JcDean78

I won't pretend to know of the stress and pressure that may or may not have come to bear on this young woman. Leaving the Church because of being accused and questioned seems premature and unwise. I'm glad she's back in the fold. Me too. I think her issue at the time was that she was young and felt insulted with her pride and reputation having been hurt. I can only imagin how hard that must have been. The blessing in all of it was the Bishop that the area had up until recently (he moved away) was a VERY humble and caring man. He was able to reach out to her and some others who needed to come back in the fold. The fact that she had matured over the years and now had a family of her own made the world of difference. She is coming back slowly, but she is coming back. She does KNOW the Church is true and she could not deny that even if she had a major problem with some of those in it who had wronged her. This Bishop was able to really connect with her and help guide her back. As I always say, the Church is perfect, we members are not.

Sounds like you got some gunk under it. Have you had anything sticky to eat or drink while using your laptop? I am sure it is something easy to fix with just a little cleaning.

At first I felt this guy had a point, but he has really shown with each post I can not support any part of his question and it does come off with a poor attitude and as a tantrum.

A train great post man!

Without going into too much detail there was an incident with two youths about 15 years ago. These two youths were excommunicated and for good reason. The Bishop then went on a witch hunt after the other youth and rumors flew about everyone as the gossip train got rolling. Before it was all said and done, a ton of youth went totally innactive and some were excommunicated. The person that I know was accused of doing something that she did not do like some of the others. She refused to submit to the inqusition and left the Church. She was guilty by not fighting back and excommunicated based on the accusations of the Bishop. Parents and other youth who did fight back, wrote letters to salt lake and the incident was investigated and the Bishop was replaced. It was not until years later that the Bishop ever appologized for all that happend and the many youth he drove away from the Church. The lady in question however is now going back to Church and regaining all she lost. Outshined I am kind of surprised you do not know about this because it happend in TN but not in our stake. However there are many people here to know all about it.

When I first joined the Church, I had a hard time with how much people talked about the Church and Joe Smith and how little people talked about God, Jesus, and the scriptures before the BOM. Now after being in the Church for almost 10 years I can say that it all depends on the person speaking. Some people are just all about the BOM and Joe Smith and that is ALL they will talk about ever while others are more balanced and look at the whole picture. So we got a mix of people who look at things differently but share the same goals. I know of many other Churchs that almost ignore the Old Test in favor of the new one. All they do is focus on the new and out with the old instead of looking at the larger picture. So I think this is really something you will see any place you go. As for me, I look at the whole picture to see how the BOM goes hand in hand with the original Bible. So please, do not let those who only talk about the BOM discourage you, they are just one type of personality in the Church. The Church is perfect, the members are not. So true; excommunication is not a way of saying "we're through with you, go away", it is a chance for reflection on the seriousness of the transgression and repentance. Your explanation was excellent. Brings up a question. What if somebody is excommunicated unjustly? I know of one particular instance that this happened and later (like 15 years later) the Bishop appologized to this person and she is now back in Church. I guess since she stopped going and did not continue to do the things she was supposed to do then she might need to reactivate but in God's eyes, was she really excommunicated? If that Bishop had not come clean and appologized, would he be held accountable? Sorry if I got off topic. In my time with the Church I have know many great men called to serve as Bishops. However I have in the same time know a few who I could not speak as nice about also called. More of the better than the latter for sure.

I can deal with any of it as long as it is NOT God's name in vain. The rest of the words I do not think are swear words but rather just vulgar and rude so they just do not bother me. Lord's name in vain is like fingers on a chalk board to me.

These things happen. It is sad but the reality that they do happen. Any ward that shuns the parents or the child should be ashamed.

I would agree with the glass window on the office door. I think that is a reasonable thing to do.

My sister in law lives with us and she is kind of allergic but she seems to be allergic to a lot of things (So am I, but not to dogs thank goodness!). Dogs are just so much fun to have around and they do so many little things that make me smile every day and uplift us. Like last night I made a little noise and it got Mocha all hyped up. He sprinted full speed around the room in circles and my wife and I just laughed and laughed and laughed over it. Its little moments like that which make it all worth it.

I love Blue Dogs! Austrailain shephards are awesome! There is a an old news story but I can not seem to find it where a Blue Dog fights off a gator when his elderly owner falls near a canal in Florida. The dog saves the woman and lives to enjoy it. :)

Mocha is my 9 month old Labrador Retriever. He is a sweet little dog who just loves everyone he meets. He never barks or growls at all but on occasion after waking from a nap, he will make a wookie type sound when he yawns. Last night before I went to bed, I took Mocha out and noticed this huge white figure at the back of my yard in the darkness. Mocha started to growl and as you know, I have never heard him do that before but he let out this deep and mean growl. He then started to bark and got all stiff standing his ground. I walked towards this object that Mocha was so spooked over, I could see it was moving and alive. Walking even closer, as my eyes adjusted a little better to the darkness I could see it was just a big old cow sitting at the fence just looking at us. So I took Mocha down to the fence and let him bark and growl at the cow since I thought it was so funny and had never heard him growl before. The cow just stood there and cut her eyes looking at him. After a couple min, we went back inside but I was rather proud that he growled and barked to protect us from the vicious cow. Stay tuned for next time as Mocha goes swimming and pees on somebody's lunch. Here is a preview. http://poe1.pointofexistence.com/mullet/ms2.jpg

Betoven's 5th. jk "You Needed Me" by Anne Murray

I agree with Mitt that it was awful! There is a reason anyone who trys to practice it today is excumunicated! It has NOTHING to do with US laws as the Church is world wide and in places where you can have multiple wives, it is still grounds for excomunication. Multiple wives has gone the way of killing goats on an alter and other things that were condoned in the old days but with the fullness of the truth we now know better. Mitt is absoultly right.

I agree with you. Some people just go overboard on stuff. If you can not trust each other enough to be alone then you should not be together or if you are afraid of what might happen... then it sounds like somebody has got some personal demons they might want to take care of. I spent tons and tons of time alone with my wife before we were married. Nothing bad ever came of it and we were able to be married and sealed in the Nashville Temple. I also spend a lot of time with my sister in law. We are very close and were good friends before my wife and I started to even date. After I had been married for several years, a guy in the bishopric came to me and said that i need to stop being alone with my sister in law so much. (Thats almost impossible because she lives with us). I told him that sometimes people like to see in others their own faults because they know what THEY would be tempted with in that situation. The subject has never come up again.

Big time. This is one of the biggest with Church for me. Also those who make up new rules for the things we are to do and try to force their personal rules and views on others. As a new member to the Church, that was really hard on me. Been in the Church for over 10 years now and I still struggle with this. The Church is perfect, the members are not.

Any government official on any either side of the asle has enemies. Gernally that list is about 50% of the population give or take a few points. Most graduations have tons of government speakers or very politically charged persons and there is no protest (even if most of the protesters were not BYU stendents and they were very small in number). Nixon would be a great speaker, a school should be so lucky to have had him. I would have killed to have Reagan at mine. Every single public figure is controversial. Politics or not. Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? Oprah? Paris Hilton? Heck, even Barny the Dinosaur is disliked by many. So if the rule from now on is that speakers can only be people that nobody disagrees with... then well there will be no more speakers. So let Cheney speak at a school who wants him. Let Hitlary do the same. Let Reid, let Bill Gates, or whoever else they want. Every public figure has controversy. If the people there do not like it, they can either sit there respectfully and listen or choose not to attend. If it had been my graduation and Hitlary came to speak, I would have made my voice heard and then gone to my graduation just the same and listen to the speech, most of the time they avoid getting too partisan anyway.

Ben is exactly right. The Bill of Rights is freedoms against government not citizens. Same thing with the Ditzy Chicks when they bad mouthed Bush in France. People said "Oh but Radio statiosn wont play their music, so much for 1st amendment..." but the radio stations can refuse to play anything they want. If a person chooses to do something then they have to take responsibility for their actions. The Chicks lost a massive amount of fans, boycotts, and their music pulled from the radio. That is all fine and dandy as long as the Government plays no part in it at all. This is the same situation. BYU was nice enough to allow them to gather on their private property and once their time was up, asked them to leave. The protesters knowing their time was up and looking to cause trouble pushed things farther. If that guy wanted to really keep his sign, then he should have left when the even was over. No more so than Hitlary Clinton, Bill, or other slew of anti American Democrats. Cheney is our Vice President who was voted into office twice and is a VERY valid speaker to have come.

I am not interested in an interview because from the tone of the post, it seems Rob is baiting and looking to argue rather than have a discussion. No thanks, but I would not like to participate in an argument with somebody who seems to have an agenda. If you want to have an honest discussion then come with an open mind and open heart as ALmom posted, people would be willing to answer you. Again I suggest talking with the missionarys in your area, lds.org, and reading the scriptures to learn more about Christ's Church.

Hee hee! No, it's in Computer Science, but my wife probably thinks I'm getting a degree in gaming... By the way, I've downloaded the POE mod. Which school are you at? I got my degree in MIS at ETSU. Also make sure you have our most up to date version as well as a bonus map pack that the servers run. Our numbers have dropped a little since our first release back in Aug but with this next release coming up, we will get more players again. At our peek we had 3,000 players online playing at any given time throughout the day as our average for about the first month or two we were out.

Degree in gaming? The real DC was a great mod. A lot of those guys worked on BF2. Most of them are awesome people. They are working on a new game which looks great. http://www.kaosstudios.com/ I am a huge 1942 fan as it is the main game that got me into online gaming. Battlefield and CoD are about the only games I play. But working on a mod leaves a lot less time for gaming... for example tonight I am working on a new map instead of playing.

Here is a link to all our videos, they all showcase our current released version with the exception of the one we released today. The very first one here is our main intro video when you load the mod. http://www.pointofexistence.com/poevids.php

We are an online team made up from people all over the world. Mostly North America and Europe. We communicate online and have a team structure with a production line. On the team I am the lead level design which means that I manage our mapping team and am part of the 'leads' that manage the mod. Most of our guys work in the industry or are trying to get a job within it. Several of the people who worked on BF2 and 2142 used to be on our team but left to work full time for Dice which required them to move to Sweeden. I have no desire to move to Sweeden. lol. I hope that answers some of your questions. I have more videos from our prior release if you would like to see.

I agree. That is what they are there for.

We have a version out right now that won mod of the year for 2006 for ANY game. We are rather proud of that. We are working on our next release which is an update for our current mod. It includes bug fixes, new stuff for existing teams, and the United States Marines.