Takawi

Wow, I was just perusing this site and there's a lot here!   I'm going to enjoy these recourses a lot!  I'm Native American, well, 1/2, and the other 1/2 is white.  Not in the manner of Elizabeth Warren.  LOL   I especially want to understand the role of Native Americans and I see this source is loaded with info.  Thanks again!

No, you're not offered 2 doors.  Hollywood!  It's red pill or blue pill and it's Price is Right Door 1 or Door 2.  So life's just a dichotomy, eh? 
How you decide to live your life determines your fate, not in one choice but MANY choices, a lifetime's worth.  The important thing I see is that It's not WHAT you know but WHO you know. 
It seems that there are levels of heaven and hell.  To be fair, it's evidently better to be the least in heaven than to be in any position in hell.   Who knows where you'll be at the end, but wherever it is, I believe you'll say, yep, this is where I'm supposed to be.  This is a representation of my life.  I think you'll say after a review of your life, this is completely fair and you'll even agree!.  I deserve to be where I spend my eternity.
Why is it this way?  I suppose it's because God is a just God.   For some reason, it's important for him to even the score.   So that "buddy" that betrayed you, cheated you and left you high and dry?  That person's gotta pay.  There is a lifetime of hurt and pain that other's "sins" against you have caused.     I suppose that's why Jesus made a big deal out of forgiving people. 
Your "empathy and love to see your fellow humans not suffer" leads you into a life of generous forgiveness.   It appears to me that choosing such a pathway, filled with forgiveness works highly to your advantage.
You choose your own path, but look around, there is more than path 1 and path 2   From what I read, if you choose a path that's well worn, I'd switch to another one. 
You are the slowest rower I've ever been stuck in a boat with.  I'd help you, but I've been bailing the water. 
 

Wow, I was just perusing this site and there's a lot here!   I'm going to enjoy these recourses a lot!  I'm Native American, well, 1/2, and the other 1/2 is white.  Not in the manner of Elizabeth Warren.  LOL   I especially want to understand the role of Native Americans and I see this source is loaded with info.  Thanks again!

What about the Joseph Smith papers?

http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/

" The Joseph Smith Papers Project is an effort to gather together all extant Joseph Smith documents and to publish complete and accurate transcripts of those documents with both textual and contextual annotation. All such documents will be published electronically on this website, and a large number of the documents will also be published in print. The print and electronic publications constitute an essential resource for scholars and students of the life and work of Joseph Smith, early Mormon history, and nineteenth-century American religion. For the first time, all of Joseph Smith’s known surviving papers, which include many of the foundational documents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be easily accessible in one place. "

It's incomplete, but his grand nephew, Joseph Fielding Smith, edited a compilation of many of them called The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Lehi

Certainly this is why I'm studying the BofM and eventually perhaps I will be a right fit for that community.  I don't know.

Well, I would get right on that, but I'm not at that level of belief yet.  I'm still trying to sort this all out.  I want to have that belief though.   When I get to that place, I'll probably not shout about it, because it is so that the Father might be glorified, not Takawi.   John 14:11-13 says that we will do even GREATER things than Jesus.  Talk about doubling down!  
But he says that you FIRST must believe that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus or to just believe because of the works themselves.  I'm just not there, and maybe I'm a doubting Thomas and I'll miss out because I want to see and understand how it's done, and the idea of Jesus in the Father and vice versa-- I don't even understand the semantics of the passage.  I'm not there.   It is clearly my weakness.  Even when a person wants to believe at that level, sometimes wanting isn't enough.  Perhaps it's the wrong time.  I don't know.
And as far as not using science and that Jesus didn't use science.  The idea is ludicrous.  Of course he used science, just a science you don't know yet.  And that puts you in the same boat as me, letmeoff;; you aren't at that level of belief (yet).  You better get rowing because I'm not counting on either of us walking on the water today.
 

…11Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me—or at least believe because of the works themselves. 12Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.…