askandanswer

I almost always enjoy your posts and I certainly respect the way you handle doctrinal differences and disagreements in your posts on this site. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the stereotypes of dry Mormons or open minded Pentecostals to make any reliable sort of judgement as to which of the two your posts sound more like but I'm sure you'd make a great Latter-day Saint.

I have sometimes wandered similar things. The manner in which the Jews responded to Jesus suggests to me that the law of Moses, which the people had been practicing for more than a thousand years completely failed in its primary purpose of preparing a people to accept Jesus. The law of Moses was a God-given law, designed and given by God to His chosen people, and re-iterated and emphasised by prophets for centuries, and yet it appears to have substantially failed in its primary purpose of preparing this people for Jesus, as partially evidenced by the fact that the leaders of the Jewish people used their knowledge of prophetic teachings, to conspire with a man they knew to be a tyrant, to act against Jesus. Its hard to understand the lack of success of this divinely prepared plan for God's chosen people.

I would one day like to try the ear wiggling story that President Monson related in the Priesthood session of the April 2008 - the one wear the kid in the pews imitated every move that President Monson made. I wonder if my bishop would notice, and if he did notice, if he would remember the story.

No need for the charcoal bath bomb for you my friend............

I suspect that the statue of a pagan goddess below receives quite a bit of tax payer funded support. The Statue of Liberty is a figure of Libertas, a robed Roman liberty goddess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty Until just now, I'd always thought that the Statue of Liberty was a tribute to the pagan goddess of fire torches and spiky crowns given the prominence of those two items in the statue. I guess its all in the eyes of the beholder and a matter of subjective interpretation - kind of like peace crosses.

Yes Brigham Young is a marble statue by Mahonri Young representing the Mormon religious leader of the same name, installed in the United States Capitol, in Washington D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Young_(Mahonri_Young_statue)

This question is particulary directed at @Just_A_Guy and @Suzie but of course everyone is welcome to assist. I've been meaning to ask this since last December but my procrastination skills needed a bit of a workout. Last December, my son was looking into the essay on Race and the Priesthood. One sentence within the essay says : At the same time, President Young said that at some future day, black Church members would “have [all] the privilege and more” enjoyed by other members.9 He looked up footnote 9 which says 9. Brigham Young, Speeches Before the Utah Territorial Legislature, Jan. 23 and Feb. 5, 1852, George D. Watt Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, transcribed from Pitman shorthand by LaJean Purcell Carruth; “To the Saints,” Deseret News, April 3, 1852, 42. These sources can be viewed here https://catalog.lds.org/assets/85e62ed8-dca0-4860-8b1e-4e6b7138fd16/0/1 and here https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/desnews1/id/170711 He then looked up at both the George D Watt Papers, and the Deseret News article of 3 April 1852 referred to in footnote 9 and it was not clear to him that either of these sources support the claim that President Young said that at some future day, black Church members would have all the privileges and more enjoyed by other church members. I didn’t read all of the original sources, but the parts that I did read certainly seemed to imply/suggest that contrary to what is implied by footnote 9, the weight of President Young’s views were not supportive of black church members eventually receiving the full blessings of membership. This then led my son to conclude that the essay was not a completely reliable source of information. What are your views on footnote 9? Do the original sources, when taken as a whole, support the idea that President Young was of the view that one day blacks would receive all the blessings of church membership?

I can understand why you're looking for a replacement. I'll see if I can persuade the current Australian Prime Minister to take on the job. He'll probably be looking for a new job after the next election in May.

There is probably some truth in the above, but there is also a differeing view Doctrine and Covenenants 60:4 For I, the Lord, rule in the heavens above, and among the armies of the earth...................

if the food and other aid goes to the military, then yes, I think that could add impetus to events that could lead to the demise of Maduro, particularly if the military can get more through aid than they can get from Maduro, and if you target the aid towards those elements of the military who are currently receiving the least.

Now that is has been suggested by the Lord's representatives that prayers at the start of Priesthood and Sunday School might not be needed, will a prayer given at that time be less efficacious than it would have previously been?

@Just_A_Guy is @mirkwood do quick and clever for you to catch?

I'm guessing that none of the sources say anything about whether salt can temporary misplace, rather than lose, its savour. Most of us misplace things from time to time.

My advice? Count the days. That's not particularly helpful but your options are pretty limited. I'll tell you a short version of my story. When I was on my mission I started to develop some feelings for a sister missionary. She was in my district and later she was in my zone. She didn't know, and no one else knew, that I had these feelings, although I learnt much later that a few people had made some guesses. By the time I finished my mission, these feelings had definitely strengthened but as we were both missionaries, it would have been entirely inappropriate for me to say or do anything. I finished my mission a year before she finished hers. Because of how I felt, I didn't want to date anybody when I got back home, I wanted to first see if I had any chance with this sister missionary before I tried developing a relationship with anyone else. However, she was still on her mission, so I couldn't give her any hint of how I felt, even though I really wanted to. All i could do was count the days until she finished her mission. I wrote to her every now and then and my letters to her were pretty much exactly the same as the letters I was occasionally sending to many current and returned missionaries I had served with. I knew when she was going to finish her mission so after praying and pondering about it for several weeks, I prepared a voice tape on which I asked her to marry me, and then made sure it would be waiting for her when she arrived home. We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in Fiji last week. On the day of our anniversary, for the first in over 30 years, we listened again to the voice tape. It was a wonderful experience. Tomorrow you will have one day less to wait for her.

I feel a bit for my son's Mission President. In November, he sent a letter to the parents of all missionaries basically asking parents to limit their communications with their children. Here's part of it: Effective this week, we have asked our missionaries to help us in our effort to be obedient to the rules and counsel given us by the Missionary Department and to not participate in real-time chatting/texting or emailing with family and friends. and from the same letter, quoting the White Handbook “Write to your family each week on preparation day. Limit correspondence with others. … Email: You may communicate with your family and mission president by email, according to approved guidelines. Use only MyLDSMail.net, the filtered service established by the Church. Do not use any other email service or any other Internet service or site that has not been authorized. And then on February 15 we received the official church announcement saying: Effective immediately, missionaries are authorized to communicate with their families each week on preparation day via text messages, online messaging, phone calls, and video chat in addition to letters and emails. Missionaries are encouraged to communicate with their families using the approved method that works best for them and their families. And then, from the Mission President again, another letter on February 18 saying, in part Please note in the letter where it states, “It is not expected that missionaries will call or video chat with their parents every week.” This also relaxes the guidelines regarding missionaries emailing back and forth with their families in real time or using Google hangouts for family communication in real time. Skype will likely be the preferred way to make these calls. The missionaries can download the Skype app to their phones. Skype does not need to be video calls. They can be made as audio-only calls. To me, it's an interesting example of how a local leader has interpreted and applied official church-wide policy. I'm not saying its good or bad, just interesting.

Was that for @pam?

One of the most common methods of electioneering here is scaremongering. This involves a party or a candidate coming up with a list of statements, which might or might not be facts, and which often have the appearance of facts, and then repeating these statements to your target audience, not to educate them as to what the facts of a matter are, but to generate a feeling - fear. Another common method of electioneering here is feel good politics. This involves a party or a candidate coming up with a list of statements which might or might not be facts, and which often have the appearance of facts, and might even contain some facts, and then repeating those statements to your target audience, not to educate them as to what the facts of a matter are, but to generate a feeling - a good feeling. People then make decisions based on those feelings, and decision makers respond to the feelings, not the facts, being expressed. Another common example of when feelings trump facts in political decision making processes is the common practice of holding focus groups. You get a bunch of people together and present them with certain statements, and then observe and analyse their emotional reaction to those statements. You repeat the process often enough and you come up some ideas on what your political platform should be, based on people's emotional reactions, and if things work as they should, the platform then gets turned into policies and then implemented through programs.

Your'e not doing this in Utah yet? Sounds like the church in Utah is a long way behind what's happening in the Zion of the South.

For which they will be kicked out, if spotted by the ushers. And maybe all those sitting in their immediate vicinity, just to play it safe.

If the scripture below is true, and given its source, I think it probably is, then the Apostles and General Authorities are probably as rich as they want to be. Verse 19 might even give some idea what they do with their wealth. Jacob 2 18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. 19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.

Clearly this battle took place a little to the south of a point slight to its north.

Ian, that's who(vian)

When and where I served, my first area had no running water and no phones. To call home at Christmas time, I had to take public transport 20 minutes to the next town up the road and then wait in line in a hot, noisy, crowded public telephone exchange.

Its my belief that facts, by themselves, are neutral. What counts in most decision making processes, including legislative processes, are how we feel about the facts, and how much, and what sort of values and importance, we place on particular facts or sets of facts. And it’s a very unwise legislator who bases all their decision solely on the facts of a matter without considering how their constituents feel. It’s also often the case that the decisions we make about what facts to include, and what facts to exclude, in making our argument, and where and how we use facts in constructing an argument, are often based on emotion. It is often the case that we come to a position that we feel comfortable with, and then arrange the facts to support our position. I think that many people, when making a decision, will say something like, ok, here are the facts, now how do I feel about this.

I'm happy with the new changes and look forward to hearing from my son tomorrow. However, I still plan to write to my son every week because I don't want to end the practice that I've followed every week for my previous two children. I still have all of the letters that my parents sent to me when I was on my mission. I don't think I have any records of the very few phones calls I made to my parents.