M_T_E

Welcome to the forum!

In my old church there were loners, you'd be surprised. Mormons are pretty friendly and welcoming, its a very family oriented church and if they see a new face they usually have no problem walking up and introducing themselves. At the Baptism I witnessed on the 18th I cant even count how many people introduced themselves to me and shook my hand. Never met a pushy LDS Missionary, well my online one asked twice if I wanted to be baptized. I ran into a pair of JW Missionaries a couple years ago... That was a pretty pushy and awkward encounter. Never again I hope! They just sent me something in the mail so I hope nobody comes knocking.

Its a memorable experience, one you wont forget. =] If they don't transfer out tomorrow I am going to bug them to let me watch a few more as time allows. The nose grabbing was part of the reason why I declined baptism when I was younger and well... it was about 40 degrees outside on a spring day at the creek...

If you ever do take the time to get to know them, I have found them to be some of the most sincere, genuine and family oriented people I have ever met. Lots of good hearts and minds. That is part of the reason why I have enjoyed learning about the church so much, and well... the fact that my personal beliefs align with that of the Latter-Day Saints.

Welcome to the forums! There have been many questions of mine answered here and I am confident you will have all of yours answered as well.

May I ask what is an LDS Scientist? Like Scientology with LDS beliefs?

I apologize for not taking the time to skim through the 7 pages of responses, hard to do that on a cell phone. Anyways, every religion has active and inactive members, as numbers grow for the general count that means there is an increase in active and inactive members. Everyone I have known in my life who is LDS has always remained active and two have served missions.

The Church that my missionaries are based out of doesn't have a baptismal font I believe, but every conversion story get together and baptism they have invited me to has been at a location even closer to where I live, I just fall on the edge of the area for the one they are in which I don't mind. I let them know I wouldn't mind seeing more, transfer orders come out on Wednesday though and I am hoping atleast one of them sticks around in my area for another period. Both of my last two missionaries got swapped out, one still works in the area the other one got moved a distance out. We are going to try to get together on Tuesday (I have that day off) and study some more. Sadly I didn't make it to a church service today like I was hoping I would, plans dragged out longer than expected and this was a rare Sunday I have off. Hopefully in a week or two I will have a chance again!

If time allows tomorrow I will try to attend Sacrament atleast, I have a full day planned but am going to see if I can get in there since I don't have to work for once on a Sunday.

He is being a rebel, I would simply pull the plug on his financing and if the car was under your name I would repo it from him so he is not as easily enabled to offend like he is now. Pull the chord and he will be forced to think twice. You have more power over him than he thinks. It will serve as an eye opener for him.

And to add, I wouldn't mind watching more.

I could tell I was witness to something special and meaningful, it's not something ill ever forget either. I'm pretty grateful I had the opportunity to watch this finally.

After a great deal of poking at me my local missionaries got me to meet with them today to witness a baptism, was an interesting and somewhat enlightening experience. I heard several different testimonies. If time works on my side tomorrow I may attend a church session as well, but that's up in the air for now. Up until now I've never been witness to a baptism beyond my Methodist cousin being dipped in the water of a creek on a cold spring afternoon.

Facebook has been a more convenient method of speaking with them because usually when I have free time it is later in the evening (ie after 10PM). This is one of those rare occasions that I had free time earlier on. For me it just has been easier to send a message, the missionary replies and then check my phone again in five or ten minutes and then send a reply while I am at work. I work for Verizon and I am a Process Server so I basically get to be in my phone all day. You should be able to, I was also told that there will be more Sisters than Elders with the age limit shift for when you can serve a mission. When I went into the chat initially there were two Sisters, my connection died though and I went back and there were two different ones that popped up. But I am sure they wouldn't mind transferring you if you requested to speak with Sisters. This was my second time on the Mormon.Org Chat, and I found it to be one of the best conversations I have had yet. I used to drink alot after I turned 21. Every night after work i would go to my friends house and get drunk, and dont get me wrong those were some really fun times but I eventually realized that it was an expensive thing to do but also I just couldn't live a party lifestyle. After his mother passed away him and his dad moved to Ohio for a bit, he came back and we hang out from time to time but neither of us do like we did years ago. I guess you could say that chapter of our lives came to a close for both of us. The online missionaries are mostly there to be that 'first step', they will be there to teach you and eventually when you are ready pass you on to local missionaries for those face to face conversations that will teach you quite a bit more. Skype lessons are pretty informative with the online ones though from my experience.

I actually just watched a video of someone opening up the letter, could tell her heart was racing a mile a minute in that video. Russia or Italy would have been pretty interesting places to serve, in my preference that is. Or Texas, love that state. Ouch. I probably would have said the same thing, when I got sent to Texas to drive a truck back up for my parents I could have gone up through California to come home but I chose the Midwest because I wanted to explore more and well... avoid California. That sounds like quite the experience!

So I just finished up a pretty length conversation with two returned missionaries on the Mormon.org chat, we spoke for about an hour and a half and overall I would say I had one of the best conversations with these two Sisters. Both of my online missionaries have long departed for other countries since their visa's went through, so my learning somewhat floundered off. We had a pretty decent conversation about the different levels of Priesthood and various other topics as well, a full time missionary has added me via Facebook as did the two Sisters. I requested them to add me because I wanted them to share their stories from their missions when they had the time to do so. The question of why I have not been Baptized was brought up and I pointed out that I do not live by the Words of Wisdom, I drink lightly from time to time during family gatherings and what not. They were by no means pushy and my experience with both of them was very enlightening! I look forward to sharing more conversations with these two in the future and also look forward to seeing what this Elder can teach me as well. I have a big preference to online missionaries because I usually do not have time to meet with locals, they have been texting with me and I met once but the busy lifestyle makes it hard to keep up with eachother on a regular basis.

Italy? Wow, of all the places in the world that is one that is at the top of my list to visit when I am older. I learned a little Italian awhile back, but of course I got side tracked on other things so it never stuck with me. I could imagine that being a bit of a letdown in a way, especially when you were happy to get away from there but I bet there was a reason behind sending you back there to serve your mission. I was born in Cali, but would never want to live there again.

Over time I have read that quite a few of you have served missions. Just wondering, what was it like opening up that envelope for you? I can imagine it is a pretty emotional moment.

Welcome to the forums! Your situation is one I haven't seen before on here, even if I was a member of the Church I could not begin to imagine how your heart and mind feel about the situation at hand. I have heard that excommunicated members can possibly be re-admitted in due time? I am positive I read something in regards to that a few months ago when I studied the Church in depth before my online Missionaries left for Argentina.

The Information Technology field and really anything computer related should be growing, especially when you look at how we depend so much on technology these days. You can make enough to live comfortably and hopefully enjoy your job as well if that is something you would be interested in. When I go back hopefully next year I will be pursuing an MBA and trying to get something Computer Science related on the side as well.

Welcome!

If you did not have an upbringing within the Church then I can understand your difficulties that you are having. However when you did take that leap of faith and became baptized you promised essentially to obey the Words of Wisdom. Prayer and discussing your feelings with your girlfriend are two options that have alot of potential to help remedy your situation. If you need to then you can seek out guidance from a Bishop as well.

Ross and K-Mart usually have decent looking dress clothes for a good deal. Mens Warehouse sometimes has pretty good deals as well!

I was raised heavily in the Baptist setting as a child but as I grew older my time spent at the church grew to be less and less until eventually I stopped going all together. While I knew the basics about what I believed I did not really have any direction and even at some point did toy with the idea of Atheism but I never did take that step. Years later I found the LDS Church by interesting chance, while I have not been Baptized in my heart I do believe that this is Gods true church. Sincere and honest prayer I have found to be very helpful, especially in times I have been in need of guidance. Your local missies will be very helpful in providing you with more information about the Church and on here there is a wealth of information as well.

Well it's been a bit since I have been active on here, just a post to show that I am alive and still around. Life's been very busy lately but I see my time settling again in the near future. =] Hopefully ill be popping up here and there a bit again!