Midwest LDS

True, although he does make provision for those of us who do via the various kingdoms. In addition, that's never by his choice it's always our own decision. I can't even begin to fathom God's heartbreak over how many of his children willingly refuse to return home to him, so that's somewhat different from parents who refuse to talk to their children ever again over one of their decisions.

Agreed. I am not super social so when I make a friend, you are my friend unless you choose to end the relationship. Don't just drop out of someone's life because they make a different choice from you. At least that's how I look at it.

I've never really had this problem personally. While I'm saddened when someome chooses to leave, I've never had a problem interacting with them. I've had the opposite happen, where some people I thought were good friends left the church and ghosted me. It was upsetting and I'm still somewhat bothered by it. However, one of my good friends left the church when he was younger. He was still officially on the roles when I met him. I was assigned as his hometeacher. He told me he wasn't a member anymore, he attended a Pentecostal church, but I was welcome to visit. He was a great guy, and we had a lot of good conversations about Christ. Are there active members that shun disaffected members? Undoubtedly, the church is made up of human beings, and all of us make mistakes from time to time. But in my personal experience, it's not the norm. Just like my personal examples you can probably find just as many former members who shun active members. Human relationships are very much based on the individual rather than the aggregate.

I understand being nervous. Just remember your bishop is a servant of Christ and you're mind (and in this case the Adversary as well) are trying to freak you out with the worst case scenarios. Trust me, as someone who has also had to confess things to my bishop before, you will feel a trillion times better the moment you get into his office and start confessing. It's amazing to me how quickly you feel the love and power of Christ when you do something difficult he has asked you to do. I've been praying for you sister, it's going to be ok.

I voted yes but I would have picked maybe if it was an option. On the positive note, I enjoy how much closer I am with distant family members and friends who, before the internet, I probably would have little to no contact with. I also enjoy discussing my opinions with others such as what we are doing here. In that sense social media is a blessing. I don't like how much anger and contention is thrown around social media though. I've had far too many family members and friends say insulting things to me on social media over opposing political opinions that they never would have said to my face. Twitter to me is a prime example to me of people hanging out and flinging pointless insults at each other. In addition, I don't like how mistakes and bad decisions that used to be something you learned from and moved on from can go viral. Now teenagers can be haunted for life by one bad decision. Anyways those are some reasons I believe social media, like the internet in general, is a mixed blessing.

A mission is voluntary. A missionary cannot be made to stay on his/her mission if he/she doesn't want to. My experience is that missionaries are encouraged to stay on their missions if practicable. It's really tough to want to go back out after returning home and in the case of foreign missions if you leave the country in some cases you can't come back. I know all this because I went home from my mission. My stepfather died when I had been out 9 months. My mission president encouraged me to stay out of concern for my eternal welfare. But when I told him that I had an impression that I needed to go home for the funeral he did not once stand in my way and quickly arranged travel back. I was only 9 hours from home by car where I was serving, and I'm a convert. If I had stayed, it would have irreparably damaged my family's opinion of the church. I went home and came back out none the worse for wear But I also know my stepfather. If the choice had been stay and finish my mission or come home and not return he would have told me to stay. Fortunately that wasn't the case for me but statistically, many missionaries who go home early stay home. It's understandable that the church (and of course the Lord) does not want all those Elders and Sisters to miss the blessings of service.

This is such great news!!!!! I'm so happy for you guys!

No surprise here, the church has been doing this everywhere else, but it's a nice change nonetheless. This would have made my marriage a lot easier (I have a lot of non-member family members who were moderately offended they could not attend), so I'm glad the option is now available to have a civil marriage first if need be. https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/couples-married-civilly-authorized-for-immediate-temple-marriage

First of all sister, don't forget that God loves you. Jesus Christ suffered in Gethsemane and died on the cross for you, because he loves you more than you can know, never forget that. You've made a serious mistake, but not an uncommon one so don't panic or feel you are somehow beyond the Grace of Christ. Secondly, don't be afraid to go to the bishop. His job is to act as a representative of Christ as he guides you through the repentance process. The only one who wants you to be afraid is Satan, because he knows that if he can keep you afraid and keep you away from Christ's representative he can keep you miserable. Don't listen to him! The moment you confess, you will feel an overwhelming outpouring of the love of God. You will feel as if a million pounds has been lifted off of your shoulder. Set up an appointment as soon as you can! You may have to sit through a disciplinary council, but it's nothing to be scared of. I was in a branch presidency for a while and sat on a couple of councils. The only thing on my mind the entire time was "how can I help this person come to Christ". By voluntarily coming in, you will be showing the bishop how much you desire to repent of your sin, and that is a strong indicator that excommunication is unnecessary. I just want to leave you this scripture before I go to remind you how much God loves you sister, and how much he wants you to come to him. It's in Doctrine and Covenants 18:10-13 "10 Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; 11 For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him. 12 And he hath risen again from the dead, that he might bring all men unto him, on conditions of repentance. 13 And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth" Remember by doing what you need to do to change, and trusting in the Grace of Christ you will bring him joy. You are loved sister and not alone, so good luck in your journey and know that everyone here is pulling for you.

SPOILERS INCLUDED Saw Endgame on opening night with my wife. I thought it was a great movie and there were some pretty intense emotional scenes for me. FYI I've never got into reading comics, so this is just my impression from seeing the movies. "Spoilers ahead" While far from perfect (the girl power scene was a little silly and Vort has a point about language) the moments that really stick out to me are as follows: Black Widow's sacrifice for the soul stone. I think I appreciated it because she and Hawkeye both acted like I would expect people who loved and cared about each other to act if told that one of them must sacrfice themselves. That fight over who would do it really got to me. I loved when Captain America picked up Mjollnir and began beating up Thanos with it. Cap is my favorite Marvel hero, and seeing he was worthy to use the hammer was pretty cool. Iron Man's crowning achievement, where he looks at Thanos, and says "I'm Iron Man" before sacrificing himself to destroy the invaders, was epic in my opinion. Definitely an epic way to go out. Finally, Captain getting to go back, marry the love of his life, and live as he always should have been able to, was a truly heartwarming moment. It made me really happy. So live up to all the hype? Not necessarily, but a great film and one that was satisfying for me to watch.

I'll have to check those out. Knowing Ebert, I'm sure many of them are hilarious.

I would accuse you of heresy my friend, but the embarrassing truth is I like Battlefield Earth for the same reason. Terrible terrible movie, super amusing to make fun of.

I really enjoy that movie too. I still love that scene where the Exxon Valdez sinks again no matter how cheesy lol. For me, I suppose my complete love of battleships is somewhat embarrassing. I went to visit the USS North Carolina a year and a half ago, and was like a kid visiting Disney World for the first time. I took far too many pictures of myself in front of the 16 inch guns.

Always happy to oblige☺. Plus @Just_A_Guy is a good sport since I did kind of take him on a tangemt there lol.

My thoughts exactly. The United States already paid it's reperations in blood for slavery.

You raise some interesting points, and I agree the Dred Scott decision, consistently rated as one of the worst ever made by the Supreme Court, was definitly a catalyst for the war. I disagree with your statement about Southern slaves needing to do more to gain their own freedom though. While hundreds of thousands of white soldiers certainly paid a high price for the eventual abolition of slavery, hundreds of thousands of black soldiers, mostly former slaves, fought in northern armies and tens of thousands of them were killed and wounded. If that's not fighting to gain one's freedom then I don't know what is, so I would argue Southern slaves did strive to overthrow their own yoke. Also, while I agree the South would have eventually collapsed due to their more insane expansionist ideas, would an alliance of foreign nations stopping them be preferable? This is the age when Europe carved up Africa after all. Would you want European armies to come in and stop the South? I could be wrong, but I don't think they would have left. There are definitely plenty of pro and con arguments about us getting involved in World War 1, but we really did not start affecting the outcome of that war until late 1917 at the earliest. Remove us from the equation, and you still have the Bolshevik revolution. Remove our soldiers and you have 2 possiblities. The German 1918 Spring offensive succeeds, barely, and it's the exhausted allies brought to the negotiating table with the vengeful Germans (an interesting twist that could easily have made a "Hitler" French instead of German) or the Allies finally win after a starving Germany collapses, but without the moderating influence of the US, they impose an even harsher Cartheginian peace on Germany, carve up more of the globe (the allies were not exactly helpful here as we can thank much of the tangled up web of the Middle East on the UK and France today) leaving it more divided not united when Stalin and his hordes start eyeing Europe. Not to mention a Japanese ruled Chinese Empire makes me pale at the knowledge of how many Chinese would have been brutally slain by them. A Nanking massacre across the entire country. For all those reasons I would still argue a strong United States was neccessary.

Nah it's not like that. When I was there, (which admittedly was 12 to 8 years ago) the only things that could get you into serious trouble would be LOC and WOW violations (discounting crimes and stuff of course). Even then, it depends on the specific violation. Someone out past curfew is in less trouble than someone who gets his girlfriend pregnant for example and I believe in many cases there were/are ways to demonstrate genuine repentance and lesser penalties than just expulsion. Someone correct me if I'm completely wrong, I never had to deal with the honor code office personally. I know that's surprising considering my wild and non conformist lifestyle.

By the way I'm prefacing this by acknowledging that you are indulging in a thought experiment, I just had some thoughts in response.☺ Allowing the states to seperate in 1865 would have been an immediate disaster for blacks. While slavery would have eventually died out as it did elsewhere, how long would it have taken? 10 more years, 20, 30? How many additional generations of servitude would there have been without the sacrifice of northern soldiers. And, while blacks were not even close to being treated as equals for at least a century in the South, wasn't even their small level of freedom worth the rest of the country sharing in the guilt of the South? Furthermore, we were the only ones who could have stood up to global communism. European history would have stayed more or less the same with out our participation ( or our minor participation because we would have been a weak, divided country like so many others) so following the bloodier and longer WW1 and WW2 eventually Soviet armies would have ended up in Berlin with no one who could have stood up to them but a weak UK, a conquered France and who else? The night that would have cloaked the Earth following that kind of victory is terryfying to contemplate. Those are two reasons I believe the preservation of the Union in 1865 (and previously by extension) was vital. As to now, you make an interesting case that division is preferable, although I have similiar concerns about China and Russia now as I do about the USSR then. The problem, is that it would involve the spilling of an ocean of blood in the inevitable civil war that followed. For that reason alone I support union, even in the less desirable society we find ourselves in. Seperation would not be done cleanly in this country.

For me personally it's when you compare the Prince to his other works that you start to see it. Let me give you an example from one of his more widely published, at the time, books Discoursi ""We know by experience that states have never signally increased either in territory or in riches except under a free government. The cause is not far to seek, since it is the well-being not of the individuals but of the community which makes the state great, and without question this universal well-being is nowhere secured save in a republic.... Popular rule is always better than the rule of princes." Compare that quote to this one from the Prince "Whatever you do, whatever measures you take, if the population hasn't been routed and dispersed so that its freedoms and traditions are quite forgotten, they will rise up to fight for those principles at the first opportunity; just as the Pisans did after a hundred years of Florentine dominion." It seems really odd to me that in most of his political works, like Discoursi, he argues about the benefits of liberty and how a free republic is the best way to preserve those liberties, but in the Prince he is arguing that you need to make sure to completely destroy your opponents so they forget their liberty and traditions. I don't claim to be a Machieavelli expert by any means, military history is more my specialty, but this and other examples seem to me to demonstrate exaguration. Especially when you remember that the Prince was not widely published while he was alive, while most of his other works were. Now I could easily be wrong, you can certainly find arguments to the contrary, but that's my view of things. If you're interested Garrett Mattingly explains the pro satire side of things pretty well in this article http://www2.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/flor-mach-mattingly.htm

My heart is broken. I've been there, and whatever else can be said about the loss of historical artifacts, which deeply saddens me as well, you could feel the faith in Christ of those who had built it, almost infused in the stone. This is a tragic loss for humanity.

True but I do see some exaggeration in his advice. There is some debate on the subject, as there always is about any aspect of history because historians rarely agree on anything, but if taken in the context of his other work, and taking into account his personal mistreatment by "Machiavellian" leaders, there is also plenty of evidence that his work was not meant to be taken seriously. It could also have been made merely for debate purposes, as during his lifetime he only circulated it amongst his friends and did not widely publish it.

Yeah, Machiavelli was badly mistreated by the Medici's and was supportive of that century's version of a republic. This is especially clear when you read his other writings. Unfortunately for him, his satire in the Prince was so well done that people took his writings seriously and that book became a blueprint for power hungry leaders for centuries. Kind of backfired on him.

Please this is the only decent Florida football team

Probably a wise precaution

Lol I totally get it. And to be fair here is a picture of me