NeedleinA

Just for fun here is a picture of the super cluster where we live - the red dot is our galaxy

 
For a little more fun - point to a place you may think is where G-d resides to run everything.  And BTW our supercluster is just one of billions.  And for a perspective on things our galaxy is about 100,000 light years across - do you have any idea what the size of this super cluster is - Well it is bigger than what the minds of humans conceived as the size of the entire universe when the Big Bang was conceived and calculated as possible.  It is bigger than anyone in scripture ever thought that the heaven may circumvent.  Maybe this is why Moses in trying to understand the creations of G-d surmised that man and what man is trying to accomplish or even just understand is nothing.
I had one more thought so I will add this - What you are looking at; we have just, in the last few years, figured out is only 5% of the the creation that occupies this area of space time  95% what what we know of from the 4 forces we know about in physics is missing.

Watching raunchy, exceedingly violent, sex and nudity filled R-rated cuss fests.

Or even better:
or, best:
 

Okay, I'll bite, just for fun. I had the day off yesterday painting the house and reading things here. So I thought about your gristle question while painting. Do I have an answer? Nope. Just some thoughts.
1. What does "give birth" mean? A woman laid down in the bed, squeezing her husbands hand until it is purple in the earthly type of "give birth"? I would doubt it.
2. I would say yes, "give birth" perhaps in some other way/form.
3. My understanding is the spirit is in fact physical matter, simply a super refined physical matter. 
Thoughts?

Sites are going to be a reflection of their owners values.  (Not caring is a value)
I know that we mods get called all kinds of nasty names when we remove, edit or otherwise censor a poster... Usually it is because the poster forgets that posting on someone else's forum/website is not a 'Right' but a 'Privilege.'  A privilege that can be altered or changed for no other reason then the Owner wanted to.
 
 

The Mormon population in the US is actually pretty small for a sales target. Total numbers are probably no much over seven million people. Of those, how many are people who will be influenced by the fact that you are LDS? A third, maybe? Fewer? Active Saints will probably have more of a tendency to care than inactive. (Maybe. That's my supposition.) Let's say, I don't know, 3 million care. Of those, how many are in the target demographic that will appreciate your music? Possibly a tenth? So 300,000. Of those, how many will have heard of you? Half, maybe? So 150,000. Of those, how many would actually buy something? If a third of them actually buy an album from you, then you might sell 50,000 albums. Hey, it's a start, 50,000 more albums than I have ever sold.
I think a better approach might be to ask yourself in strict honestly what you want to accomplish with your music. Are you seeking to influence people to adopt certain attitudes or beliefs? Are you primarily looking to make money? Consider Amy Lee and her band Evanescence, sort of a Goth metalish/hardish rock band with pop overtones and with a vocally superb lead singer (Lee). They initially marketed themselves as a "Christian" band, and their initial market penetration was in that demographic. But Lee was frustrated by the band's description as a "Christian" band; she thought their music had a much wider appeal (it did), and IMO she didn't like the "Christian" label for other reasons. So they removed themselves from the "Christian" sector and sold a lot more albums. It's probably always a good thing to take a very clear-eyed, sober view of how appealing your music really is to people. It's easy to appeal to a narrow slice of people -- heck, there are folks who like my writing -- but it's a different thing to appeal to a wide swath.
Just some ideas to bounce around. Best of luck.

Thanks for sharing Mirkwood. What they will find, who knows? Is it the right place, who knows? I do enjoy reading about LDS archaeologists out hunting. Also, score one for the Omanis trying to set an example to others in the region, very cool. 
Now I hope they find the a giant stone that has carvings saying:
"Lehi + Sariah" or "Nephi wuz here"

On my mission, we were able to baptize in the ocean and a lake. It was not common, so we thought it was the coolest thing since sliced cheese (as a missionary would think).
I did find a list giving the "known" locations of where the prophets were baptized. Apparently, being baptized in an actual dedicated font was not the norm. I'm sure this had to do with actual accessibility to a dedicated font.
Lesellers: I tried to convince my wife to stay at home and give birth... that lasted about...oh 15 seconds. Her burning eyes of "you're nuts" never penetrated so deep into my soul before. Off to the hospital we went. 

I think the order of the Foundation makes this place so trustworthy. I only frequent forums where there is strong leadership (whether that be an official organization or just a few with-it creators and moderators). Other ways, chaos tends to ensue sooner or later. This could be religious-centered forums or geeky ones. Leadership that doesn't allow things to sway hither and yonder Is A Must.
Which is somewhat sad, as there have been LDS-esque forums I've seen with interesting subjects that can't be discussed here per site policy... that are next to downright useless because of the weird-Mormon/anti-Mormon stuff that has infiltrated. Sigh.
I spent the downtime pretty much doing what I always do, just having to cut lds.net out of my phone-surfing distraction time.

After a couple of days of the forum being down, I started getting bored. So... regrettably I went and read a couple of other "LDS" forums, something I had not done before. No, I didn't go to any apparent anti-forums, but rather ones that gave off the initial feel of being in line with the church. 
What gave off the appearance of mainstream LDS teaching quickly turned out not to be. Yikes! The spirit quickly left after half the posters started:
1. Giving advice that members should be praying to Heavenly Mother
2. Read some books by excommunicated members
3. Priesthood authority had left the General Authorities a year ago.
That is about the time I said adios to that and have been waiting for LDS.net to reopen. So... Thank you to LDS.net and the many members here that share church approved doctrine. Funny enough, I'll be speaking in Sacrament fairly soon on "Blessings from Sustaining Church Leaders".
 

To understand politics, you need to go back to the root words of politic.
 
Poly means many
 
Ticks are blood suckers

Very cool.
During the month of February a team of archaeologists, scholars and divers, headed by Dr. F. Richard Hauck, will be at Nephi’s Bountiful on a dig to find answers to some critical questions about conditions there in 600 BC.
 
http://ldsmag.com/major-announcement-omanis-grant-permission-to-dig-at-nephis-bountiful/

This is almost how I envisioned it too. I'm sure my wife got the prospector from the "Folk" part though.

With your past Avatar I envisioned more of a 19th century American English-accented voice with deep and powerful conviction - like Wilford Woodruff or Brigham Young tend to be depicted in film.

Well I can guarantee you it's not.  It's the company I work for.

Your link gets my anti-virus worked up as a possible malicious site.
*****************************
 
I've never intentionally looked for any lds social network sites, I just stumbled on this one years ago and have some how found I enjoy it sometimes. I have also stumbled on others and it's true that they seem wild. Your description sounds like the nonsense some of my family has been caught up in. Looking beyond the mark for sure. What with frequent Theophanies and such - some how the idea of walking by faith is subverted by seeing Deity to ask what's for dinner, it just doesn't add up if you ask me. (and I'm the one considered to have too little faith because I haven't seen divine beings) There is also just too much that caters to what the world wants - priesthood offices for women being one of the first to come to mind. 
 

I remember years ago having a little aha moment from a lecture/lesson. Back in the day, cultures spent their evenings and nights looking up at the sky, thinking about/studying them. Now days, at night, we tend to turn on our TVs/computers and barely give the night sky a second glance unless we are camping or an eclipse forces us to look up. Like PFMD said, "everyone" was familiar with the stars, in contrast we tend to be familiar with our screens.

Part of the problem is in how we interpret scripture.  Anciently Gog was a king or ancient ruler of a land called Magog.  No doubt these two terms are symbolic of something.  Many pretend to not have any idea or clue what these terms symbolically represent.  The land of Magog was to the north of Israel - and even north of Syria.  Generally it is believed to the the land in northern Iraq extending into the region between the Caspian and Black Sea.  As near as I can determine Gog is a powerful leader that will claim to be sent by G-d and will employ modern warfare to crush opposition and eventually put together an alliance state.  The Arabic (Islam)  word for such an alliance with a prophetic leader is "Caliphate".
 
As far as I know there are a couple of current movements that claim to be the Caliphate of the end of days.  One is the Isis movement - what amazes me is the efforts that many - including many running for president or running our country insist that the attempt to create an Islamic Caliphate according to Islamic prophesy actually has nothing to do with any (Christian or Islamic) prophesy.  That Isis happens to be in the ancient land of Magog and as far as I can determine this is the first time in history that anyone has claimed a Caliphate in the exact location that the Bible warns of.  Is it the one we should be concerned about - I do not think we can clam that this is the wrong time frame to expect such a thing.   If this is the Caliphate warned of anciently - this could mean that we can count the number of years on our finger when things will be more than just interesting.

You can refer him to the First Presidency. https://www.lds.org/ensign/2002/04/the-father-and-the-son?lang=eng
I think discussion is more important in this case though. Walk through the verses with him and see which parts make sense and which parts take some pondering. I don't think the answers are particularly important (so long as both unity and distinctness are maintained) so much as the journey together here. I don't know that I've read those verses the same way twice, so don't be so determined to arrive at "the correct solution"(c) as to get him started in the process of understanding the scriptures himself.

Along the lines of what Vort was saying..There are other ways to gain the title of Father...  For example the United States has Founding Fathers... we have the Father of Modern Medicine etc.. etc...  Not all the ways we use Father implies that there is a Mother.
I believe there are also scripture that say when we take upon ourselves the Name of Christ and are baptized he becomes our Father (Clearly in the secondary sense given above).
Also given the clear scriptures that tell us that Christ created the Earth (under the direction of the Father) thus calling him the Father of Heaven and Earth doesn't seem that much of a problem either.
 
 
 

"I left wondering if all of us belonged to the same church"
BINGO! BINGO! I left thinking, "boy, this is probably where the apostate splinter groups come from".
 

I guess I'd go with then, "That's why living prophets and apostles are so important."

And not to sound boastful or anything, but I really hope people appreciate first, the More Good Foundation for providing this site. I appreciate that I have this site for free (but anyone is welcome to donate) to discuss a variety of topics, including spiritual.  And secondly, the moderators do try to keep things from being contentious as well as respectful to all religious beliefs. We are human and make mistakes but for the most part I think we do a good job overall. 
 

Satan's got his claws into the world, and yes, into many members of the church. And he will continue to get a greater hold against all who do not protect themselves with the armor of righteousness. His chains, unless cast off, will continue to bind people down to the eternal gulf of misery and woe unto despair and destruction until they disdain the goodness of God.

I belong to only one other LDS forum. That one is for faithful members only and so we don't deal with flat out anti stuff or even the wolf in sheep's clothing (at least not much).