ABCDario

Actually, going to quote from True to the Faith for the OP as well.

Has to do with LDS Doctrine regarding the Kingdoms of Glory that men and women inherit in the next life. In order to obtain the highest degree of glory, temple marriage is a necessary covenant. EDIT: Here is a link to the definition of marriage in the True to the Faith Handbook, a book that defines a lot of terms and doctrines of the church. https://www.lds.org/manual/true-to-the-faith/marriage?lang=eng&_r=1

I never really bothered with snail mail in my mission, only packages from family and emails. I served foreign, so receiving letters via snail mail was not ideal, plus there was a tendency in the country I served in for thievery, where people would steal stuff out of your packages and such. Anyways, I usually used email when I was responding back to friends and family. Life was extremely busy though, so what I would usually do is send back one large email with thoughts and updates for everyone who mailed me, and then occasionally I would reply to personal messages, usually in a quick manner because I didn't have much time. I don't know how it is for other mission, but we had about 45 minutes each Monday that we use for email correspondence, and part of that time was used writing messages to the mission president. There wasn't always time to write back to personal emails, which is why i did just use a large return mail for pretty much the entire mission. Now, as to snail mail, there may be a good chance of getting a return letter depending on the postage and on a persons schedule, but as I said I personally discouraged snail mail while I was on my mission for the reasons listed above. There is a lot that you could read into it, it kind of depends on the missionary and on whether they have the time to respond.

Are you wanting to get married to him at some point though? He should deal with this first, for certain, and I would tell him that until he resolves the issue, no matter how long it might take, he needs to do it. For your part, you have to decide whether you are willing to wait for that process to occur or not. Look at what you want and decide what to tell him based on that.

If you are asking specifically what you should do, that will depend on you and God. I would pray about it, seek counsel from the Lord.

What would you say the difference between translated and transfigured is? I tend to get them mixed up a lot, and the relationship between the two is of interest to me still.

Is that one available on Audible by chance?

My sense of smell is usually offset by my allergies, so I would almost worry more about you sitting next to me snuffling the whole time. I promise it's not a cold, my allergies are just terrible when the season turn. I can't smell a darned thing, which as it turns out can be kind of detrimental to my own hygiene at points, a hard thing for me to admit but a true one.

Not to undercut the words, but I would also point out it's not just men. There are women as well who struggle with addiction to arousal and pornography. https://www.lds.org/youth/video/you-can-overcome-pornography-with-jesus?lang=eng I would also point out the fact that experiencing arousal is not in and of itself a sin. Being tempted is not sinning, it's when we act on the temptation that it becomes sin. That is the difficulty as well with arousal. It's hard for many people to resist that temptation to act on it, the same as it becomes harder and harder for people to resist it the more and more they give into it. This does not make them bad people though. It may make the road to repentance harder, but it does not always make them bad people. There is no real justification for the use of pornography, nor is there any real justification for harder sins of the sexual kind. Yet there should still be an understanding and compassion for those who are trying their best to turn around and make their way out of the sink hole. Apologies if this is going off of the topic the OP was asking for assistance for, but I figured I would also include some advice about judging others or one's self harshly for sin, even when we feel we have good reasons to.

I had actually forgotten that Moses and Elijah were both translated. That might have actually been something I could have looked to when I was getting worried about John.

Oh, sorry about that then. I was misreading what you were asking. I’m not really sure how it became a problem. I mentioned before the paintings of the church and depictions of the event conflicting with my own perception of what could have happened. If I look specifically about why it was hard for me to imagine a transfigured being coming out of heaven, I don’t really have a specific answer. I just couldn’t seem to get my head around the idea that John could come out of heaven when my mind was set in believing that he had never gone there. I was taught that John had walked the earth since the time he was given that calling by the Lord. Imagining him being taken from the earth for any reason was hard for me, as I took the teaching that he would walk the earth until the Savior returned as a very literal statement. The thought then that he could appear as out of heaven when I believed he hadn’t been there himself, and by there and heaven I mean wherever translated dwell, clashed with the underlying belief that he hadn’t gone there. My answer came later in prayer when I was asking about it that it didn’t matter whether he was in that place or upon the earth at the time he was called to restore the priesthood. What mattered was that God was capable of bringing him where he was needed when he was needed there. I was reassured that he was there and that the priesthood was restored on the earth, and that was all I needed to concern myself with regarding the matter. It was a very comforting feeling and I found that clash of ideas no longer held much sway in my mind. I know that to many it seems a silly thing to have doubted, but we all have different doubts about various topics and it’s surprising how even the smallest thing can cause a lot of mental and spiritual frustration for a person. That was one of a few things I learned from the experience. (Edited for typos)

What didn’t make sense to me was John appearing with Peter and James during the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood as I could wrap my head around how that happened. As stated before as well, this is no longer an issue for me. I was just curious what other people thought of that instance. Although I think the topic has since moved to whether Peter and James are resurrected beings or not, though that’s not really a question I had before.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1993/04/the-temple-the-priesthood?lang=eng Here’s one where Boyd K. Packer says thy were all resurrected beings, although he does generalize this to John the Beloved as well, something I think I said before that I’ve noticed instructors do.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/the-things-of-which-i-know?lang=eng i found a talk from the April 2007 conference where President Hinkley says that John the Baptist was resurrected, but he doesn’t specifically say the same for Peter and James. I would assume the situation for them was similar, but as he doesn’t specifically say it you could make an argument against it. He did say John the Baptist was though.

Not exactly what I meant. I always just wondered how he could appear together with them, as in whether he appeared as of out of heaven. For me, I always thought he appeared as if out of heaven because that’s the way I always read that part of the account. Whether that’s actually the case or not though I later discovered didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was there, and that I do believe in. i know this is kind of a silly question to have been bothered by, and as I said I felt like I already got the answer I needed a long time ago.

I think part of my problem was based upon artwork which I was interpreting as standard when I shouldn’t have, kind of like how a lot of people interpret artwork of Joseph translating the stuff lates is canon when it’s only the artist’s interpretation of what happened. Specifically there is a painting showing Peter, James, and John as angelic beings ordinating Joseph and Oliver that stood out in my mind, as well as statues at the temple in Salt Lake. My problem for a long time was I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of John, transfigured though he was, appearing as angelic being. What I learned later through prayer though was that whether he appeared in the same way as Moroni did or even if he just walked into the woods that day, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that he was there and it didn’t matter how he got there. That revelation really comforted me. So while I still say I don’t know how he got there, I believe he was there. I’ve always been taught that Peter and James were redirected beings, same as I was taught John the Baptist was when he appeared to restore the Aaronic priesthood. As to why that had to be resurrected, I’m not sure if I remember any doctrine specifically stating that they had to be in order for the ordinations to happen. My assumption was they needed bodies in order to properly do so, but I can recall instances in the scriptures where that wasn’t always the case, or at least I think I can. I could be wrong there, it’s been a while. But yeah, I was always taught they were resurrected beings. Funnily a lot of people would lump John in with them just for ease of teaching purposes, but I knew better when it came to John.

I would actually go so far as to say it's both. At least from what I've experienced with my own struggles, the one seemed to lead into the other. Now I would agree more often than not the low self esteem was more often a symptom, it has been cause in my own past for returning to the obsession, utilizing the pornography as a method of self medication for a lot of other underlying issues and problems I was dealing with. I would also add the thought of habit to the conversation, if that's allowed. Many times I found that times of day as much as activities were triggers for arousal and lust. As I started to look at this, I realized that many times when I fell to temptation, it was less to do with an actual desire to look at images and masturbate as it was to do with the fact that I had simply created a habit of doing it. It was what I always did, and I just kept doing it regardless of my own feelings or not. I would suggest for sure to keep talking to professionals, but keep in mind the reasons you want to do it as well. As many have stated, there are usually underlying problems that lead to the use of pornography as a form of self medication, but sometimes it's also simply a measure of habit, one being used to doing such things whether one really wants to or not. If that is the case, I would also suggest, alongside professional help and finding someone who can be a support to you as well, a change of schedule in your life. One last thought, and this is something that has personally helped me, is the sense of structure in your life. Others have mentioned goals, but I would push that further towards structure. What kind of life are you living outside of the pornography? How organized is your home? What kind of environment do you live in? Do you live alone or with friends? What work are you doing? Is it enjoyable? Would you change it? Can you change? There are a lot of questions you can ask yourself regarding your life as a whole. The pornography is only one aspect of all that you do. If it is the focus upon which you base your life and who you are, if it is the only thing you look at, you can find that the other aspects of your life begin to crumble. So my final piece of advice is start looking at who you are as a whole and what parts of your life, not just the pornography, can be improved. Start with making your bed in the morning every time you get up if you don't already, or find something else as small that you can change. That is usually a good start.

As someone who understands what it's like to go through that process, and honestly still deals with it on a daily basis, I would say what matters most at the moment isn't whether he will be able to attend the wedding or not, but whether he is willing to continue to go through the repentance process regardless. It's understandable that he would want to attend the wedding and be a part of your mutual friend's greatest day, but the more important thing is that he continue to talk with his bishop and do what's necessary to overcome the sin and find forgiveness, both from God and himself, whether he makes it to the wedding or not. I would also say that even if he cannot participate in the ceremony itself, he can still be a part of your friend's special day. I would point to my own experience, where I was not allowed in during my own brother's wedding for very similar reasons. Even so, I accepted this as necessary part of repentance. I also stood outside the temple with other family members who were not allowed in (non-member family members) and waited for my brother and his wife to come out afterwards. It was still an amazing day, made even better by knowing I was working to make my way back in myself someday.

ABCDario, or so people can call me for now. I was watching 3 Mormons and it led me here. Hoping to be more active in a lot of things and curious to see what a lot of other people think about various topics of discussion.

So I have a question that, while I feel I have already received an answer regarding it, I am curious about what other people think. It's one that used to bother me for a long time and caused me a good bit of frustration despite the simplistic nature of the question. It was only later on that I received inspiration regarding it and came to the conclusion that a concrete answer was probably not so important regarding it as was the fact that it did happen in some way. The question I had regarded John the Beloved and his appearance during the ordination of Joseph Smith, Jr. and Oliver Cowdery to the Melchizedek priesthood, the higher priesthood authority of God. I could never wrap my head around how John appeared with Peter and Jame, they being two resurrected beings, and he being instead a transfigured being, saying he never died and won't until the return of Christ. For a good while this question bothered me, until as I said before I received an answer and realized, again, that how it happened wasn't as important as believing that it did happen. I have ideas as to how this was carried about, but in the end the belief that this was able to happen despite having no specific answer as to how has remained with me. That said, I was wondering what other people might think about the topic, pertaining to this particular question I had or even extending it to other similar questions people have had.