EarlJibbs
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Posts posted by EarlJibbs
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I know you didn't ask whether or not you should wear them, but I say wear them. Wear them all you can. Make sure you dress in a manner than allows you to wear them.
Now then, my other two cents. Are you breaking covenants by not wearing them? Yes. What is another covenant you made? To be baptized. Would you go to the rest of church and not go to sacrament? Skipping out on what may seem trivial could have eternal consequences. I think that is your biggest concern, breaking a covenant with God. Which we know from Moses, Joseph Smith and others that didn't do as instructed or agreed upon, God is serious about his side of the promises made and if we break them, he is serious about the consequences.
Will you be excommunicated? No.
Can you still go to church? Yes
Can you still have a calling? Yes
Can you go to the temple/renew your temple recommend? No
Are you to be sent to a lower kingdom as someone may have suggested? I am careful not to tell people they will or will not go to any which kingdom as it is not my place. But could you? Yes.
My sincere suggestion is that you write down the promises God has made you. Write down the promises you made God. And then write down the cons of deciding not to wear the garments. In the end it is your decision, but I do believe that in the end if your only reason is that you don't like them, take a longer harder more spiritually guided look at your priorities. Can you still be a wonderful person? Yes, absolutely. Can you still be blessed by doing well and doing good for others? Yes. Be and do your best and let God do the rest.
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So we are to take it that all men are simply lustful pigs? I had a higher opinion of myself I guess.
Although I have to make a conscious decision sometimes to look the other way (sometimes well in advance) when a scandalously dressed pretty woman walks my way, or even a modestly dressed beautiful woman, I don't think it makes me any less worthy of a child of God. I recognize the want. And yes, like others, I do have to be careful so that I do not have lustful eyes. I think what you feel you are stumbling upon is a well known fact about the natural man, welcome to life.
And not exclusively talking about men, but women also, can you now possibly understand why so many marriages fail and why pornography is such a plague. Why on earth would a happily married person view such vile images or cheat on their loved ones unless there was a strong emotion within us to do so? We all must be vigilant, which means recognizing the truth, that most people see or think things they wish they hadn't, try to fix it and prevent it in the future and repent and move on.
I am happy that you seem to find it so easy, and I imagine that many people wish they were blessed with such a powerful hold on their emotions. It now seems that your struggle might be accepting that others do not find it so easy.
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This makes men seem so vile. Although men and women are different in a lot of ways, the fact is that when you get married, there is no magic switch to turn off who you are. This works both ways though. I have no doubt that my wife thinks other men are handsome or is attracted to certain aspects of men. Although those aspects may be different than what a man would think as attractive, it still exists.
I wish you luck in overcoming this feeling of distrust of men in general. I think you are on the right path in praying for assistance. If I have learned anything about our Father in Heaven though, it is that he cannot change our minds, but he can give us answers that we can decide to accept or not.
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This is the statement inducing my responses from the OP, "I was generous to give him a raise, even though he said that his bishop helps him out with providing funds from fast offerings."
In this situation, whether boss or not, if a raise was given which would compensate for the Church's assistance then yes, the bishop should be informed.
Once informed, then it is up to the bishop to pray and consider the information received and what to do about it. I don't see how any lawsuit could occur, but then again, people will sue over anything in our day.
These are sacred funds being handed to someone who appears in need, from information the recipient has provided. If financial situations have changed then that individual should let the bishop know himself, if not, the boss should if he knows he was receiving support before the raise.
I suppose I am more conscious due to the needs of the ward I am in and knowing the decisions our bishops have to make on a weekly basis, and if a member were to receive a raise and still pursue assistance without divulging the raise, yes, our bishops would want to know and would be grateful for the knowledge.
I completely understand what you are saying and 100% agree that the funds used are most sacred. I served not only as EQP dealing with getting the financials and helping ward members put together their own plan, but also in the Bishopric giving council on the matters we saw. The majority of the larger givers of fast offerings in the ward were usually those that probably had the least, which made it much harder when we saw it abused.
However, I still disagree that as his employer, he should get involved. As a friend, if they are, he should just talk to him personally about it. See how the raise is working out for him.
The fear of a lawsuit isn't just because people are sue happy, it's because you have someone in a position of authority (his boss) getting directly involved in the employees life in a way that could be detrimental to his employee. He has a conflict of interest. I just don't see how that conversation would sound... "Hi Bishop, I am the employer of Brother Doe, he mentioned that he was getting assistance from the church so I gave him a raise. Oh and I know he still smokes. Did you know either of those two things? I Just wanted you to be aware of those personal things to help you decide if you will continue to assist him"
Anyhow, that's my take on it. One out of a million people.
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Sorry to you organ lovers/players out there. I think the organ shouldn't be allowed
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Not necessarily so. If we have information a bishop does not we are duty bound to inform the bishop of circumstances. People abuse the Church and its welfare assistance, and with proper information bishops can make better or more educated decisions in accordance with revelation.
Our ward has had its fair share of abusers. With additional information which have been brought to our bishops attention at times better decisions were made regarding families. Example, true story, family reaches out for assistance during Christmas. Bishop is happy to help. Bishop was informed father just purchased a $500 golf pass so he could play golf. Now the bishop has better information which he can discuss with the father privately. Yes, it doesn't matter where we work, if we are in the neighborhood or not, if we have information of possible abuse of sacred funds, we are duty bound to let it be known (privately with the bishop) and then let he who has stewardship to make the decision.
In the case of the OP, his employee smokes and he know he is on church assistance. I am not sure that he is duty bound to meddle in that mans affairs because of this.
Now what about being in the position of the employer? Let's say that you do tell the bishop, they stop receiving assistance and now regardless of your assumption (correct or not) they can't make it monthly and fall further and further behind. The employee finds out you had something to do with that. Are you opening yourself up to liability being their employer by engaging in their personal life? You weren't a neighbor. You weren't a ward member - you were his employer. This, I think is tricky. To he OP: My answer would still be, do not engage unless you have some kind of concrete proof that 1) the person is basically stealing funds from the church 2) you know for a fact that the bishop isn't aware of it.
I worked for a company that aided in helping people that were behind on their mortgages make plans and catch up, modify or some other workout plan. Now there were times where on the financials, they would have help from an LDS church. Now I (for the most part) got to see the whole picture where a bishop might not have. It's not like I could call up the bishop to let them know of items that didn't sound or look right. I had no place to do so and would have opened the company up to lawsuits by calling or talking to third parties that I (business wise) had no reason to talk to them. It would appear to me that an employer could fall into that same predicament. There was once that I received permission to talk to a bishop about anything on the account, and it happened to be on one that I felt it wasn't right. The bishop asked the right questions and stopped helping that man.
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I would like to mirror those that have said to just stay out of it. All you know is that he is receiving help, trust the bishop to aid in that. You have already done your part, it would seem, by giving this man a raise.
I would simply respect the fact that he felt comfortable telling you about it and leave it at that.
There are many that while receiving assistance still have internet, cable, cell phones payments, go out to dinner every once in a while, go to the movies, etc... there are many many things that one could give up and save every penny, and the bishop, the EQ, the RS... are all aware of them and help them along their way. Yes that includes smoking.
- Leah and AngelMarvel
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A list of what to do and what not to do may not be effective. Personally, for me, I would focus on why we have the sacrament and tie that into distractions that we face, with electronics being one of them. I am not sure what kind of backup you need to state that surfing the web during sacrament takes away from the spirit you feel, but also is a distraction to those around you.
Good luck.
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My Bishop is also my Dentist. I call him Dr Brother Bishop [last name] Or Dr Bishop [last name] for kicks sometimes. He has too many titles :)
I personally like it when people use my first name. I had an older gentleman in my last ward say Brother Earl instead of Brother Jibbs. I loved it.
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Is it because you announced it? Or is it because it's brisket and ribs?
I don't understand the line...
Both my sons' baptisms were held in the Atlantic ocean and we rented the beach house for a week with several ward members staying over multiple days... celebration went on and on and on.
I think my humor was lost Anatess, or more likely I didnt convey it well enough :) . I was saying that I would understand a rule restricting food at the church after a baptism IF one was to announce that they were going to cater ribs and brisket at the church for everyone that came. I didn't actually do this. All we did was simple sandwiches and kolaches at my house.
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In my ward here in TX, it seems we always have refreshments after convert baptisms. I think it offers the person getting baptized a chance to meet those who are supporting them. In our experience, this appears to have added to the service, not detracted. The baptized looked overjoyed to talk to everyone and feel that the ward was placing their choice as the center of attention. I suppose you don't need a snack to do this, but it certainly doesn't hurt.
Since I wanted more than just cookies and punch for my sons baptism, I invited select families back to my house for more of a meal.
Now, if I were to advertise that brisket and ribs were to be catered to the church afterward, although that would be delicious, it would over the top.
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I wish Wish WISH that people would actually post more about their families or real life and LESS about funny cat videos, political or news links etc...
That is what drives me nuts. I removed someone a few weeks ago for posting WWE links 5 times a day. Grrrrr.
I love seeing and reading about peoples lives. However, I don't have anyone on FB that I am not interested in, so it's easy.
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Not church history but still fascinating.
My My mother in law is from Ireland and grew up there. Her mom (my wife's grandmother), when she was about 18, had her house bombed in WWII. It killed her entire family and blew her, and her mattress blocks away and she lived! Her daughter, my mother in law, joined the church when she was 18 and then traveled to the states. It is because of that miracle that I ever met my wife. I love that story.
Church history; way back at the Mayflower, I have family lines with the Hinckley family line.
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Everyone that I have on FB are people (family and friends) that I would personally hang out with if given the chance. Almost all are far away now. If they do things that offend me, I let it slide and don't get involved most of the times as there is no reason. If I feel that something is just too much, I would reach out to them individually. No need to talk about everything publicly.
If it gets to be too much, I remove them, just like I would if they were physically around me.
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I think there was coloring and pencil drawing and playing hangman and sleeping.
Yeah. We drew pictures and played the "dot" game, but NOTHING until after the Sacrament portion was over. We do the same with our children, they draw and have some quiet items that we allow, but only after Sacrament.
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When Uchdorf was speaking they did one of their new "from behind" shots so you could see him talking and see the congregation. He was talking about electronic devices and lo and behold there was a kid about 10 rows back with the nice bright glow on his face from his tablet. Haha!
- Crypto, NeuroTypical, lagarthaaz and 1 other
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I understand all that. That is what is taught in Sunday School/Seminary. Priesthoodpower's OP specifically addresses those that are not taught in Sunday School/Seminary (i.e., reconciling Dinosaurs with Genesis, local or total flood, authenticity of the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith's wives, etc.) and those are things missionaries don't really like talking about - they'll bring you back to the Sunday School stuff.
I agree. And the missionaries are most likely not knowledgeable about that kind of teaching or history to effectively navigate it.
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What about the thousands of underage members whose parents are not LDS? Where are they going to learn from?
I am not sure there is a crisis of children that should be taught about these things. Think about what is being taught - standards, principles... etc. Does one need a testimony that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ? Yes. Does one need to have a testimony about how he translated the Book of Mormon? It wouldn't hurt, but if you have a testimony of Gods work and that the Book of Mormon if true, why wouldn't you be able to handle ANYTHING else that comes your way? This is why the missionaries teach that, instead of the latter.
In my opinion, it is a weak foundation that allows our faith to crumble. Focus on the foundation. All those under age children are getting that, and if they have built their house upon the rock, then the house will not come crumbling down.
- The Folk Prophet, Vort and Jane_Doe
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If we are not only reading the scriptures with our children, but are taking the time to stop and talk about what we read, finding out about seer stones and the like shouldn't shake the foundation. Do we breeze over why it was okay for Nephi to kill Laban hoping not to discuss it or do we stop and talk about it, taking in each question and patiently try to answer each one that comes to a child's mind?
I think that if my children can accept that the Son of God suffered for our sins thousands of years ago, died and then three days later was resurrected, I think that they can believe the other wonders of the Lords work just as much.
This type of teaching is a parents duty, to dive deep and help your children understand what is being taught, and then feel and recognize the confirmation of the Holy Ghost.
- mordorbund and Vort
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My wife would always get dizzy and weak if she skipped a meal or a snack later on in the pregnancy. Go off what your body tells you, past just being hungry.
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Welcome.
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That our ward FB page is mainly for bartering. It's like its own market place. Except most of the stuff is garbage.
This reminds me, I have a cruddy table to sell...
A Report From Temple Square
in General Discussion
Posted
I used to work across the street. I was happy I could see it every day.