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Captain America: Civil War I'm cheap so I waited for it to come out on Vidangel, to watch for a dollar. Also, I wasn't keen on watching the Avengers fight each other. My verdict: I need to watch the Ultron movie and then watch this one again. I was kinda lost. Also, too much tedious fighting - maybe I'm just getting too old for these movies. Also: Ironic that Iron Man was on the side of the law, and Captain American was the lawless one. Not sure I like this, but it makes sense in the movie.

Iron Man 3 I finally watched this. I had waited because I found Iron Man 2 so irritating. But #3 was much better. Now I dislike Iron Man less. Turns out he was on an emotional journey of personal growth. OK, a more sympathetic character now.

The Nice Guys, filtered thru Vidangel http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3799694/ Even heavily filtered, still a little too R. Needed more comedy, less meanness. I wanted to enjoy it but in the end not an edifying movie, overall.

While We're Young, filtered thru Vidangel http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1791682/ Very interesting, thought-provoking movie. What Woody Allen might have made if he'd been born 50 years later. Has some twists - gets even better in the second half

The Misty Mountain? Sorry, I just watched The Hobbit movie yesterday

OK, Sunday21, so where do you live? Very curious now. Kudos on your smile and wave campaign. Sometimes that's all you can do, is your part to follow a Christlike example. And pray, of course. On the positive side, I know of many places in the church that were formerly a struggling branch, that now have multiple wards.

I now live a block from the meetinghouse. Yeah, we're late every week

Anybody watching this new show? I'm loving it. Only after the first episode did I find out it's by the guy who did Parks and Recreation, another big favorite of me and my wife. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4955642/ It's on Hulu too

You are free to have your own reaction of course. I personally have been very saddened that some members have put their politics, and the words of political demagogues, ahead of our church leaders, who are encouraging us members to do one of the most Christlike actions possible:

I think your question is referring to D&C 45 (see quote below). I'm also fascinated by the idea of Zion - when, where, what, how will it be? To start with, here's the official church blurb about it: D&C 45:

My understanding of this has been that we should not care what other people think about us, only that we should do what is right in God's eyes. That word "fear" has always been interesting to me. I've always wanted to rationalized away - "well, obviously, it doesn't mean to actually be afraid of God." But I'm actually not so sure that isn't part of if. I did a spot check of the original word used in the scriptures. The results are below. The numbers are from Strongs Condordance, followed by various meanings of each word. By the way, the following is an excellent online bible for checking the Hebrew and Greek original wording the Bible. Click on the word and it gives you the original word. http://biblewebapp.com/study/ Proverbs 1:7 - The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge: [but] fools despise wisdom and instruction. יִרְאָה (3374 fear, terror, fearing fear, terror awesome or terrifying thing (object causing fear) fear (of God), respect, reverence, piety revered also 3374 yir'ah yir-aw' feminine of 3373; fear (also used as infinitive); morally, reverence:--X dreadful, X exceedingly, fear(-fulness). Ecclesiastes 12:13 - Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man. יָרֵא (3372 to fear, revere, be afraid (Qal) to fear, be afraid to stand in awe of, be awed to fear, reverence, honour, respect (Niphal) to be fearful, be dreadful, be feared to cause astonishment and awe, be held in awe to inspire reverence or godly fear or awe (Piel) to make afraid, terrify (TWOT) to shoot, pour also 3372 yare' yaw-ray' a primitive root; to fear; morally, to revere; caus. to frighten:--affright, be (make) afraid, dread(-ful), (put in) fear(-ful, -fully, -ing), (be had in) reverence(-end), X see, terrible (act, -ness, thing). Deuteronomy 10:12 - And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, 3372 - same word as previous scripture Luke 1:50 - And his mercy [is] on them that fear him from generation to generation. φοβέω (5399) phobeo, to fear Find all occurrences (approximately 93) to put to flight by terrifying (to scare away) to put to flight, to flee to fear, be afraid to be struck with fear, to be seized with alarm of those startled by strange sights or occurrences of those struck with amazement to fear, be afraid of one to fear (i.e. hesitate) to do something (for fear of harm) to reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience Philippians 2:12-13 - Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. φόβος (5401) phobos, fear - noun form of φοβέω (5399) phobeo Find all occurrences (approximately 44) fear, dread, terror that which strikes terror reverence for one's husband

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I often have trouble falling asleep. Too much on my mind. What works for me is Audible.com books on tape. I play the books using the Audible app on my phone and I have earbuds and a memory foam pillow, so I can sleep with the earbuds on without it hurting my ears. The secret is finding a book that is interesting enough to keep my interest long enough for me to fall asleep but not so interesting that I want to stay awake to hear it. History and science books do the trick. Novels wouldn't work for me, probably - especially page-turner types. I usually set the book to stop after 45 or 60 minutes - there's setting in the Audible for that. Sleep cycles are 90 minutes so you might get woken then if the book is still playing. You can get 2 Audible books per month for $22 (that's their best plan, as far as price per book), and they also often have sales. They also sell one book a day on special, usually 2-4 dollars, if you check out their homepage every day. Other things they say can make your sleep worse - bright lights before bed - eating before bed, especially sweets - caffein before bed, obviosly - don't take naps during the day, and don't use your bedroom during the day for other activities like TV, reading Your room should be dark, quiet, and cool Get good physical exercise during the day, but not 2 hours or less before bed You might also check with your doctor - insomnia can have medical causes. Google for more tips

I'm glad I watched it (even though filtered). I wouldn't want to watch again, though. "Great storytelling" is not the same as "a great, edifying story."

My two cents: In general, I absolutely believe in taking every movie on a case-by case basis. However, as a rule I do not watch R rated movies. Few are worth it. It's safer to stay away from them all. Once in a while I make an exception, but it is so easy to slide into justifying bad movies that way. I do make exceptions. For example, I recommend everyone watch The Godfather, one of the best movies of all time. But I would still prefer to filter out a few of the awful scenes in there. Another movie I recommend is The Verdict with Paul Newman. Just one scene with F bombs. The BYU Honors reading list contains many R rated movies, as some of the greatest films made. But as I said, it's a slippery slope. Most PG 13 movies and PG 14 TV shows are also very offensive. I know that it's getting worse and at some point I'm going to have to just stop watching things, unless I can filter out the junk, using something like Vidangel. PG 13 are often as bad as R movies used to be. The families doing the ratings are obviously getting corrupted over time. Like the old story of a frog in boiling water: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

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I get your point. The quote is "To lead the best, most meaningful life, one must belong to the one, fundamentally true religion." I was trying to make the point that someone does not have to be a Mormon to live the best, most meaningful life - at this exact point in their life. Ideally, theoretically, ultimately, yes, everyone would be Mormon. We have the priesthood authority, the saving ordinances, a real modern prophet. Only by marriage (or later sealing) in the temple do you have the potential opportunity to reach the Celestial Kingdom, the highest blessing God has to give. However, I think Ghandi and Mother Teresa, for example, did more good because they were part of their own cultures. People listened to them more than they would if they had been Mormons, or if Ghandi had been a guy in Utah who was a Mormon prophet. God has his plan and timeline for all of us, and people are at different places at this point in their lives. And there are plenty of non-Mormons who are better people than I am. I look at it like, "thank God I'm Mormon - maybe I can learn to catch up to them." So, yes, we pray that everyone will hear and accept the gospel and church of Christ, re-established in modern times through Joseph Smith in the 1800s, the first modern prophet of God. But what I don't like about the quote is that it can easily be construed by a Mormon to mean "I'm Mormon and that makes me better than everyone else." No way. The Book of Mormon illustrates how wrong that thinking is, with the story of the Zoramites:

This has nothing to do with Mormons, but I thought there might be enough Star Trek geeks like me on here to enjoy this Apparently, a real thing: http://beta.deseretnews.com/article/865661017/Sir-Patrick-Stewart-becomes-a-cowboy-singer-to-raise-money-for-refugees.html

This statement is pretty impossible to defend from the Mormon perspective, in my opinion. We Mormons believe we have the essentials for salvation that are mostly lacking in other churches. We believe you must be baptized by real priesthood authority for example, to be saved. And then must follow the gospel of Jesus. It is our duty to preach the gospel we have received, to share the blessings with those who will except them. However, everyone in and outside of the church are on their own paths. That's between them and God. I'm happy to leave it that way. I am also certain that many Mormons are living less meaningful lives that they could, and that many non Mormons are living in ways that please God more than I am, despite my best effort.

A agree that this is a central question for the church. The Book of Mormon makes it very clear that when the church is righteous it tends to also materially prosper - and then to get proud and forget the Lord, which leads to disaster. The famous pride cycle is one of the main themes of the Book of Mormon. We are all susceptible to pride. As always, I post my favorite talk on this subject. One of the most useful talks ever given my a modern prophet, in my view: Beware of Pride Ezra Taft Benson https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1989/04/beware-of-pride

You could ask a larger question - how come the modern scriptures we have are almost all from Joseph Smith, not from later prophets? As already said here, we don't know the mind of the Lord. It seems to me that the Lord gave a extraordinary outpouring of revelation to Joseph Smith, the first modern prophet, to re-establish the church after it was lost during the Dark Ages. We got a lot of modern scriptures. Now we need to learn and follow that - and maybe when the Lord see's we're doing that well enough, then he'll give us more scriptures. Also of course, we have many sermons given by modern prophets, we have leaders and members getting revelation for their church callings, we have personal revelation from the Holy Spirit, etc. So the Lord hasn't left us alone.

I honor and sustain Joseph Smith and all the later Mormon prophets as true prophets of God. But we should worship God only.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith for the second time. I forgot how fun this movie was. Maybe using Vidangel this time helped smooth off some sharp edges and allow me to enjoy it more. In a similar genre, I finally started watching the old TV series Alias, first episode. JJ Abrams does a great job but often leaves me feeling over-stressed. If you haven't seen his show LOST, check it out. The story arc and main theme are mostly hidden until the end, so the second time through it all you see a lot more depth. I think I have discussed this before though

I've never been so proud of my fellow Utahans for putting principles before party. And it almost feels like Romney is the only GOP leader willing to call a spade a spade.