a mustard seed

I have never heard of that anatess! That looks so yummy though! Is it sugar that is pressed or what is it?

I'd argue no it's not. It can be a rash decision based on bad circumstances. To say that it is a result of these things is still saying that euthanasia is desirable for "undesirables". Let's just let them take themselves out! Oh? Diagnosed with severe depression? That's a death sentence! Untreatable! Go ahead and do us a favor and get to the end result of that! Absolutely maddening. Mine wasn't. Mine was a result of repression and anxiety in a very specific set of circumstances forcing me to think I was a problem to be erased. If it is mental illness, then mine was a temporary madness. Are only successful committers mentally ill, I wonder? Convenient set of experiment criteria.

Not at all. "Committed suicide" puts the onus directly on the one doing the act. Death by suicide would muddy the waters for me and leave the possibility open that this thing that happened "to" them could be my fault, could have been prevented by me, if they were someone I knew. That is still possibly true with the other terminology but I think mentally, the phrasing helps one realize, this was their choice in the end. It also lays the responsibility on thosae who are thinking about doing it. It's not something that is unavoidable, they have power to choose whether to do it or not. When someone is on the brink and thinking already that there are no choices left to them, being reminded that such an act is indeed a choice can help them realize they have power to say "yes" or "no" to it, that they can stop it. As someone who has attempted, this is actually a sensitive topic for me and I applaud you for making an article against this ridiculous tide of softening the language, for no point whatsoever. We have to be sensitive to those who wish to take their own life??? Seriously??? Even without religion, that is a cruel and heartless turn of moral relativism. How about everybody deserves the right to life? How about actual compassion and saving people? By "being sensitive" to suicide we are basically agreeing with someone that their life is worthless, that they don't deserve to exist. It's lunacy.

I hope it is ok for me to make this thread. Ever see those millions of flavors of Oreos or weird flavors of chips and wonder, "who keeps falling for this gimmicky crap?" This gal. Right here. Some are good, others just sort of hit me wrong but despite the myriad failvors I've come across, as soon as they come out with a new one, I bring it home to try it out. How about you? What are some of the best and some of the worst you've tried? Feel free to revisit this thread and tell us about your flaventures! Something I've tried that I was surprised I liked were these cotton candy puff balls. They're basically the same size and texture of cheese puff balls but they're sweet and taste like cotton candy instead. It takes getting used to on the first try but once you get used to them, it's basically just crunchy cotton candy. Candy, sweets, snacks, junk food, etc. What are some odd or interesting things you have tried? What did you like? What did you wish you could erase from memory?

Little House on the Prairie Watching this starting from Season 1. Omg! I can't gush enough about this! My favorite episodes so far are Mr. Tinker's Voice and The Lord is My Shepherd(that's sad but I also like what it says about God and Laura's relationship with Him). That Mrs. Olsen makes me so mad though! Her daughter can be alright sometimes but she is just absolutely spiteful in every episode where she plays a major part. I could smack her on the back of the head! Although, the Ingel's and how they deal with the situations, how they treat her, it can be a lesson for myself and how to deal with similar, difficult people. Honestly, despite their occasional jokes to each other(very tame) and "losing their temper"(basically doing something just to defy her opinion because they've gotten fed up) are actually really mellow by todays standards and most of the time, it has nothing to do with confrontation but a creative solution to problems that end up benefiting everybody.

Thank you @LiterateParakeet and @anatess2! I think that hits it right on the head what I am struggling with. Not that the miracle of her changing is impossible for God, after all, He brought me back from self-destructive "fun" as well. But my impatience is prideful. I want it now and its not happening so I get mad at her. I understand thats not what He wants. I cannot leave but I can step up. I had some epiphanies while lying in bed last night. One, I could lose her at any moment and it made me look at how I was spending these "last moments" with her. I think that is one possible way to get to love the sinner and not the sin, because thats a pretty big hurdle sometimes to leap over. Is this thing worth quibbling over when she could be gone in the next instant? Is me shaking my finger or giving her worried looks what I would want to remember about our time together? It just helped me align my priorities better and find my way to where what she is doing does not get in the way of loving her and showing her love genuinely and fully. Another thing that occurred to me is that "I want whats best for you" IS judgemental. At least the way I have been combining it with "I know better than you." How prideful is that? It felt like a weight off my shoulders realizing that Ive been trying to take the glory and responsibility of saving her away from the Savior. Thats not my job. I'm a child in His ways just as much as she is. The Savior led by example and so should I. I'm not making a good case for the plan of happiness when I'm sad and worried all the time. I just need to trust in Him more than I have been. Just sharing the realizations I've had. I already have a testimony of pure love working to open doorways and smooth the path. I just need to trust in that and put it into practice more readily.

I thank you guys for your words and support. I know that the situation is a tough one to figure out since there is no one right answer and it is definitely up to me to do the fasting and praying to hear directly from the source what I should do and how to go about this. I guess it's a kind of "I don't want to! I want her to change! I want to make her do what I want her to do!" type thing, and I know those thoughts and that impulse go against what Christ taught and what I should be thinking.

I'm helping my aunt with girl's camp this year and one of her lessons/activities has to do with the plan of salvation. You know those card kits missionaries sometimes carry around, very simplified pictures on them to show the plan and they either come in a folder or on a ring to keep them together? well, when looking it up on Google, we found a set by LDSTools that was pretty cool that was all circles. Going from big to small, the cards fit together like a ripple and come apart as their own free moving circles of different sizes. The kit was 1. a little pricey for a girl's camp handout and 2. a little too detailed to keep as a black and white scan for the girls to color on their own. So, we decided to do the circle idea and make the designs our own. The girls will color them and we'll laminate them and cut them out and the girls can have their own sets to take home or give to missionaries or whatever. Here are my designs for that. Just wanted to share this with you guys. I know, I spelt Terrestrial wrong. I'll have to redo that one.

I just want to preface this by saying that I'm 29 years old and I still live with my mother. I'm trying to make the freelance art thing work without becoming a starving artist, so, it is easier to pay rent to my mother rather than getting a place on my own. I just started going back to church 6 months ago and I have been trying to help my family, namely, my 3 younger siblings, have some stability and religion in their lives. We have scripture study every night of the week and we just started family home evenings on Mondays. Well, my mother, although somewhat supportive, is a lapsed member. She drinks beer recreationally, used to smoke but now vapes, and has sex outside of marriage. She has divorced my step dad and was dating and engaged to a hunter for about 3 years. He never moved into our house but she would often spend nights over at his house, leaving my 12 and 16, and 17 year old siblings in my care. Well, he dumped her recently, for the better, I thought, because he didn't treat her very nicely 20% of the time. She was so crushed for a while that she had to leave us for a week to go to a friends house several hours away, again, leaving the kids to my care. Now, a month later, she appears happier but invites men over for the weekends while the boys visit their father's house. She's not interested in dating right now but just in having fun and to her that means drinking and having sex with men she barely knows. My sister is going through a rough time right now. 16 years old, she is mentally and emotionally stunted(not diagnosed, she just falls a little behind what you'd expect of someone her age, maturity-wise) and is having hormonal issues. She won't talk to anybody about it, everything is "fine" and yet she gives her teachers depressing notes, wanders out of church and school activities, is curt and short with us as a family, and spends hours in her room doing what, nobody knows. Very bottled up and yet vacant and mercurial when you talk to her. She is on birth control to help even out the testosterone in her body but all it seems to be doing is confusing her emotionally, like the two hormones are warring within her. So, after getting a call from school this past Friday about some of these issues from my sister's counselor, my mother is making plans to go to the doctor and change what he's got her on and get her in to see someone for therapy. I remember being like that as a teenager, having dark thoughts and dark fantasies and being hormonally and emotionally in turmoil. I did some crazy stuff before I was set on a correct path with the help of medication and therapy at the time. My mother just informed me about her secret plans to leave this Friday to fly out west to meet up with a guy she's been talking to for about a month online. She knew him when she was in the service but they started talking again recently, when she and her ex broke up. She'll be gone until Tuesday not this week but next week. She thinks I mean to keep her chained up here by asking that she stay at this time. She knows my sister's issues but says she'll be fine and that there's not much she(my mother) can do while here, minimizing the effect of her presence here as a stabilizing effect on our household. She's not completely wild or off the rails, mind you, her presence here keeping us all grounded and focused. I have a problem with being critical and catastrophizing. I have a problem with being judgemental and projecting. I feel like something bad is going to happen. My normal support system that does not include her is a bit scattered right now so I am the one in charge and responsible while she is away. The boys will be at their dads but my sister will be home with me. And Monday they come home and go to school from here. I just need some support right now. I feel like this is a lot of personal information but I'm a little lost at the moment. I feel like it's not ever going to get better. I try to set an example, I try to do service with love in my heart but I feel like I'm being used. Like I'm a crutch and so long as I'm here, she'll use me as an excuse to go off and have fun and not be here. I feel like I should leave, move out...but then I feel like the children here will suffer because she's not going to do scripture study with them and they love and depend on me so much. I can't say anything because I'm then being judgemental and she'd be resentful and cruel if she were forced to stay, not just this weekend, but to take responsibility for her personal life period. Like most of Heavenly Father's lessons to me, I feel like He puts me in situations and circumstances to change something within me. But I'm struggling against this. I need to remember how to show charity and love, without being critical or judgemental. I just can't wrap my head around this perspective shift. How do I get there? Because to me, love is not letting someone hurt themselves and telling them not to do something that you know will hurt them. I'm trying to trust in Heavenly Father and this burden He has placed upon me and trying to find the lesson in it all. I know I am needed here and I know I'm being selfish making it all about how hard this thing is for ME. I guess, I just wanted to hear someone remind me of that, to tell me about being steadfast, to offer some different perspective on charity and loving a non-member family member even when they do things that are frustrating. Because I love her so much and I know I need to change to love her better and love her more. Just any advice on what I could be doing better, a new way to look at this, some way to feel pumped and motivated about my capabilities as a force for good and a responsible adult, would be much appreciated.

The Giver I read the book years and years ago but do not remember much about it. This was really good though. I enjoyed it very much, from the depictions of the society and how it was run to the social commentary it was making. So often it feels like human emotions are demonized in our culture, so it is nice to see depictions where the good and the bad are necessary and that if we didn't have them, we'd recognize when they were missing. I also liked this better than other "emotionless" dystopic societies I've seen depicted(Equilibrium, Equals) because it felt a bit more real to me the way the people acted and how it was thwarted.

Yeah @anatess2 if you guys like zombies its a good addition to the genre. ? Sons of Provo Very funny movie! Loved all the songs and characters. What a great commentary and satire on boy bands and Mormon culture.

I agree with most of the others - I like the language and think it's fine. I think reading with practice helps foster understanding, like reading Shakespeare, you eventually develop a mental translation. The only time I find it hard to understand is when it is overly symbolic, like with Isaiah but although it is a challenge for me personally, once I get to the nitty gritty of picking it apart, it is actually really cool stuff. Oh, and stuff like with Numbers I don't appreciate very much, where it sounds like an accountant log. Not because I don't understand the language but because it is boring and repetitive. I understand the "why"(I think) but it is just hard to focus on it and get through it.

The Girl With All the Gifts Really great! Very excellent take on the zombie genre. Kind of 28 Days Later with a slightly more upbeat tone and very likable characters and wonderful acting. Definitely recommend if you like zombies and are looking for something more than just the typical story.

I really like this perspective and it rings true to me. I have often tried to invite my non-active mother to church with me and despite believing in the church, she drinks, smokes, and has intimate relations outside of marriage(her and my father are divorced). Over the years, she has gone through cycles of years of activity followed by nonactivity, over and over. She keeps telling me that she will someday but that right now she's not done being "Marie" like the sinning self is her real self and that is what she truly perceives about herself. Being so close to my own coming back to the church, I can definitely say that it is almost like an on-off switch of personality when I transition between what I want to do and what I know I should be doing. The one part of me gets really excited about scriptures and praying and the temple and service. The other part of me is very relaxed about it all, makes justifications, gets lazy about standards for basically everything, and selfishly makes excuses for why I can't do things or what people are entitled to. When you're in that state of mind, either one, it is easy to believe that is who you really are.

Thank you for that! Thats what I was looking for. Something free for conversation with members. Ive never used anything like this before so its really new but I hope something works out.

Thats a busy body attitude I dont condone. Its not alright to tell certain people that they cant offer their own point of view(and yes declarative statements about what they believe to be true) just because you personally dont agree. What about all the pepple in here asserting that doctors are safe and should be trusted with my mental health? How hatmful would that be to put myself in a situation like i was before where psychiatrists misdiagnosed me and got me addicted to meds that did not help me? I think we should police what you say and make sure that you affirmatively acknowledge for any unsuspectibg lurkers that they should do their own research and that your opinion that medication helps people isnt 100% truth and dact to be followed. Someone could follow your advice when faith or service or a hobby/job might help them better and instead get put on medicine that makes them suicidal. Ridiculous. Youre not helping people by making sure every morsel of information they are spoonfed(even in a casual setting such as an online forum) is 100% true. You cant be there for them all the time and personally I trust people to have their agency especially in a casual discussion not to take YOU seriously and think they should trust every doctor who offers them meds. What is the alternative? Everybody needs to start every sentence with "my opinion is/in my opinion"? You want him to admit your point of view could be right. That seems selfish in my opinion.

Agreed on the points we agree on. I think it goes both ways honestly and people should be encouraged to look at all possible avenues for what works for them personally. It would have been harmful to me to continue taking medication I do not need or worse to try something that had worse sideeffects for me. I have a problem with how much trust we put in psychiatrists and the authority of which they diagnose. I think it is self evident that each user name here speaks with their own opinion and that nobody here should be used as a substitute for personal research and professional opinions. I'm not sure how else that could be made clear since nobody else makes distinctions about their opinions while posting and talk with just as much straight faced "fact stating". Its automatically assumed that everyone is stating their own opinion and the anonymous nature of the forum puts us all on an even playing field as far as credibility goes.

I cant say that definitively can I? I agree with what hes said about it because I think in certain situations it can be a spiritual affliction and it is case by case. For me and jojo medication and even secular therapy did not work but for eowyn it does. It could be some physiological condition that they are unaware of is being solved just the way there was nothing physically wrong with me to warrant medication. The points I like that he made are about the flippancy with which psychiatrists prescribe medication despite how little they know about what these medications do to the body and the causes behind depression. I think if they look for and find a physiological problem at the root it is ok to solve it that way. But that doesnt seem to be the methodology of a psychiatrist when they prescribe anti-depressants. They are basing their diagnosis on symptoms and guessing that these pills might help. That is what I dont agree with.

So we need more information and that gives psychiatrists the license to just guess and prescribe without any tests or concrete evidence of an imbalance? We get to be guinea pigs like when housewives would get prescribed straight up cocaine by their doctors decades ago? Sounds like an exercise in secular faith if I ever heard of one. Again stop using your grandmother as an example. Unless all depression is created by tumors then it is an example of a concrete phyisical illness being fixed through physical means. Yes there is overlap but when you find the physical then you treat it physically. We're talking about the tendency to treat depression with NO knowledge of a physical cause with physical/hormonal affecting medicines.

I get and support what jojo is saying. There is a difference between medical and mental. A tumor in the brain falls into medical because it is something about the body that can be observed and operated on. Why wont anybody address jojo's assertion that depression cannot be tested for on the brain and yet they are putting drugs into our physical bodies? Its a bit facetious in my opinion to read what hes saying about purely mental problems and psychiatrists pushing pills and then ask him to prove stuff about tumors and flu shots.

If I had a prospect already lined up, like a guy who was really great in another city and we visited a couple of times and it was a sure thing that it'd be worth it to me to move to that city, finding my own apartment, and continue our courtship, then possibly it might be on the table for me to abandon my friends and family - my support system - and wing it in another city. With no current romantic prospect and just the vague hope that I might find someone somewhere else? No chance. Besides, I intend to live the rest of my life in Susquehanna county so if I ever did find someone, I'd make a pretty passionate case for him to move to be with me. It would take something other than vague hope to get to me to leave here. I do not think it is unrealistic to look online and start a conversation first; just moving with no idea if anybody is there waiting for me seems like the unrealistic thing to me, personally. ^^; That's the website that charges and in fact the very first one I signed up on. I filled in my profile and everything just fine, could search for other people just fine(although a little glitchy) and I received a private message from someone interested in me! Go to open the message and...I can't. I have to be a subscribed member in order to interact with people at all. So, no, I'm not going to pay to have a conversation, especially when 1. I'm not really looking that hard right now, just trying to HAVE a conversation period and 2. I plan on a long courtship before expecting anything concrete or serious to happen.

Thank you two cents! I will check both of those options out. ?

I am frustrated. I just spent the last 2 hours going through the admission process for 3 different "LDS dating sites" only to find out that certain crucial aspects of the process(you know, receiving and answering messages, uploading profile pictures, finding matches, etc.) require payment. I do not want to pay $9.99 for a month-long service. I live in a rural area and I do not have access to too many wholesome men as it is as the singles ward is farther away than I can reasonably drive. Do any of you know of a dating service or site that encourages people of the LDS faith to get together that is free to use? Or have any suggestions for how to find someone? All we have around here by way of recreation are bars(nope), country clubs(nope), and...other churches. I already intend to pray about this but I felt like just looking online and trying to get this rusty wagon wheel turning again with conversations with people of like minds, you know? My biggest mistake with my last marriage was that we were both not very strong to start out with and when times grew tough as far as spiritually, we couldn't look to each other for that strength and neither one of us suggested that we might ask God for help. I went down some very dark roads after that and although I know I cannot depend totally on another person for my testimony, it is my ideal to find someone with similar values so that we can offer each other an example and strength in the spirit, when we need it. I think because of how passionately I feel about the church it'd be best to find a Mormon guy. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I am open to hearing them.

So, almost a whole month ago, I saw a link on Facebook to a talk by Henry B. Eyring called “O Remember, Remember.” It talked briefly about how he has made a habit over the years to write down instances of when he has seen the hand of the Lord in his daily life and how that has helped open his eyes to more spiritual experiences that he didn’t recognize before. I thought the idea of every day writing down my experiences would be a good exercise. I was originally going to do this by myself but then I felt prompted to include my siblings in this as a way to help train all of us to open our eyes to things around us. So, I put a paper band on a jar and we keep a selection of markers and pad of paper close by and after scripture study every night, we take a moment for each of us to write something down. Then we fold the papers up and put them in the jar, with the idea that when it was full, we’d open them all up and share them as a group, looking back over all of these wonderful experiences we had and sharing together from all of our perspectives. Tonight was our night and for family home evening, we each took turns reading each other’s papers, discovering what others had felt blessed by and also remembering how we each felt when we wrote our own. I definitely recommend this activity for anyone else, especially those with young children in the house. It was such a rewarding experience to hear what they each thought about and what happened to them that was special on those days. Everybody was different, with different priorities, but the feelings were there, and as we came back to the present through the list, you could see the responses for all of them becoming more thoughtful and understanding of the task. We have a problem in our house with personal journal keeping, so, this has kind of helped us by doing it as a group and with the simple prompt "Have I seen the hand of God reaching out and touching us in some way today?" They don’t always have to be spiritual experiences either – or at least, something that we strictly think of as spiritual. A lot of them were listing good things that happened that made them happy. Many more were started with the phrase, “I am thankful for…” and that really encapsulates the whole point of it. A lot of times we pass things by or take things for granted and we don't recognize that Heavenly Father is responsible for a lot of the good things in our lives. When you don’t recognize even the small things you are blessed by, it can be hard to identify when a bigger, more direct spiritual experience is happening/has happened. It starts with recognizing even those small things that happen as coming from the Lord, leading to seeing how involved He is and the impact He has on our lives. I’ll be keeping these in a box, keeping them organized and together, so that someday, we can have them and the kids can look them over and remember how much the Lord has done for them through their own words and their own eyes recognizing them. I just wanted to share this as a possible family home evening activity or daily activity you can do with your family. It takes less than 5 minutes usually for them to write something down(my older younger brother and I take a bit longer) and having them do it right after scripture study, they're already mindful of the Lord and feeling the Spirit with them, so, it makes it a bit easier to be in that mindset.

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