Fether

I think there are contemporary forms of charity, world forms of you will. Affection, kindness, generosity, love, admiration, care, etc. Charity is the pure love of Christ. It isn’t “like” the pure love of Christ, or it’s not “the best way to look at it”. It IS the pure love of a Christ, and I don’t think that love can be simple drawn down to “do good”. Everyone wants to do good, and that comes from Christ, but that is not a full definition of charity. We find that pure love of Christ partly i extravagant acts of donations and giving, but I would say until we learn to despise gossip, and to empathize with those who may have vastly different religious, moral, or political views. It’s found in me forgiving my co-worker who, time and time again, fails to do what he says he will do, leaving me with extra tasks to do that take me away from getting paid. I feel like overcoming those things will bring us closer to developing that pure love of Christ than donating our extra TV to a person whose house burned down. I also feel like Charity is an attribute you have, not something you apply to others. If I am saying “I need more charity for Joe”, then I would say I have no charity at all. What is being referred to is tolerance, or perhaps some other contemporary of charity. Charity is not applied selectively, but rather when we have it, it is applied to all equally.

Cedar City. It’s nothing devastating that would make more than a one or two days of evening news, but that kind of flooding is unheard of here.

This is true, we have dealt with some insane floods over the last couple months. Supposedly it is the worst flooding the area has seen in 600 years. There have been calls for assistance across the entire valley and thousands upon thousands have reached out. The day after the flooding, I went to go clean an entire block that got flooded. I was there for 4 hours and when I left, almost every basement had their carpets stripped and the mud level was taken down to less then 3inches. About a block from my house lives a single non-member who also has an aging mother. Their property was absolutely destroyed. Me and much of the ward has been over there multiple times to help clean things out. There has been a skid steer there for weeks trying to clean out the 3 feet of mud that had covered her 4 acre lot. I think service is absolutely key when it comes to charity, but service is not Charity. The Bible Dictionary says “[Charity] is never used to denote alms or deeds of benevolence, although it may be a prompting motive“. To me, it seems service is a sign that someone might have charityC but it is not the charity Moroni 7 talks about. It seems there is still a large part of charity that is being missed when we talk about it.

this is very much an opinion post, and would love to hear thoughts on it. Our 5th Sunday lesson yestersat was on charity. It proceeded as usual with defining Charity, then a conversation on what Charity looks like and how to attain it. Things like “serve your children” and “donate things and talents”. We heard lots of stories of miracle stories of giving to the poor, and helping a family who lost everything in a house fire. All these are good, but not better, nor best. I honestly think these types of conversations completely miss the mark. The true test to acquire charity is not found in giving a coat to a freezing child, or buying a bed for a person who just lost their home in a fire. Those acts are extremely easy and the most average of humans on the earth will do this… but we aren’t trying to be average. Charity is the pure love of Christ, an attribute that is difficult to acquire and can only be done by the spirit. To me, the true sign of Charity is found in avoiding gossip, patience, avoiding all anger, speaking no evil of anyone, offering the benefit of the doubt when you don’t know the full story, etc. these are the conversations we need to have, not spending an entire 5th Sunday trying to convince to donate food to a family that is starving to death.

I imagine the translation process is similar to thr processes used to to translate normal books. Such translation process probably dont need similar circumstances as the original translation. I do recall a story about people working to translate the Book of Mormon into some Asian language. In the specific language, when you used the word “brother”, it always accompanied a suffix/prefix that dictated whether the brother was older or younger. The translator then had to reach out to the Q12 and asked if the brother of Jared was older or younger than Jared. I imagine in such situations they do reach out the the GA for direction.

There is always a spiritual creation before a physical creation. I am a firm believer that we create our own reality by the things we tell ourselves and the things we choose to believe.

Read “Approaching Zion” by High Nibley. He has some VERY strong opinions on wealth. Spoiler: he hates it. He thinks any search for any amount of wealth is pure evil. And that those whom Jacob 2:17-19 applies to are extremely few. He thinks we should acquire the minimum amount of wealth we need to survive, then spend our days growing spiritually. He talks so starkly about it that I can’t tell if he is speaking of what life should idealistically be, or if getting paid to study scripture all day, which also offered long term security and payment, made him ignorant of reality.

I remember not to long ago, someone on this forum brought up a book that explains the best way to teach kids to read. It supposedly rejected the common phonics approach as well as a few other common methods. Whoever you are, please speak up, I am curious about it. For the rest of you rabble, what methods have you used to help your kids learn to read?

In EQ yesterday, we spoke about hope. The only thing we can have hope in is Christ. Hope for an easy life, hope that I will be ready for whatever catastrophe is coming, and hope that my family won’t starve to death are all things that won’t do much. The only promise God makes is that of eternal life, and that scares me. If there is a big enough disaster where supply chains are cut off, all the food in our local stores will be gone within a few hours. So not ganna lie, this whole conversation about being prepared terrifies me. Almost cripples me sometimes. The day may come that Saints around the world starve to death. Not because of neglecting preparation, but from simply not having resources, and no amount of righteousness or preparation can prevent this should a large enough supply chain disruption occur. My family, for example, is one of those who may starve should something happen on the next year. I got off my mission is 2016, married in 2017, and first kid came on 2018. We felt the prophetic direction was clear, don’t wait for a career or education to start a family. We now have 3 amazing kids. Mid 2019 - mid 2020 was my first time experiencing paychecks that more than supported the month to month necessities. We built up a pretty good 1-2 months storage outside of the food we regularly kept stocked for day to day meals. The financial decisions we made in 2019-2020 were under the assumption that we were going to continue to grow economically and that we would bring more children into the world. Then Covid hit. The disease didn’t bother us much, but the city lock downs did. Over this last year, my income was only about 1/4 the size from the previous year. we are in pretty rough debt and struggling to even keep up with rent (but have a lot of help from family and the church). We also lack a home we own. Should disaster hit, we will lose our home before we run out of food. It may take all year to partially recover from this prior year. If something major happens, my family’s only hope is for someone else to help. We can probably make it two if we ration extremely carefully. The type of world wide catastrophe that would require a 1 year supply is one of those things that will leave my family starving. So ya… with everything going on, and knowing that starvation and death are on the table of things God is willing to let us experience, it all scares me. I have to live my life as if the economic future is amazing or I cannot function day to day.

“Treat every day like it is your last” We would be homeless if I did this.

I’m actually fine being made fun of. I think the best way to lower public opinion of you is to take a joke seriously. If we can laugh at ourselves with everyone else, then we win.

Read the comments on the original article and that shows just how true this is

Yep! I agree with this

It only happens when so go to this site. I use a few other forums that seem to have the same layout as this one does too and there is no problem there. Probably China trying to distract me from the gospel

Much like most of what is being asked, this is all conjecture. The war in Heaven certainly suggests there was some capability to rebel and fight against God. I highly doubt it was complete and utter submission to the law or full rebellion. Also, Alma 13 talks about spirits who were valiant, which suggests some were less valiant. I think there is more evidence for there being sin than not being sin (Perhaps “transgression” or “weakness that resulted in poor decisions” may be a better descriptor)

Whenever I go to this website on my phone, it always stops whatever I’m listening to. This started a few months back. I’ll be listening to a podcast cast, music, or an audio book and then I will come to this website and it stops. Has anyone else been experiencing this? I have an iPhone btw

The biggest point I can make on this topic is that we know SO LITTLE about what pre-earth life. We have little peaks at it here and there, but it is not something we can really make solid judgements and statements about. God seems to reserve revelations on different planes of existence for those existing in those planes. why is this? Because our duty is here, not there. There won’t be a satisfactory explanation because the required information to make it doesnt exist. That being said, this is a forum and we can surely talk about this, and I think some insights can be gained from such a conversation Is my 3 year old unclean and unfit for God’s presence when he hits his sister? Of course not! Like Adam and Eve and all others under the age of 8, he isnt accountable for these decisions because he hasn’t been fully taught, nor is he even capable of understanding. But, as his father, I don’t look upon this act with allowance, no, I teach him, I discipline him. I do what I can to teach him how to be good. That doesn’t mean I kick him out the door and tell him to come back when he is righteous. Same with God. He doesn’t look on sin with allowance, but that doesn’t mean we are removed from his presence when we fall short. I believe whole heartedly that the affects of the atonement are all encompassing and can reach back to pre-mortal life. As for sin and uncleanliness in pre-mortal life, for the purpose of my explanation, there are three types of motivations that lead us to do wrong. weakness, pride, and rebellion. God’s grace covers weakness and pride so-long we are trying to grow, but rebellion is the motivation that keeps us out of God’s presence. The third of the host of Heaven seemed to be the group that rebelled. Rejected Heavenly Father entirely and all that he offered. At the end of the day, the gospel, the purpose of life, and all that we are here to do has everything to do with what we want. God provides some options, we pick which one we want, and we are blessed/cursed with whatever else comes along with that decision

This is why I like johnsonjones comment. I feel it in appropriate to suggest God made newborns say spectacular things when the same outcome could have been done by youth. But had it been Newborns sharing memories of pre-earth life… that I can get behind.

I was just being ridiculous

I have just been under the impression that God doesn’t exercise his power purely for spectacle. I don’t know where I got that belief, but it makes sense that God isn’t going to just levitate a chair in front of me just to wow me.

…Excuse me?

Well… I disagree with your assessment. However, I like @JohnsonJones thoughts on it

My understanding of miracles is that there has to be a functional purpose to them. Causing new born babies to speak seems to be a strange miracle that has no utility.

If it weren’t my wife, I would agree

I read about it a little more. The consensus is either (1) manufactured shortage to control America, or (2) people are, because of Covid, going less places and ordering more things. One report I read said they are unloading containers faster than ever before, but it is just the sheer number of orders that is causing the back up. Additionally, the cargo tankers are being built bigger and bigger so it takes more time to unload each tanker.