JoCa

I agree with your sentiment in a limited sense but with the worldwide growth of the Church I don't think we can make these generalized statements anymore. Our level of exposure to LDS cultural is actually quite limited anymore. We may have some insight in how things look here in the US and perhaps in some of the more westernized nations but that's half or less than half of the total Church membership. It would not surprise me that we eventually see a repeat of scripture where those members of Lamanite descent form much of the backbone of the Church because of their total dedication to the gospel, including the family unit. I could also see this taking place in Africa and some of the other humbler nations of the world.

Thank you I really appreciate this.  I googled Emma Smith and, well lets just say there is a lot of anti-mormon stuff out there I'd rather not poison my brain with!  So I really appreciate all the advice and information I am getting from the forum members.  I don't want the perceptive of ex-mormons, I mean if you wanted to learn about life in the ARMY you wouldn't go to a deserter! Any links you can give me on Emma is greatly appreciated.
I also don't want any of you to think that because I don't understand everything that I don't see the beauty and love in this church.  I can FEEL the spirit of God when I am in an LDS church, I can see it in the faces of the members.  Yes of course there will be problems, there are problems and things that don't make sense in every religion.  I just hope you all know how sincere I am.  I do have partial testimonies of truth in the LDS Church, for example; the pre-existence, I KNOW without a doubt in my mind that this is true, and eternal progression, I KNOW this is true, it's kind of ridiculous to think that when you die you just stay in that state forever and don't learn anything anymore or progress spiritually. And the Word Of Wisdom, following this has made such a difference in my life it must be a revelation from God.

Thanks so much, I will read all the information you gave me and fast and pray.
You guys rock!

Emma was very interesting.  The long and short is that she had a very big personality conflict with Brigham Young.  It is quite fascinating that you can actually see that Apostles and Prophets are human and aren't perfect. 

More like she had been through an awful lot.

I'm sure there is a document or lecture somewhere.  So a few things to clear up.
Joseph Smith absolutely recognized the problems and errors with the KJV bible. So much so in fact that after he translated the Book of Mormon and had learned by experience how to receive direct revelation from God (i.e. how God could speak directly to his mind and heart), he went about producing his own translation of the KJV. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith_Translation_of_the_Bible
So if one believes JS was a legitimate Prophet of God (like unto Moses, Abraham, etc.) then he would have the authorization and ability to make corrections to the KJV as he recognized there were several parts that were wrong.  Why did he not use any other version of the bible?  Probably b/c in 1830 the common bible version used was the KJV.  Later in his life, he had access to other bibles (the Greek), but if wouldn't make much sense to translate the Greek version when the people he was among commonly used the KJV.
Currently, in the LDS Church we do use the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) but it appears as footnotes in the LDS version of the KJV.  A lot of the actual documentation for the JST the LDS Church doesn't hold "Smith was killed prior to the publication of the JST. At his death, the manuscripts and documents pertaining to the translation were retained by his widow, Emma Smith, who would not give them to the Quorum of the Twelve, although Willard Richards, apparently acting on behalf of Brigham Young, requested the manuscript from her. Consequently, when Young's followers moved to the Salt Lake Valley, they did so without the new translation of the Bible."
Article of Faith (core tenants) 7: We believe the bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
The other thing to keep in mind is that just because a Church, organization or individual falls into apostasy does not mean everything they produce is evil or of the devil. Just because one loses the authority to claim the right of leadership does not mean that everything in their life (or in the church) is dross. God can absolutely still inspire good men who are trying to do the right thing to do good works. And that's what we believe about the Bible; God inspired men to compile and put together the previous writings of Apostles and Prophets.  Now at the same time, they did quite a bit of modification too but by and large the Bible is absolutely inspired by God.
The Authority to proclaim "Thus Saith the Lord", i.e. the authority to write new scripture was lost (and this is key).  So if you notice in the Bible all the scripture is old scripture.  There are no books in the Bible that Bishop Linus wrote, there are no scriptures that Pope John XII wrote.  We might have their writings, but no new scripture.
The LDS Church most recent canonized scripture D&C 138 in 1918. Most recent pronouncement put into scriptures 1970. It would not surprise me if the 1995 Proclamation on the Family eventually becomes canonized.  
So in sum the Catholic Church had the ability and inspiration from God to compile previous written scripture by men who had Authority from God to receive direct revelation and authority from God, but they did not have the authority to create any new scripture-which that authority, i.e. to speak in God's name and to write revelation/scripture as one of the ancient Apostles and Prophets was lost.

Blossom76, I commend your willingness to live faithfully by the Christian household ideal. I think it is absolutely wonderful and awesome to see someone not of the LDS faith striving to live their life and family life according to this model.  We could use a lot more people in the LDS church such as you and your husband.
I don't know how the Catholic Church is weathering the current hellish onslaught against the Scriptures, but it is certainly an interesting time to be in the LDS Church. 15-20 years ago, the LDS Church teachings were very, very strong in the traditional family model (and they still are to a large extent). See https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng&old=true.
Now if you read this document put out by the Prophet and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles in 1995 and compare it to what has culturally happened over the last 20 years it is quite stunning.  IMO, only individuals with a prophetic vision would have the knowledge, the foresight, the strength to have written a document such as the above.  Certainly, the teachings of the Church during my upbringing (and I'm fairly young) have made a heavy, heavy emphasis on the traditional family model with husbands at the head, wives as the scriptures say, children next.  Plenty of General Conference talks from Prophets and Apostles have described that the traditional family model works, husbands are to provide, wives are to nurture.
Unfortunately, as the world has become more wicked and gone away from God's laws it has also drawn many members of the LDS church too. The messages from the top are still by and large the same . . .unfortunately many of the membership no longer want to hear how the traditional family model is the God ordained model. People claim and want an exception to the rule.  There is a cultural shift that has occurred within the LDS church (and anyone who denies it is just blind to the facts). 
You will generally find that the over 35+ are by and large pretty conservative, but not quite as conservative as the over 50+ and under 35 starts to get very, very culturally liberal.  And this is why you will see quite a bit of discussion on this topic on LDS forum boards (forums tend to skew a little more liberal than the general Church populace).  Too many of the under 35 have been raised with more the world's view of marriage rather than God's view . . .but it's still better than the world's view so I guess that counts for something.
One thing that I have always admired of Catholics is their view on divorce; personally I subscribe more to that view than the cultural LDS view and unfortunately culturally in the LDS Church divorce has become way, way to common (but it is still much, much lower than the world).
So boy, we could sure use your families strength (this is besides the fact that the LDS Church was put in place by a legit no kidding Prophet of God :-).  Sidenote to the board, IMO these are the types of individuals the Church needs more of (humble followers of Christ). . . not the politically correct crud put out by articles that will remain anonymous on this website that have a socially liberal ideological bent.    

The following, written by Joseph Smith :
...if you haven't read all the the Articles of Faith (there are only 13), I recommend you do.
Just because they lost authority, it doesn't mean they couldn't compile the writings of the apostles who had been alive.  See this link, especially the last paragraph.

There's nothing to be confused about.  The only relevant point to your question on the Great Apostasy is the loss of authority.  When disciples apostasized from the Church during the time of the Apostles it was not a complete apostasy because Jesus or any one of the Apostles had the Authority to correct false teachings.  A lot of Paul's letters are written just for this purpose.
The talk "Why 1820" goes beyond the Great Apostasy and goes into the Restoration.  It was a talk given to LDS members.  In my humble opinion, this is a toxic document if you give this to a devout Roman Catholic to read.  Catholics know their own history and they do not believe that errors of people means error of the church as a whole.  They will just take this as an attack on their faith and would just go and boomerang the same exact "errors" at the LDS Church starting with the 3 witnesses of the Book of Mormon leaving the LDS Church, Joseph Smith's polygamy, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, etc. etc.
In any case, the only relevant event in Why 1820 to the Great Apostasy is John, the last Apostle.  The Apostolic Authority ended with him and as we don't know when he died, we don't know an exact date of the Great Apostasy.  Whether Bishop Linus was a good disciple or not is irrelevant to the Great Apostasy.  Even the Catholic Church do not claim that Bishop Linus was ordained an Apostle.  Rather, they simply claim that Bishops were given the authority of the Apostles upon the death of Peter.  The LDS do not believe this, hence, the Great Apostasy.
The Great Apostasy is the loss of Apostolic Authority from when John passed to when Joseph Smith was ordained an Apostle.  A Catholic can only deposit faith on this statement if he appeals to the Holy Spirit.  No amount of Catholic history bashing will get you there especially by non-Catholics who do not understand how Apostolic Authority works in the Catholic faith (a bad pope does not cause a loss of Apostolic Authority because he is only one bishop of many who holds the same authority).

I strongly recommend you read this paper by Ron Poulton.  http://tamarasbook.blogspot.com/2008/12/fascinating-paper-on-evil-spirits.html

Blossom76, I commend your willingness to live faithfully by the Christian household ideal. I think it is absolutely wonderful and awesome to see someone not of the LDS faith striving to live their life and family life according to this model.  We could use a lot more people in the LDS church such as you and your husband.
I don't know how the Catholic Church is weathering the current hellish onslaught against the Scriptures, but it is certainly an interesting time to be in the LDS Church. 15-20 years ago, the LDS Church teachings were very, very strong in the traditional family model (and they still are to a large extent). See https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng&old=true.
Now if you read this document put out by the Prophet and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles in 1995 and compare it to what has culturally happened over the last 20 years it is quite stunning.  IMO, only individuals with a prophetic vision would have the knowledge, the foresight, the strength to have written a document such as the above.  Certainly, the teachings of the Church during my upbringing (and I'm fairly young) have made a heavy, heavy emphasis on the traditional family model with husbands at the head, wives as the scriptures say, children next.  Plenty of General Conference talks from Prophets and Apostles have described that the traditional family model works, husbands are to provide, wives are to nurture.
Unfortunately, as the world has become more wicked and gone away from God's laws it has also drawn many members of the LDS church too. The messages from the top are still by and large the same . . .unfortunately many of the membership no longer want to hear how the traditional family model is the God ordained model. People claim and want an exception to the rule.  There is a cultural shift that has occurred within the LDS church (and anyone who denies it is just blind to the facts). 
You will generally find that the over 35+ are by and large pretty conservative, but not quite as conservative as the over 50+ and under 35 starts to get very, very culturally liberal.  And this is why you will see quite a bit of discussion on this topic on LDS forum boards (forums tend to skew a little more liberal than the general Church populace).  Too many of the under 35 have been raised with more the world's view of marriage rather than God's view . . .but it's still better than the world's view so I guess that counts for something.
One thing that I have always admired of Catholics is their view on divorce; personally I subscribe more to that view than the cultural LDS view and unfortunately culturally in the LDS Church divorce has become way, way to common (but it is still much, much lower than the world).
So boy, we could sure use your families strength (this is besides the fact that the LDS Church was put in place by a legit no kidding Prophet of God :-).  Sidenote to the board, IMO these are the types of individuals the Church needs more of (humble followers of Christ). . . not the politically correct crud put out by articles that will remain anonymous on this website that have a socially liberal ideological bent.    

Wow, just to clear something up.  My husband is a loving kind faithful man who only has my best interests at heart, if he was abusive he wouldn't even let me attend LDS church or study its teachings.  He is being as supportive as he is able, he is reading everything I bring home (The Gospel Principles book and he even said that if I get really serious about wanting to join he will read the Book Of Mormon also) and we discuss what the missionaries are teaching me at church (out of respect I do not have the missionaries teach me in our home, it would be disrespectful to my husband) 
He is not abusive at all.  He is however, the head of the household and I respect that position, as I should.  And it is not just this life he is worried about, it is eternity, which I'm sure any LDS member can understand.  After all, in your faith if you do not both hold a temple recommend, and are sealed together in the temple then you do not spend eternity together. How would you feel if your spouse abandoned you for eternity, that is the reality of what my husband may be facing. 
Ephesians 5: 21-33
The Christian Household
21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church; 33 however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

I've got no problem with this. A husband's role is to lead and guide . . . unfortunately in today's emasculated, matriarchal society the man's role as leader, guide, protector is trashed and looked down upon.  Oh some people might give platitudes to it, but they don't generally mean it-what they mean is that as long as the man agrees with the woman then he can lead, but if at any point the woman disagrees with the man, the man should instantly acquiesce to whatever the woman wants. That's not leadership at all.  By virtue of being a leader one is going to make decisions that others don't agree with, it's a fact of life.  Ideally, you get everyone's by-in but sometimes it's just not possible. And this attitude unfortunately is in the Church too.
And unfortunately most people don't understand what leadership is . . .today they think that leadership means taking a poll of what everyone wants and then based upon the desires of the group saying "whelp everyone wants to do xyz so we should do xyz".  I blooming hate that. It's leadership by committee or some other junk. 
Taking opinions of others if fine, asking for suggestions from time to time is fine but if you make a habit of it you aren't a leader, you're a weak spineless figurehead.  And with taking opinions, suggestions etc. it isn't to make a decision based upon someone else's desire, it's to become more informed about the decision itself to make sure there are no blind spots and then making the best decision based upon facts for the ultimate good and goal of the organization, unit, family, etc.
So if the husband is saying don't get baptized b/c he wants to control the spouse, he's not a leader, he authoritarian, a brute, and a jerk. If he is saying don't get baptized b/c from a leadership perspective he is concerned that multiple religions in the house will bring up more problems (where do the kids go, does he miss out on going to church with his spouse, what about church activities, what about eternal soul, etc.) then he's being authoritative (i.e. a leader).
This is IMO actually the source and cause of so many divorces . . .women in marriage don't want to be lead by their husband they want to lead the family itself and when you do that it turns the God ordained unit and functionality upside down and problems arise. And one cannot lead if the individuals one is supposed to lead don't want to follow.
So I say absolutely kudos to this good wife who is doing her best to have a God-ordained marriage and more likely than not over time with an open heart her husband will join the Church.

I've got no problem with this. A husband's role is to lead and guide . . . unfortunately in today's emasculated, matriarchal society the man's role as leader, guide, protector is trashed and looked down upon.  Oh some people might give platitudes to it, but they don't generally mean it-what they mean is that as long as the man agrees with the woman then he can lead, but if at any point the woman disagrees with the man, the man should instantly acquiesce to whatever the woman wants. That's not leadership at all.  By virtue of being a leader one is going to make decisions that others don't agree with, it's a fact of life.  Ideally, you get everyone's by-in but sometimes it's just not possible. And this attitude unfortunately is in the Church too.
And unfortunately most people don't understand what leadership is . . .today they think that leadership means taking a poll of what everyone wants and then based upon the desires of the group saying "whelp everyone wants to do xyz so we should do xyz".  I blooming hate that. It's leadership by committee or some other junk. 
Taking opinions of others if fine, asking for suggestions from time to time is fine but if you make a habit of it you aren't a leader, you're a weak spineless figurehead.  And with taking opinions, suggestions etc. it isn't to make a decision based upon someone else's desire, it's to become more informed about the decision itself to make sure there are no blind spots and then making the best decision based upon facts for the ultimate good and goal of the organization, unit, family, etc.
So if the husband is saying don't get baptized b/c he wants to control the spouse, he's not a leader, he authoritarian, a brute, and a jerk. If he is saying don't get baptized b/c from a leadership perspective he is concerned that multiple religions in the house will bring up more problems (where do the kids go, does he miss out on going to church with his spouse, what about church activities, what about eternal soul, etc.) then he's being authoritative (i.e. a leader).
This is IMO actually the source and cause of so many divorces . . .women in marriage don't want to be lead by their husband they want to lead the family itself and when you do that it turns the God ordained unit and functionality upside down and problems arise. And one cannot lead if the individuals one is supposed to lead don't want to follow.
So I say absolutely kudos to this good wife who is doing her best to have a God-ordained marriage and more likely than not over time with an open heart her husband will join the Church.

Her husband is perfectly in his right as a Patriarch of the Family to prevent her baptism.  LDS do not understand this because an LDS person leaving the faith and getting baptized in another religion is a perilous thing but not a hopeless scenario. 
The Catholic Faith holds these things more seriously.  In the Catholic faith, if you die without having been baptized Catholic, your salvation is solely dependent on Christ's mercy.  There's no conversion after death, there's no repentance after death, there are no sacraments after death.  There is nothing else you can do except for pray for Christ's mercy.  Christ is not under covenant to save your soul.  A baptized Catholic, especially one catechized and has received the sacraments, is of grave danger because as you have experienced the sacraments you have come into covenant.  In this, you might not qualify for Christ's mercy as it is a sign that you have received Christ and rejected Him and your covenant.
A loving husband will do everything in his power to protect his family, especially his wife, from the eternal fires of hell.  A husband grabbing the wife who is about to cross the street and be run over by a truck doesn't have the luxury of "wanting" or "allowing" the wife to be safe.  He is going to take matters into his own hands and protect his family.  This is not about being boss/parent/warden nor employee/prisoner/child.  This is about the salvation of the souls of the people under the husband's authority.  There is no divorce in the Catholic faith.  The husband is covenanted to bring his wife to salvation until the day he dies.

Even "progressives" doesn't quite work in literal terms. It's just the name that they seem to have taken upon themselves. "Progressive Mormons".  Maybe "Ark-steadiers" would be a better term - though that doesn't quite cover it either. It's really people who believe, at some level, they're ahead of the prophets. What it really is, which I think is ironically humorous, is people who are self-righteous.
Oh...there's another one for you @estradling75:
And/or self-righteously calling others self-righteous.
I find it funny how often conservative (and I don't mean politically) Mormons -- meaning obedient, faithful, stalwart, prophet-defending, church-going, home-teaching, daily scriptures studying, believing the scriptures, condemning sin, glorying in righteousness and truth, type Mormons -- are called "self-righteous" because they believe in and preach strict obedience. Obedience is not self-righteousness. Obedience is just righteousness. Self-righteousness is the virtue-signalling, holier-than-those-viewed-as-judgmental, in line with what's popular or legal and therefore superior, sympathy and tolerance are more important than obedience and truth because 'feelings', humility is for suckers, I-know-better-than-the-prophets-ism. In other words, it manifests in those who are out there calling conservative Mormons self-righteous.
The terms conservative and liberal when referring to Mormonism have nothing to do with politics, but it makes sense that when one speaks of conservative or liberal Mormons that others take it to mean politically conservative or liberal people who happen to be Mormons. So the terms get muddied and confusing.

And/or are intolerant of others they see as intolerant.

And/or judge them by calling them judgemental

Has anyone else noticed that progressives attempt to bully conservatives by calling them bullies?

@The Folk Prophet and I have had several heated rounds.  But just because he vehemently disagrees with me doesn't make him a bully.  Yes, you need a spine to go toe to toe with TFP.  That's what makes him special.
And this "going to other countries" bit is annoying.  Hey, I'm Filipino descended from both Chinese and Spanish families, working for Germany living in the USA.  I don't use it as a license to be obtuse.  Although I do appeal to English only being my 3rd language to defend my propensity for misunderstanding what TFP says.

Dude . . .just wow man, wow.
You know as a side commentary, this comment here starts getting really 1984ish and is what the new modern age of social media, "virtue signaling", and liberal group think want.  Shoot, I mean if this is the way US society decides to go . . .it'll get real dang interesting.
Plenty of other countries in the history of the world have gone down this route (Mao, Stalin, he who shall not be named, Kim Jon Ill, etc.).  Once you start going down this thought process and start going down this route and either start advocating it for yourself (or for others), it's all gone man. 
Then how you "think" is really determined by the mob and how you "think" is defined only by what the mob wants you to think and don't you dare go outside the allowable opinion or you are damned.

Lol.  I take that as a compliment.  Thank you very much :-).
Oh and if I were that concerned about my words having ill effect on me a la JJ; I probably wouldn't be posting on a message board or if I were I'd have my anonymizer IP address going, going through like 4 tor nodes, 3 fake e-mail addresses, etc.  I'd go full tilt man.

Lol.  I take that as a compliment.  Thank you very much :-).
Oh and if I were that concerned about my words having ill effect on me a la JJ; I probably wouldn't be posting on a message board or if I were I'd have my anonymizer IP address going, going through like 4 tor nodes, 3 fake e-mail addresses, etc.  I'd go full tilt man.

Thank you all so much for all your help, I really appreciate your time and effort @person0 I fear you are correct when you say I would need my husband to be baptised as well so he would allow me to do so.
I am going to focus more on gaining a true concrete testimony of Joseph Smith, thank you all so much  

Seriously, it's like JJ is running posts back and forth through the same translation engine Chinese manufacturers use to translate their assembly instructions...