess, I have apologized to each and made my peace with them. But all the relationships are compartmentalized; none of them wants me to ever say a word about what they are doing or how they are to another. It's a mess.

I totally understand why you'd feel that way. :) I'm not sure how missionaries in the LDS church are trained to do their work, like if they're told to find out something about the person they're visiting before they start the lessons and then pray and ask for guidance for the individual. I was in the Catholic church till I was about 10 years old, and then my father left the church and so did the rest of the family as a result. And prior to meeting the missionaries in July or thereabouts, I had been a Jehovah's Witness for about 10 years and had already left that. So my point is I was more ready to be challenged by the baptism question than perhaps you would be in the same teaching circumstances with the missionaries.

That's why outside of this thread I'm not likely to ever discuss it again. Because it's never received well, people think of me as being nuts, or phoney, or whatever. But I can't lie and say this stuff doesn't happen either. It was easy for me to relate to Joseph Smith's experiences, they seemed perfectly reasonable to me, LOL!!! I need to pray about this. I'm uncomfortable with what the possible outcome of the blessing would be (maybe I'll be told I really AM nuts??). Or the possibility of being told I just have to learn to live with this (which I mostly have). All of my life I've been told this stuff can only have an evil origin in various churches I've attended, and little by little I've had to kill off parts of myself. I've had only one experience in my entire life with a being who was an actual angel and I won't share details about it, I feel like too much is "out there" already. But I think you can understand my reticence about the potential outcomes of the blessing.

OH I wish there was a laugh button on this post, LOL!!! Great comment. :)

I'd want every missionary to ask on the first visit, whether it offends or not. Since, after all, we don't know whether or not the person being visited will ever have another opportunity to be asked. :) The whole purpose of missionary work is to bring the gospel to the people and bring them to Christ, after all. Why miss an opportunity, maybe the person who is being visited is already ready and simply wants to be asked?

Sounds like the Trinity morphs into a Community!

My family should win an award for being dysfunctional. It's hard for me to convey how bad I feel when I'm in church and there are talks and testimonies about how happy families are to be sealed together in eternity and how this is "The Most Important Thing". It's what everyone should want, or so that's the gist I'm getting. But this doesn't apply to my family. No one in my family even likes the other, and over the years, no matter what effort I make to try to bring family together, it all ends in disaster. The problem is that none of my siblings, or my even my parents (father and stepmother) like or trust each other. The more time goes by, the more distant they all become from one another. Even if given the opportunity, not one of these people would want to spend eternity with the others. I would venture a guess that they'd rather spend eternity in any other family but our own! Is my family the only one out here like this? I pray for them. I focus on the good qualities of each person. I have somewhat tentative relationships with all of them, and try to keep the peace, and stay in touch with each. But none of them wants to talk to each other, see each other, or even be within driving distance of the other. Thoughts, anyone?

Since I only speak English, I can only read non-Mormon literature if it's in English. *insert applause here LOL*

One more observation if I may. I just saw the title of your post when I was going through the replies here, it reads like this: Isn't the Spirit of God more powerful than anything other people can do or say? The second I incline myself to lose faith because of what other people do or say, I know all hope is lost, because it means I hadn't put my faith in the right person to begin with! Just sayin'.

I was asked during my first visit from the missionaries if I would follow Christ's lead and be baptized. I was offended. But I did eventually get baptized, and realized that in asking this question on the first visit - even if the missionaries didn't intend it to go this way - they were explaining through that question why they were really teaching me in the first place. They could have gone through every lesson without asking me about whether I wanted to be baptized, and when it was all done, I could have walked away never knowing that what the Christ wanted from me was a real commitment of my life in exchange for what he did for me. Yeah, I got that.

I always do treat them with respect. Usually they are very direct with me, though some are extremely emotional and it takes effort on my part to get them to get to the reason why they are visiting in the first place. Back in 2001 I dreamed about the plane crashing into the Pentagon, the Friday before it actually happened. Freaked me out more than a little, and I told one of the couple of friends I can talk to about this stuff about it. Of course the dream had no context (date of event, terrorism, whatever) so to me it was just a dream about a plane crashing into a familiar building. She kept saying to me, "It's probably just a dream, maybe you saw something recently that made you think of that." I said no, but my point is, my friend didn't insist it was crazy, and kept me on an even keel even though the dream was very realistic. This same friend also really helped me work through the emotional issues I had to deal with after the event actually happened. LOL no not crazy. My mom passed away when I was 8. She didn't visit me until the late 1990s, and occasionally still shows up. And yup, I talk to her sometimes, whether I can tell if she's around or not. :)

Just to be clear here (in case I am being unclear, LOL!), I hope when I get my patriarchal blessing this doesn't get mentioned and that whatever I receive in the blessing is way more practical than this. Just being honest. I'd rather this stuff not happen at all, as I see no real reason for it. If it's all just about names and dates, anyone can get that stuff from various records. If it's more than that, fine, but I've prayed about it and in almost 50 years have received no explanation as to how or why this happens. Bad enough it happens at all. Not being able to make sense of it makes it infinitely worse, because it makes me feel like I'm nuts sometimes or that someone will think I'm a complete weirdo.

EXACTLY. One of the interesting (weird!) teachings of the JWs was that you should live worthy to survive Armageddon. I'm like, "WHAT?". I can barely survive a headcold. Armageddon? Are they kidding me? I'd really want to deal with the aftermath of that?

I never quite understood why some folks talk about the last days, end of the world, etc., like it's something wonderful. Oh, yeah, I know, "What happens AFTER will be wonderful," they say. Yeah, maybe, but that's not what doomsayers are saying out loud, is it? Just pondering here.

LOL they never visit to share the winning lottery numbers!!! When it does happen it is exhausting. I'm down to a handful of visits a year. 2001 was particularly busy and I have to admit that for several months that year I did feel a bit nuts (and excessively tired). Will be interesting to see what happens with all of this, though. I'd be a bit perplexed if someone with any authority in the church told me this was a "gift". The only thing that shuts down all possibility of getting a visitor is Ambien before bed!!!

LOL before I forget to say it, thank you for your vote of "not being nuts" confidence!

I'll be starting that in the next couple of weeks, actually... am looking forward to it! :)

They just happen because they have always happened since I was a child. There doesn't seem to be a particular cause or trigger, if you will. I know there is life after death, but it is faith that led me to accept Christ's atonement on my behalf. So yes, I still have need for faith. I tell them about the gospel. And keep it at that. Anything else is just personal experience, my own life events if you will. :) In an odd way it seems you answered my concerns about this for me, LOL!!!

I'm sure I've never made more of it than what it is. There have been times I have been asked to pass something along but haven't done so - it just seemed to not be my place to do so. And I don't advertise it at all (well, except mentioning it here, because I'm trying to come to terms with it), but this will probably be the extent of my discussing it right here in this thread. I'm just trying to sort it out. :)