tesuji

As others have said, I recommend being patient with the missionaries, and also bringing up the problem with them.
And I'm probably not the only person here who would like to knock their heads together for treating a sincere investigator like this
 

As others have said, I recommend being patient with the missionaries, and also bringing up the problem with them.
And I'm probably not the only person here who would like to knock their heads together for treating a sincere investigator like this
 

As others have said, I recommend being patient with the missionaries, and also bringing up the problem with them.
And I'm probably not the only person here who would like to knock their heads together for treating a sincere investigator like this
 

Hi. I'm a 20 year old investigator trying to find out about the LDS Church. I first wanted to learn about the church last month, when I saw a video about Joseph Smith which really resonated with me. I was raised Catholic (but grew disillusioned due to some of the ways that church operates) but I've always had a strong faith in God and was looking for a new Church. When I saw the movie about Joseph Smith and found out about how there was a modern-day prophet (something I've always wondered about) it really resonated with me so I wanted to learn more. I sent an email to one of the LDS websites, where I got in touch with someone who was able to find a missionary in my city to speak to me.
My first meeting with the two missionaries (let's call them Elder C and Elder V) was last Thursday. It went well and I got a Book of Mormon. I was interested in the stuff they talked about and it made a lot of sense to me.
The next day we had another lesson. Our lessons take place in the chapel instead of my house because I live with my landlady, so I don't want to bring guests over. They talked about the three degrees of Heaven - again, it all made a lot of sense to me. Directly after that lesson, we had a game of volleyball with other members of the Church. It was a lot of fun, even though I was terrible at it.
Then the next day (Saturday) we had another lesson. However, it was scheduled to take place at 1:00 in the afternoon, but then just before it was time to meet-up, they texted me to say that they had to change the time to 3:00. Eventually this became 4:00, and when they finally did show up they didn't have the key so we had to talk in the street instead of the bus-stop. We talked for exactly ten minutes before they got the bus home. They had made me wait around for 4 hours, just so we'd have a 10 minute meeting.
The next day was Sunday. I'm yet to gain testimony so I felt it best to not attend the seminary. I texted them saying that I'd only attend the final two hours of church (the gospel principles class and the priesthood, where I could learn more about the church). However when I got to the chapel (a few minutes before seminary ended) an older Brother saw me in the corridor and asked me to sit next to him through the end of the seminary. Afterwards we had Gospel Principles and the priesthood. One of the other Elders, Elder H, (the missionary I get on best with) talked to me throughout it all but the missionaries who're supposed to be teaching me didn't talk to me except for the very end when one of them told me that we'd have a lesson the next day (Monday).
This lesson was postponed to Tuesday. Again, the lesson was delayed for an hour and when it eventually was on, one of the missionaries (the one who hadn't talked to me during church) was at another meeting instead. So Elder H took his place. The Elders talked about chastisy (I asked them if we could do this lesson when I txted them the day before). During it, I admitted that one of the things that was stopping me from fully-accepting this Church was how it views homosexuality, and how one of the Baptist Questions addresses homosexuality (I was afraid that I'd be asked the Baptism Questions in front of everyone, I hadn't realised that the baptism interview takes place on a seperate day to the actual baptism itself). I admitted that when I was young I had been homosexual. The Elders seemed okay with it.
However today (yes, they had organised another lesson for today! I've had a lesson pretty much every day) the Elders didn't turn up. They said they were on their way but I waited around for half an hour and none of them turned up. I then txted them asking if they were coming and they never replied.
 
So my question is: why do they keep (a) changing the time of our meetings and (b) why didn't they turn up today? Have I somehow annoyed them? Their constant "changing the time" is beginning to really inconvenience me because it means I have to wait around for three hours, even though I have other things I should be doing. How do I tell them that without coming across as being nasty? I know they've probably got a lot of people to be seeing but at this point it's getting ridiculous. Would it be okay to tell them that, if they continue to be late or if they continue to not show up, I'm just going to walk away. I really want to join this Church - I have a lot of faith in it - but unfortunately, to get baptised, I need to have the missionary lessons, and the missionaries' time-keeping is making that really difficult. Are missionaries usually like this?
 
NOTE: This isn't meant to be an attack on the LDS church. I've enjoyed the time I've spent learning more about the church and everyone in there seems nice. It's just this one issue (time-keeping) that's really beginning to grate on my nerves.

Language is often a good marker for descent. Most tribes in Utah share a linguistic connection, their languages being from the Uto-Aztec family. Brother Brian Stubbs has shown that these languages have a great deal in common with Hebrew. So, while it ain't guaranteed, it's a fair bet they are, indeed, descended from Lehi (the original, or course, not me — been accused of being older than dirt but that's mild exaggeration).
Lehi

Celebrity provides a bully pulpit, which I imagine is tempting to take advantage of. But, yes, I hope they get informed before they start pontificating on a subject.
Unfortunately, I often see the bully pulpit (and the power of the media in general) being used to preach the philosophies of the world, which these days are too often the opposite of the gospel of Christ.

It's one of the biggest decisions you have to make as a novelist, and I guess with other arts as well: How much do you put your own views into it?
The more you put in your own views, the more loved you will be by people who agree with you. But the narrower your audience.

Yeah I don't see any evidence that Tom Hanks is a virulent Mormon hater.  I looked it up on mormonmatters and it struck me as being pretty benign, in the scheme of things, and he did make an effort to backtrack it some.  Is there more?  If not, then there's nothing to see here, folks. 
Generally speaking, I'm divided on how to react when famous people put their stupidity on display, regardless of the subject.  It seems like when people have a really impressive talent, somewhere there's a huge character flaw that balances it.  Some of the greatest artists of all time were also believers in some pretty stupid things.  What I find troubling is just how much credibility our culture gives to celebrities for no reason other than the fact that they're celebrities.  In what way does being an Oscar-winning actor qualify someone to speak intelligently on a subject like the Economy or U.S. Foreign Policy?  Sure, they might have studied it and know something, but that's entirely separate from their career.  Why do I give a fig about what Tom Hanks thinks of the Church in the first place?
Sadly, there is an answer, isn't there?  It's because people listen to celebrities precisely because of the illusion of credibility.  This is made worse when celebrities take on a persona of knowledgeability, like John Stewart or Stephen Colbert, who are entertainers, not news anchormen.  So then we have to deal with all the little parrots who think they know something because they heard it from an interview with their celebrity of choice, or watch the Daily Show regularly.

If memory serves me that was around the Los Angeles temple.

Yeah I don't think there was anything said that spoke of protecting all of them.  But you can certainly see a hand that the Lord has in sparing some of these from the natural disasters as the examples in the article indicated.

Yeah, from where I'm standing, no.  Meridian Idaho and Ft. Collins temple sites have both been vandalized recently, a few have been damaged intentionally or from weather, not to mention what happened to the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples back in the day. 
That said, during the Prop8 backlash, I saw a cool video of a bunch of  LDS bruisers (I forget if they were Hawaiian or Tongan) patrolling a temple and yelling at people trying to vandalize the wall around the temple.  They seemed to be having a great time yelling at people for writing hate-filled things in the name of opposing hatred.  That's how God protects His temples.  

Is it just me, or do we hear phrases like "this year's rain is a [100|200|500] year event for Houston" about every three years?

I loved this article regarding the flooding in Houston.  While everything around it is flooded, the temple is spared.
http://blog.chron.com/mormonvoice/2016/04/mormon-temple-spared-during-houston-flood/
Many Houstonians were awakened in the wee hours of April 18, 2016 to  a severe thunderstorm. This storm made it impossible to sleep and came complete with booming thunder, blinding lightening, fast wind and fat raindrops hitting like marbles dropped on rooftops and against windows.
When I looked out my second-story window at three a.m, I noticed my flooded street with water over the curb and half way up my front yard. Later when I heard on the news that we had received 15 inches of rain in less than 24 hours, I wasn’t surprised. Yet what did surprise me was seeing the many photos on Facebook and Instagram of the Houston LDS temple.

On the subject of the Holocaust, an interesting to note for this forum that Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has an affinity for the Jews.
 

That movie The Devil's Arithmetic looks good. Does it have scenes of awful things happening, though? I have seen too many awful things already in movies about Nazis and Jews. I think The Pianist was the movie where I decided I'd seen too much and didn't want to watch any more of those movies. I've still never seen Schindler's List for this reason.
To be clear, I think everyone should absolutely know what happened, including seeing some of the great movies on the subject. I've just learned too much and don't want to see any more.
Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of my favorite movies

Marriage counseling is good.  
 
Also, just because you're married doesn't mean you stop dating!  Take her out, do something both of your like, listen to her, etc.

I love the verse President Uchtdorf referenced in his talk (emphasis mine):
Alma 32:27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.
Pray for good desires and the strength to act on them.  Sometimes, that's the most you can manage - just don't let yourself get so content with wherever you are at any given time that you stagnate.
If you liked that talk by President Uchtdorf, you might like these too:
Come, Join with Us
Forget Me Not

Hi Axxx,
1. You are not the first, you won't be the last... it happens sometimes. It is not a requirement of life's journey, but it does happen. 
2. One falsehood that the Adversary tries to instill in us is that "we are alone", "no one will ever understand us", "our situation is unique"... this is flat out false. You would be surprised what some of us have gone through on here before.
3. My two cents... anti-mormons are those people who were "unsuccessful" in finding the answers they needed or "unsuccessful" in simply holding to the iron rod. I would suggest turning to faithful members who had your similar doubts, BUT despite those doubts, found the answers they needed and remained solid in the faith. 
4. WONDERFUL for you! Sometimes all you can do is muster a step here or there. After a while those single steps turn into walking again, and so forth. Hang in there... you are not alone!!

Cause to Pause

Today has been a day of revelation. I’m inactive as far as the Church is concerned. I have shunned religion, shunned faith, shunned Heavenly Father for about a year. I’ve had my testimony rocked to it’s core. I became convinced that the church was a cult. You have no idea how hard that is to admit to myself right now, let alone anyone else.

I have struggled, I have railed, I have wept and I have ignored. I’m a convert, no faith background except perhaps loosely Christian but no church attendance as a child at all. I’ve been dealt some blows in life, blows that others will never have to experience. I would write about them here but I fear they would make me too easily identifiable to anyone who knows me well. I’m not sure I’m ready to “announce” my intentions right now.

I’ve been looking for another church to attend. I’ve been reading voraciously, trying to find something to grab hold of and extricate myself from the restored gospel. I’ve asked for help of anti-mormon folks. I have sat down and tried to analyse without any help from the Holy Ghost, what exactly it is that I believe in. Not just based on what I’ve been taught, but also based on my own experience. I even took a questionnaire online in an attempt to find another faith. 100% LDS. Despite that when I took it, as I answered, I considered that I was removed from LDS teachings, I thought my outlook had changed.

In all this pondering I, not for the first time in my life, had a most curious dream. It woke me a good 4 hours before the alarm was due to go off. In that space of time, in the dawn of the day, I was able to hear the still small voice one more time. There is no other church that I can join. The contents of the dream are unimportant right now, but suffice it to say that it affected me enough to sit in quiet contemplation and to pray.

Later, I was looking around for some music with a message downloads (I’ve always found music to be a spiritual medium that can set me in the right frame of mind). I inadvertently, thanks to the search engine with a y, ended up clicking on and off lds.org. But something caught my eye. President Uchtdorf’s General Conference Talk “Christ Will Find and Rescue You” from the April 2016 conference. It’s this week’s “Talk of the Week” on lds.org.

Towards the end of this talk, the line:

“Our Savior, the Good Shepherd, knows and loves us. He knows and loves you.”

Never has something hit me with so much clarity of thought in my life. The talk goes on to say this:

“His invitation is simple:

“Turn … to me.”5

“Come unto me.”6

“Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you.”7

This is how we show Him that we want to be rescued.

It requires a little faith. But do not despair. If you cannot muster faith right now, begin with hope.

If you cannot say you know God is there, you can hope that He is. You can desire to believe.8 That is enough to start.”

Today is my start. I can’t deny what I know anymore. I am telling no-one I know at this stage, I’m not planning on attending church in the near future. I am going to take each day as it comes, and draw a little closer to Heavenly Father.


Truly humbled. Axxx

Have you ever seen The Devil's Arithmetic? 

Golda Meier said, "We can forgive you (the Muslims) for killing us. We can forgive you for killing our children. But we cannot forgive you for making us kill your children."
Lehi

For the record, I think Hebrew sounds cool. And even better when spoken by an attractive woman
Also, I'm thinking maybe the main problem with Bibbi might not be the Hebrew...

Steve Noel,
 
I feel for you on this forum – kind of like being a lion in a den of Danial’s.
 
It is always interesting to me that anyone in search of truth thinks that ancient Biblical texts can be used as a single authority to determine doctrine.  I do not imply this thought just because I am a scientist and engineer but because of my profound love and respect for the true and living G-d that is a G-d of truth.  In the empirical world of science (which is the means by which I support my life, my family and from which I pay my tithes and offerings to G-d) I deal a great deal with documents.  One thing I have learned over years of dealing with documentation is that by cutting and pasting one can easily draw incorrect conclusions that were never intended by the author of any specific text.
 
I do not intend to highjack your thread with the philosophy and science of Biblical textual criticism – only to point out that even among the respected scholars (experts) educated in the rigors of “Traditional Christian” doctrine there is vast, varied and heated disagreement in the specifics of just about any doctrine and the meaning of any ancient Biblical text.
 
For the discussion of this thread we are specifically addressing the differences and similarities between G-d, man and angles.  Part of the problem I see is that Jesus in reality while alive is indistinguishable between any “true” definitions of man or G-d - especially any definition believed by a person that is so “disciplined” in the commandments of G-d that they can rightfully claim to be a follower and “disciple” of Jesus Christ.  Please let me go to the very heart of such doctrine by some reference to scripture.
 
I begin with Genesis Chapter 3 verse 24:
 
 
In this reverence Cherubim are plural (more than one) but the flaming sword is singular.  However, the purpose or intent of Cherubim is to keep the way to the “tree of life”.  In fact the term Cherubim is plural – meaning there is more than one keeper of the way to salvation?
There is much that can be discussed in this one simple verse but our question is to determine the distinctions of difference between man, G-d and angles.  I submit that in this single term “Cherub” and the manner that this term is use in this verse in Genesis that any symbolism in scripture attached to this specific term can be directly applied to the Man Jesus Christ and G-d.  Beginning with Jesus Christ as the one and only “keeper of the way” thus fulfilling the role of G-d, man and the very definition of angel or Cherub as defined by Traditional Christian.  You may think you can find a scripture to defend your point of view – but in reality it will only conflict and contradict other scriptures and how traditional Christians define such interpretations.  Things like resurrection and being at the “right hand” of G-d or being one with G-d and Christ.
Doctrine in scripture is at best extremely vague and any attempt by humans to define specifics without G-d divine assistance will only result in contradictions.  Not just in the person explaining the specifics but also in the individual understanding the specifics.  But this is a whole other discussion.
 
The Traveler

Captain America.  Because he's blonde.  And cute. 

Captain America, no competition!  He's cooler, better personality, better moral character, better looking, etc.