LT04

4 my family, If I was in your shoes here is what I would do. I don't know what your take on fasting is but that’s where I would start. I'll explain how from the beginning forgive if you have a working knowledge as to how this works but for the benefit of those who don't know I'll explain. I always start my fasts early in the morning. (I chose morning’s b/c nothing has happened yet so my mind is clear to focus on my topic, and I have all day to find an answer) I open with a prayer and ask G-d for what I need (In this case I would ask for understanding, compassion and softened harts between me and my spouse to be able to discuss your concerns) During a fast you don't eat (some exceptions apply for medical and other conditions) I try not to let more than an hour go by with out praying again. Then when I have completed my fast I close my fast with a prayer and thank G-d for all he has given me. (The length of your fast is determined by you. Sometimes only a few hours are ample. A few times and I do mean very few times I have gone more than a day.) In my case when my wife and I got a min. alone I would sit her down and say we need to talk for just a few min.'s. I would express my concerns making sure she knew she what would and wouldn't be required of her. (I'm assuming that you wouldn't make your husband go you would leave it up to him, right?) From the out side looking in the first thing I would advise you to do is level with your husband. Becoming a closet lay member isn't going to endear him to any church if he's left out of the loop all together. My wife (who isn't LDS by the way) doesn't always like the amount of time I spend at church in various leadership roles and I know she doesn't like late night phone calls but she tolerates them b/c she knows what’s going on and is included in my church related decisions from accepting various calling to going to the temple to helping a member move in/out on a Saturday. You don't want to go about pursuing any church keeping all your actions a secret from the only one you should be able to tell every thing to. To put it more black and white terms you would be doing G-d's work with the Satan’s tools. When I was called to be in the Elder's Quorum presidency my bishop asked my wife and I both to come for my calling so he could talk to both of us. He explained what was required of the job and asked her if it would create contention in our household and if so I wouldn't be offered the calling. The church is about keeping harmony in the home. Keeping secrets isn't going to accomplish that. I hope I wasn't to blunt, I know this situation is delicate for you. I do know what it's like being honest and sneaking around to be apart of church. When I would sneak my wife would loose a lot of trust and that would hurt our marriage. When I am honest she'll let me do almost any thing I want. I just hope you can learn from my mistake and save all that heart ache for some one else. I hope this helps. Keep us posted we are here to help, -LT04

Susie, I don't think you can do any work for them yet b/c they are still living, correct? Not only that if all you have is their names you can't submit thier names to the temple anyway b/c you always need a birthdate. The reason for the birth date is b/c in some cases the person needs to be deceased for 100 years. That doesn't apply here but a birthdate is still needed. If your husband has a ball park idea where they are/were from he should try ancestroy.com. It's free at the church FHC. I don't have a standing relationship with my father and needed information about him and his parents, so I ran his name there and found all kinds of info. Also if you can kind out what county & state they are from you should try genweb I don't remember if it's a .com or a .gov, It's a government run web site sponsered by each county. That one is great if you are looking for some one out side of the church. If I can think of any others I'll let you know. Good luck and G-d bless, -LT04

Sorry, Should have specified, Daughters of Utah Pioneers. -LT04

Hey all, I got a question maybe one of you could answer for me. I know some where out there the DUP has published stories of saints from the early church. Does any one know where I could possibly find them for specific people? Thanks, -LT04

Susie, I work at the FHC at my ward/stake and I have come across this many times before. I called my local temple president to make sure the first time this question came up. So the official policy of the church is to seek after your biological family; however, they won’t restrict you from seeking after your sealed family. I know that could probably sounds confusing so let me explain. The LDS church has a standing agreement with several other churches that they (the church) will restrict submission of names to the temples only to those who have a documented biological connection. The initial need for this came about when a ward in New York City took it upon them selves to submit all the names of the holocaust victims. This needless to say stirred up some strong emotions with our Jewish brothers and sisters hence the current standing agreement. Within the past few years the agreement changed to allow people in your situation the opportunity to do temple work for your “adopted” family. I hope that answered your question. I know it’s very vague and open ended and it doesn’t seem like the profound answer you would normally get from church but that’s it. I was told that answer from both my local temple and the office in Salt Lake that handles temple related issues. So in conclusion it’s up to you. The church won’t pick for you just encourage you to do both. -LT04

Its funny you mention that. I had a history teacher explain to us that history was about his story, the one who had the pen in his/her hand at the time. For example had the Axis won the second world war they would have been the good guys b/c they had all the pens then. -LT04

I was born in the church and was home schooled more than I was in public school, so here are my observations as the student. 1 ) Make sure your children are involved in extra curricular activities. I can’t tell you how important this is especially as the students get older. I hear the term “socially retarded” a lot in regards to home schooled children that didn’t have very much contact with youth their own age. This isn’t as hard to accomplish as you would think, I was in the cub scouts, boy scouts, public pool swim team, 4-H, and other clubs of this nature. 2 ) Make sure you can validate you lesson plans. This is a big on as your children get older if they decide they want to go to high school. The high school will assemble a board that will want to validate what you have taught you child to see if they are at the same level as their peers. I reluctantly decided I should go back to school my junior year of high school. The above mentioned board was dispatched and my mother was asked to bring over the curriculum she used so they could make heads and tales of where they though I should end up. The first high school (HS) we went to said none of it was acceptable and wanted to place me as a freshman. So we went to the neighboring HS and they said they would make me a sophomore, the third HS we went to would make me a junior. A lot of the mix up was over what subject I had studied. I was taking HS correspondence courses from BYU so the required classes like English, math, and history were all ok. What they got stuck on was the science classes I had taken, as well as one school was on a trimester system and the others were all semester system for what ever the reason they felt this was in the to hard to do box. (Don’t get me wrong I do very well in science and math I do a lot of engineering work at the moment. So that was never the issue) 3 ) Find a home schooling group This also is a vital issue; however, you need to be very picky for a few reasons. A ) (this is an example) don’t find a liberal co-op if you value conservative teachings or vise-versa. You will be better off find a co-op group who shares your value systems. B ) Look for a group that has a physical location, and a paid staff of councilors. The best home school I ever went to had a staff of councilors that the student and parent would meet with every week. This councilor was a representative of the school district paid by the school district to make sure students were in fact learning not just “helping pa with the harvest” I have seen CPS be dispatched to the homes of home schoolers b/c they were “truant” and the children would then be placed in the custody of the state. (Note: where I lived at the time home schooling was a new concept, therefore it felt as if we were the subject of a government funded witch hunt) Using this co-op facility also has other benefits. Lets say for example you are great at all the required subject math, science, English, so on but are at a disadvantage when it comes to computers (I’m assuming your not after all your in this forum but for sake of discussion lets say you are) this facility may have or have access to a computer lab and organize a one hour twice a week class. 4 ) Use the church assets as well For the most part where I grew up it was all LDS families that home schooled. So if you were at a loss for one subject or another, parents would take turns hosting a workshop for an afternoon. This could range from an art project to science project or who knows what the skies the limit. We would also set up group field trips. I grew up in California. Once we set up a group field trip for four days to go to Monetary. We slept in tents and hung around the camp fire at night and during the day we would go to the aquarium, tide pools, and other related sites of interest. I can’t think of any thing else off the top of my head. I hope this gives you a push in the direction you wanted to head. I understand now there are a lot of varieties and avenues to choose from for other than public school methods. Dr. Phil did a show on this topic. He had a discussion on the different options people have to choose from. I think he did very well he seemed to remain neutral and asked the hard honest questions and left it up to the viewer to form their own decision. Like I said I hope this helps, -LT04

Wow that’s great we didn't have any thing like that. I think that was mostly due to the timely nature of our initial response. When we had follow up deployments we still didn't have any thing like that. The two biggest blunders of the 10th MTN DIV via TF 187 deployment to Afghanistan I think were one lack of training. I think this was mostly due to the slumber the Army had gotten in the habit of not being used as regularly as it had in the past. Secondly, deploying as a task force was also a mistake. No one knew who was getting supplied from where or who was supporting what it was all a big mess. I was in the DIV engineer BN. Before we left we were told that 1/87 INF was to be our parent unit for the deployment that we would treat them as our BDE HQ. Some where along the line no one told this to 1/87 INF so from the lack of support this subsequently lead to a lot of theft for things like MRE's so we could eat, fuel for the equipment, bullets for the fire fights and thinks of that nature. If 101st hadn't showed up several months early and taken the mantel of command like they did I'm 100% sure there would have been a mutiny. There was a lot of talk of over throwing the 1/87 command post for the food they had. So maybe it wasn’t that we deployed as a task force it was just no one knew what was going on b/c of the hasty preparation. -LT04

Outshined, I'm glad to hear your unit was nothing like mine. For some reason 40 came to mind about the radios (maybe extra batteries? any way) At the time my division was very over extended I went to Afghanistan 5 OCT 01 elements of my division were already in Egypt, Kosovo, England, Germany and some where else then we were asked to go to Afghanistan after all that. So needless to say if you NCOIC went to Egypt, then your ANCOIC would go to Kosovo, who ever was left went to the other places and that left me the PFCIC of the battalion S-4 b/c I was the only one left in the office with a MOS in that field. Very shortly after I became the CPLIC still thats a far cry from SFC like our MTOE described. I hope your right my unit had some substantal losses due to lack of preparedness -LT04

Outshined, I’m not trying to offend any one I’m trying to enlighten others as to how our Army isn’t able to keep up with the times. The best example I can think of is the qualification test. Soldiers fire 20 rounds from a fox hole and 20 more from a laying down position. Troopers fire the very same rifle from a standing and then a kneeling position. When I was in Afghanistan I NEVER fired my rifle from any other position than standing and standing wile moving. This makes the Troopers better trained with my rifle than I was. I have heard it said time and time again that it’s cheaper to pay the service men / women’s families the $300,000 life insurance policy then it is to train them correctly. I don’t think that’s true but it seemed to be the consenseing view of the infantry. I think the Army’s rifle qualification test is obsolete and echo’s of the wars fought 40 + years ago. The Army fails to keep up with the times on many other fronts as well for example there is no reason that a portable radio carried in the soldiers ruck should ever have to 40 pounds. How is it we can make a satellite cell phone able to call from Africa to Alaska that weighs less than a pound by far, but we can’t make a radio that only has an effective 5 mile range (unless parameters are changed by upgrading power supply to that of the HMMWV [that’s Humvee for all you civilians] and a series of other changes) I also feel that if a unit has time constraints due to the increasing deployment manifests the first thing deemed unnecessary is the training schedule. I think our fatality rate would drop a great deal if our soldiers had training that was 1 more adequate and 2 reflected the things soldiers were actually doing. -LT04

I live 20 miles from the Canadian border. I have that if they want to immigrate they don't cross the border and pray it will all be ok, they contact the government go through the legal channels and apply for citizenship BEFORE they move here. They tend also to follow legal protocol for obtaining work here as well. I'm sure not all Canadians do this but you deffinetly don't hear about this happening like you do the Southern border. Just my two cents, -LT04

Thanks for all the info. I'll get back to you in... oh, lets say a week after I go over all the information you kind folks gave if I have any questions, thanks -LT04

Lizard, Well I'm sorry to hear your friend will be gone for so long. However, we will always be here to give you a digital hug. -LT04

Thank you all for your insights, OK so in a nut shell Christs sacrifice of blood / water is a symbol of his suffering in Gethsemane. Christs sacrifice of body / bread is a symbol of his physical sacrifice upon the cross. ==== Xhenli, "by the way, the Sacrament and its purpose has endless and depthless meanings. There will never just be one answer to this sort of thing. A lifetime of study and pondering and revelation will continue to uncover priceless truths and power." I agree whole hartedly. I always enjoy sacrament when I leave with a question like this one, that can inspire conversations like this one. Although there have only been 5 posts in response to this question the wealth of knowledge posted here is a bit over overwhelming. I thank you for your timely response, I greatly appreciate your insights. They inspire me to look at things in ways I wouldn't have before. -LT04

Hey all, I was sitting in sacrament meeting today trying to grasp Christs sacrifice like I was taught in Sunday school. Then a question came to mind I'm hoping some one could fill me in. The sacrament part of sacrament meeting is a symbolistic reinactment of Christs last supper. He made it a point to let his apostles know he would sacrifice his body and blood. I was wondering if he gave his body / life for my salvation what did he give his blood for? Am I reading to deep into this? Or is there a valid need for having both his body and his blood represented in sacrament meeting? I stumped many an Elder today with this question on and off missions. I was interested in what this forum had to say I always value your opinions and helping hands. -LT04

Its to bad there isn't one for D&C, Old testament and New testament like the church game progress. -LT04

Dear Lizard, I'm sorry to report that he is more often unaccepted then he is accepted in and out side of the church. All his life has been a struggle with acceptance, to the point as a child I think around 5 years old when the other children started to notice there was a difference between him and them thats when he stooped getting invited to birthday parties and no one would come over to play with him. Due to the extent of his Asperger's there was a huge debate regarding the subject of baptism. He was eventually baptized but must remain "a friend of the church" ( I understand there are different levels of this) and is unable to receive the priesthood. He always does very well on tests in school if he sits down face to face with the test administrator. If he were to take a true false test and fill in the bubble sheet he would do very poorly. In the 5th grade he was scoring in some areas at a 12th grade level. After our father left us he withdrew from the physical world. He has spent a lot of time in out of juvy. He wanted to join the army like I did but they wouldn't let him in b/c of the Asperger's. That hit him hard. I would have to say he feels like he's treated as if he were a second class citizen. Also unforturnate for him he like (like any other human being) goes where he does become accepted and know has some very bad friends who are in and out of jail and sell drugs. I would have to describe him as having 2 personalities. One is smart, very intelligent, very thoughtful, kind, sympathetic and shows great concern for others. The other only comes out when he can't convey the thoughts or feelings he is having through speech, he doesn't seem to have any other mediums to communicate with like art, writing that kind of thing. If he does he expressis it in "Asperger's" so if you can't speak it your out of luck. So if speech doesn't do the job he turns to passive aggressive behavior. (not sure if that comes with the job or thats a "talent" he picked up with his questionable friends. I'm sorry you are treated the way you are. This question baffles me. Why would G-d give human beings the ability to look down to each other? I guess I can understand if you were to look at China we just can't deal with the number of populace they have, but to look down your nose at someone standing right in front of you just leaves me wondering. Even if I were to tell you its them not you. I know thats not going to fix the problem, at best it may help you to feel a wee bit better about your self and even then wear off before you left for church. I don't think any one can understand the depths of depression some one with Asperger's feels. I would also have to say I think you must feel very lonely, despite the fact you could be in a room with lots of people. My advice to you is take a Sunday off if you have to wait till your friend comes back (unless they plan to be gone for 6 months or something) I used to be a cutter too. I've been cut free for (hmmm..... let me think) Lets see I bought this house on 7 July 2003 and it was before that. I was treated as the lightning rod of hate from the army not church. We had a 1st Sergeant who was determined to get to Sergeant Major fast regardless of how many soldier he got killed or drove to drink or go to rehab. We had 21 suicide attempts in 6 weeks. I'm sure he has front row tickets in hell just for that. I know how you feel with your branch. I told the shrink the Army sent me to its like being in a fire. If your the one sent to treat the wounds shouldn't you take me out of the burning building first? He had a good point he said "We can't put all of our patients into glass jars separate from all the problems they have until they get better b/c as soon as we let them out they would have to come back b/c they wouldn't be conditioned to deal with problems anymore." So keep that in mind it helped me a lot. I don't know if you are a big reader or not (I guess you would have to be to get this far into my post) but here are some books that I refer to often in regards to having to deal with other people 1 ) "Boundaries" by Dr. Cloud & Dr. Townsend, and 2 ) "Mans search for meaning" by Dr. Victor Frankel. I'm very dislesic (bare with the spelling please) when I look at a world map and find the US some times I swear it says MexAmeriCanada. (not that bad but you get the idea) I found these books very helpful and easy to read. I hoped this helped I'll try to do some independent home work on the topic of Asperger's, maybe I can find you a group on the net that look to each other for support, or some tips that will help with day to day life. Good luck and G-d bless, -LT04

Dear Shoe, Last year about this time my wife and I were going to have a baby. When we found out I told my bishop and he felt compelled to give me a blessing. In his blessing he told me that it was going to be a girl and she would be very in tune with the spirit and a great asset to the church. My wife miscarried that child. I assumed that what my bishop had told me would be carried over to our next child. My wife is now about 5 months along with a boy. I went back to my bishop thinking he needed to get his ears cleaned or something b/c he was incorrect. He had me sit down in his office and after I told him my concern he replied that he didn't understand. I was a little heated at this point thinking what is there to not understand about all this? Then he said you still have that daughter her talents were needed else where. I told you she would be a great asset to the church and she is just not here. I hope this gives you the comfort it gave me, -LT04

I got an awesome book for you to read. My brother has Aspergers as well, he and I were very combative growing up and tended to stay away from each other till I got older and found this book its called "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" by Janna Levin Its about a scientist who has Autism (undefined type due to the fact he lived so long ago and its a topic newly explored) that acomplished some awesome things in his life, through his eyes. Its based on a true story. I recommend it to every one. -LT04

A-train, Thanks for your concern. I have been preparing for a government exam that comes out this AUG. Its a city job and they are in desperate need of filling those positions, normally its every 4 years but they moved it down to 2 and 1/2. I know some people on the inside who have been a great deal of help. So I just need to cope with it till then. I'm not in any imeadiate trouble, its not like I have credit card payments or even car payments and my mortgage is less than half of what it would cost to rent in my area (b/c of the recent housing boom here due to Fort Drum doubling in size recently.) -LT04

I have no problem with them coming to the US, the great American dream was founded by outsiders taking a leap of faith coming here. Most of my ancestors came when the church was calling them to come to Navoo IL, and later SLC. My concerns are: 1 )Social Security: SS was designed from the beginning to have the working generation take care of the generation senior to them. Well the baby boomers out number the two generations that have come after thats going to be a problem when they all choose to retire. Persons not a citizen of this country doesn't pay into it at all and can get it b/c they are a single parent. I work every day and pay in to SS every day and don't qualify b/c I "make to much" my union hasn't had work for me since 5 DEC 06 so on unemployment I make to much money. 2 ) Medical Coverage: Yeah every one should have medical coverage at a reasonable price. I belong to a union where I make a prevailing rate. Our Ins. coverage covers about half of what ever the bill is. (so if the bill is $400 I still have to pay $200) I'm praying my wife doesn't have any complications when she delivers our firstborn ( 1st b/c I don't want her to have to go through that horrible experience and) b/c we can't afford it. We both work we both pay taxes and as a result of making slightly above min. wage we make to much to qualify for DSS support. The dept of the Army and the VA didn't help me at all when I got hurt overseas and medically discharged I paid for every thing, it almost took me to bankruptcy court but I paid every penny of it. I got hurt in service to this nation why can this nation afford to take care of citizens of another nation and not a legal citizen who was wounded for this country? 3 ) New York City and its illegal populous: New York City is considering starting a state funded program where they will pay low income families (legal or not) living in the five burroughs for accomplishing specific tasks the proposed list included the following: 1 ) taking children to a Dr.'s check up once a year. 2 ) getting a job. 3 ) going to a vocational school. 4 ) students who do well on a test. Why should they get paid to be responsible. I have a job went to a vocational school and did well on all my tests and I didn't get any thing. 4 ) what's the incentive for me to want to do well when I could go work at burger king for min wage lose all the benefits the union gives me and get all that back and more by going to DSS? -LT04

Does that make us the stubborn, red-headed step children of the cosmos not being able to have a solid belief in Christ unless he came in person to prove it? If G-d made it a point to tell Moses we are made in his own image and likeness why would our counter-parts of other worlds be different then we are at all? I would hate to think I'm less capable of faith then our other heavenly brothers and sisters. Would this also mean b/c their world required them to be more faithful with less information then we have can they aspire to higher calling in the life after then we can? -LT04

Dear Dr. T, I play a board game called "Axis and Allies" the game was first created in the late '70s or early '80s remaind unchanged for over 20 years now there are just over a half dozen vareations. The have dozens of websites of die hard fans of the game. Well I'm one of the die hard fans. We throw scenarios back and forth trying to get the game more realistic. In fact Larry Harris the original creator of the game often comes to us to make his games better. So any fact reguarding WWII im sure I have heard it before in that forum from amimals in the war to rare expditionary forces Hitler sent looking for Atlantis and other historic artifacts, to diffrent religous factions aiding diffrent sides and parts of the war. So as far as accuracy I can't give you 100% but I can't see the person I heard it from lying about something like that. -LT04

You guys are right It doesn't matter what could have been b/c Jesus just is The Christ. But I do recall a contaversy I heard about between Jesus and Satan in the grand council When Jesus said send me I will bring home all the faithful and all the glory will go to you father, and Satan said send me father I will return with every one (via taking away free agency) and all glory will go to me. Did I imagine this or is this in the PoGP? -LT04 OK lets say your correct that Christ only came to our world, why was our world so privileged to be the host world? The only thing most Christians seem to be able to agree on any more is that Christ did come, don't you think it would be that much harder for any other world to have to totally accept every thing on faith? -LT04

Xhenli, I think thats b/c as your fads change you change your pics, you are still the same person just the external appearance changes from "life time" to "life time" -LT04