Hala401

As far as Travon Martin is concerned, there is STILL an element of hateful bigots in this country. I do not know how many they number, but they are vocal as long as they have the anonymity of the internet. I'd rather hope that their numbers are small, but I fear not. No one has openly said anything racist to me, and if it ever happens, I hope that I have the courage to confront them. I've heard a lot of different racial slurs; chink, whap, rag head, terrorist, sand nigger, and the list just goes on and on. I'll never forget the day that I was volunteering at a local Veterans Administration Hospital( when I was still Muslim) when someone told me I was a terrorist. It was quite shocked, but it did give me some insight about racial hatred.

You are right, I got too emotional. The LDS of all people know what it is like to be involved with other races.

There is no moral high ground for treating a person differently whether they are white, red, yellow, brown or black or yet another color all together. In fact, I have seen articles that state that White people are not the most intelligent, just the most predatory. From the pen of a White woman.

I agree with you. As bitter and angry as I have been at my parents, I have now come round to the idea that the Doctor did the best he could with what he knew at the time, and my parents functioned on the same sort of ignorance. It is heartening that non XX or XY children are increasingly treated with compassion and care. I once thought it was cruelty to not have come into the world just like other children, but now I wonder if the experience allows for extra learning for us all.

I don't think we want to get down to blaming the girl for your sin.

If there were a body of people who are knowledgeable about the latest genetic science, I would not be surprised to find them at BYU Provo. Among the thousands of combinations that one can find by just googling, are XY females who look female and all that, but often have no Uterous. Then of course there are XX males, and XXY, And XXXY and Xy and oh so many other combinations. And NOW we find that various hormone levels in utero can bolix things up too. Astonishment flooded through me as an LDS Doctor looked at me and my test results, and for the first time in my entire life someone acted like they understood. Disbelief flooded my mind, but slowly Holy Spirit calmed my fears and emotions. People like me go through a lot, and I know some who complain that the church has not treated them well. As for me, once Holy Spirit convinced me to trust, my own experience has been astonishingly wonderful beyond anything I could have asked for. I think the church will lead the way on this issue, and I thank Heavenly Father for that every day. I don't want this to sound trite and over used, but I know that the Church is True, and that this is Jesus Christ's church and that the book of Mormon is true.

I'd like to keep my response sweet and loving, and must admit that I have some extremely strong emotion surrounding this subject. In my own personal experience the binary model can be almost imposible to identify, especially at birth. We used to think of XX as female, and XY as male, but in the last 10 years genetic scientists have identified thousands of combinations in between. I was brought up in the hell oriented, evangelical dogma where they simplistically said things like, "God don't make no mistakes!" while yelling and pounding their fists on the pulpit. The hate and bile is one of the reasons that I eventually left them. I have known young men who looked absolutely beautiful female in the face, but in the pool, well you know. Then there is me who people struggle with until I open my mouth. No, I would never win a beauty contest. Of course my friends say I am beautiful, and it makes me want to refer them to a psychiatrist. So, maybe some of us are critical of ourselves. In the 40's and 50's people of indeterminate gender were simply killed.

Next time, if I watch it on line, I will try to have another member with me, and not have a roaring cold. I like being there in person. Too many distractions at home for this girl. :)

Perhaps it is best that I not go this year. I am at home with sneezing, coughing, runny nose. I do not know if it is alergy or nasty cold.

I think it is important that everyone read this link. I know two individuals who had the same thing happen in the 50's. And generally, the parents were not even informed, nor was the surgery documented. At that time, Doctors were seen as minor Gods and pretty much had free rein on what they did. Now days, I would hope that they would at least perform a Karyotype test, and perhaps even wait a few years to see what sort of tendencies the child exhibited. I know that this issue must have come up before in a population as large as the LDS church. What puzzles me is that in both cases I know of, the medical people chose to remove the female organs and not the male. It would have been much easier to remove the male organs. My general impression of the LDS is that our population may be more highly educated than some of the groups I have experienced, so what better place to address this issue.

An aspect to this that I have not seen mentioned is the girl plainly gets her self worth from promiscuity. Perhaps you could start with a lot of very sincere prayer for her, that she would learn to see the value that Heavenly Father puts on her. I wonder what her home life is like? What is her father like? Does he value her as a child of Heavenly Father? What is in his stack of magazines in the garage? Is the mother valued for more than her body, and is her mother supportive of her? Perhaps you would want to talk to YOUR Bishop about your own sin, and leave it up to him to take action from there. After all he is the one with the mantle of authority. I would hope that any punishment meted out to her would come along with a heavy dose of love, reinforcement, and counseling so that she can see her true value.

Perhaps members of the church understand human rights issues better than most. Mormons have struggled to get the full privileges of the First Amendment for a very long time.

There were no tickets available.

They are just finishing one, or remodelling, one in Brigham City. On the way back to Portland, I made it a point to stop and photograph any I could see from the freeway, and that one stands out like a beacon. The one in Twin Falls is quite pretty too. The Temple in Portland is just astonishing! Gosh, I hope that my happy, gushing about the church doesn't get tiresome.

You may have seen me write this in another blog, but I will repeat it for clarity. I was raised in a very poor, fruit migrant, uneducated family where none of us liked each other. We were like a barrel full of feral cats. So when I became an adult Heavely Father began to drag me, unwilling at first, down a path to understanding and learning to love others. Were it possible, I am sure I would have left claw marks on his arm. :) I was just too ignorant to know better. So he took me to Honduras on a relief mission, I thought to help others, but it was I who needed to be educated. I came back with a deep love for Latino people who were perhaps the descendants of Nephi? Later, I was called to go to Kenya, a prospect which frightened me terribly. And, as you might guess, came back with a deep love and respect for Black people. They were dignified, loving, and spoke English with an English accent. And so it went on down through the years, seemingly every time I showed fear or prejudice about other people or situations, that is where Heavenly Father put me, if I was going to obey him. Even my experience as Muslim taught me many good things. Modesty, reverence, respect for authority, obedience were but a few. Prejudice is really from the devil. I learned some new ones in Islam, and have had to really seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to become centered on the way that Heavenly Father finds acceptable.

It's not that I feel my faith is in danger from dealing with her. I just want to confront her with the truth. After what Heavely Father has done for me in the last year, how could I lose faith? Still, I will listen to your council. :)

The Atonement is something that I have more reason than most to appreciate.

Sounds like she has a bad case of youthful rebellion.

Thank you. This is pretty much what I was assuming because we have several different races in our Ward, including Blacks. I ran into a bitter, angry young woman on youtube and just wanted to respond to her, but now I am unable to find her post. I would now suggest that she could have studied harder in seminary. She's around 18 and says she is also an Athiest. Our kids have these problems and later come round. All I can do is pray for her. She seems quite angry about being expected to have a whole bunch of children, as if it is the Mormon Mandate. Is there directive as to how many children women are supposed to have?

Believe me I start this discussion with real fear and trembling but I thought it was best to breech this subject in a place where someone would know how to interpret the scriptures I will show. To be clear, I am a White American of Northern European descent. Travel to Honduras, Kenya, Israel, Japan and Kenya has pretty much erased any feelings I have as to what race is the best. So, I just want to share these scriptures and for someone to tell me how we as modern members of the church should interpret them. 2 Nephi 5:21, 3 Nephi 2:14, Moses 7:22, Alma 3:6

An acquaintance of mine who is heavily into science, once told me that the next evolutionary development in humans is telepathy. As followers of The Church, we already have that in the Holy Spirit. And my own experiences with the un-explainable in the church finally made me accept. Oh, I love studying the works that Heavenly Father has provided to us, and it is comforting that my actions and path are watched every day.

It coulda been. I was driving up University Ave, and failed to get in the left turn lane quick enough, so I just turned on my signal to squeeze over. Of course that delayed the woman in back of me and I felt sorry I had caused the problem. In reflection, 20 years ago, that frustrated woman could have easily have been me. Now days, I see people driving wildly, pounding on the steering wheel, having to get ahead, and all sorts of erratic behavior that relates to the presures they feel. Poor souls. I am divorced, live alone, and don't have financial presures if the lust for world goods does not overcome my good sense. And, it is not HIS social security check, its mine. I worked a long time, and made good money. My Bishop asked me if I was willing to marry again, and I was profoundly shocked! I did not know it was legal to marry an old trout like me! As if there is someone who would!

While I was yet an Investigator, I loved to go to anti Mormon pages and see what they were saying. Youtube was great! I'd look at some of the outrageous claims, research them, and even talk to the Missionaries about them and then go back to the original poster and tell them the truth. LOL, you'd be surprised at what happens to a bully when someone stands up to them. Most negative posters don't know the subject they comment about. Even some of the "X Mormons" get pretty bizarre, and it makes me wonder if they ever were Mormons. A favorite topic for some of them is of course polygamy. Myself, having been Muslim I have feelings about it. Did you know that the Quran forbids it, except there is an "exception" and that is what the men use. That fact carried a lot of disillusionary power for me. I truly never met a Muslim woman who was OK with it. It is just something that some men shove down our throats in Islam. I don't really wish to get into a discussion about LDS polygamy, as I have no strong feelings. If Heavenly Father ordains it, both sides agree, and there are no cradle robbings then who am I do pontificate on it? Now that I was baptised, I feel constrained to be sweet. I'd really like to confront some of these people but somehow, those pages lack attraction for me any more. I've been a scrapper all my life and here I am now being all peaceful. I am liking it a lot.

I actually liked most of the drive except there is a really frightening place right by Bonneville Dam, on the Columbia River. The wind was blowing, it was raining hard, there was a rock slide, and people were driving too fast. By then I was getting more depressed as I went along because I had to return to Oregon. I know I am supposed to be positive, sorry. I have lived around Portland most of my life and all the rain just gets to me this time of the year. In looking at the forcast, rain with no sun is predicted for the next 7 days! Driving 75 was OK, though I would like to drive about 60, but it is wise to keep with the traffic flow. The Drivers of Salt Lake/Provo were supposed to be really discourteous, but only one woman yelled at me, honest. :)

I am sorry, but I am back in Oregon. Perhaps another time?