scottyg

I have heard things in this regard, but I haven't looked up facts so it is all rumors.
We had a daughter of an individual I know who was pregnant.  She caught Covid-19 and something with it caused something to occur with the fetus or something internally.  It caused her to start bleeding internally during the night, the baby was lost, she is in intensive care right now, unknown if she will pull through.
Apparently this is not the first instance that the have had of this in the area, and something when someone catches COVID-19 increases the chances (by 4x?) of this type of situation to occur or something like this.
I'm not sure of the vaccine and how it interacts with this, but supposedly they said she and the baby probably would not have had this happen had she been vaccinated.
She decided NOT to get vaccinated because of her fear that something would happen to the pregnancy...ironically enough.
I do wonder though, if there ARE long term effects in this, as the vaccines replicate messengers to create the antibodies and such, but I do not know.  In the short run it seems, from my little anecdotal experiences, to be safer to get vaccinated than not in case of pregnancy, but this is not from facts, articles, or anything more than what I have heard through conversations pertaining to my small social circle.

Everything I'm seeing about Ivermectin says that there's a *massive* difference between what happens when it's given in a clinical setting and what happens when people buy it off the shelf and try taking it on their own. 
Problem is, because the mainstream media (that is, the big-name publishers) have all decided that Ivermectin is bad and only foolish people attempt it, any talk of its use in clinical settings is now being classed as "fake news". 

I thought to start this post with the problem of the internet.  I have become very suspicious that the search engines on the internet have become political - case in point Hunger Biden stories about his laptop.  With this said I have tried to get information about India from the internet.  India is claiming that the combination of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine is proving to be as effective in treating COVID as having the "vaccine".  They ought to know, India has had some serious problems with COVID.  However, there are all kinds of claims from US health care outlets that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are ineffective but there is no data or any specific studies referenced.   I also find it interesting that it seems that the most deaths from the "vaccine" are associated with blood clots and yet blood clots are not listed anywhere on the internet as a side effect of the "vaccine".
I am also concerned that Dr. Fauci is considered the world expert on COVID and is also 100% complicit in funding the research that is very likely the cause of the global pandemic.  The fact that Dr. Fauci has not recuse himself and the US medical industrial complex  has not recommended he be replaced worries me for reasons that seems obviously logical.  For all the blaming of Trump for not managing effectively - there is no person more responsible for how all this has been managed than Dr. Fauci.  And yet whenever the statement of "follow the science" in invoked, especially in political circles, I feel that Dr. Fauci is the single greatest source of that intended science or pseudo science?
The fact that Dr. Fauci and the medical industrial complex says (in relation to those that are concerned with long term side effects of the "vaccine") that there is nothing to see - keep moving on and get the "vaccine" (without any research or studies) leaves me with the impression that individuals like Dr. Fauci see that the general public  are in essence guinea pigs.  But I have also seen an article about a guinea pig being abandoned in a dumpster - which leaves me to believe that perhaps the main stream media and for that matter much of the political arena - may be more concerned with guinea pigs than legal American citizens that think they live in a "free" country. 
 
The Traveler

My wife got the shot after being pressured into it...and started bleeding the very next day. She was only on day 11 of her cycle. We are done having kids, so she wasn't/isn't too worried, but regretted her decision immediately. She is always very regular, so it seems too odd to just be a coincidence.

I know of no counsel or direction pointing us one way or the other. Though if it is an ongoing problem being dealt with making sure those with stewardship are in the loop would be important, especially those with keys, that they might give inspired counsel or assistance. Otherwise I think family is actually where we should look to first but after that I don't know that it matters, unless as I previously posted about greater power being manifest through certain individuals. 

As a general rule confession of sin over the pulpit is frowned upon and isn't generally necessary to get the point across. I've heard people simply say "I was in a dark place in my life" or "I was at the lowest point in my life" or something similar to set the stage and then moved into the real message of how the atonement changed that. Repentance is really a message of joy and peace and like @Traveler said that should be the tone of the overall message. 

What do you do when you completely and humiliatingly botch the entire exit out of Afghanistan?
What do you do when can't fix employment shortages, out of control inflation, when being woke starts to backfire on you, etc??
You deflect, you redirect and you get the peasants distracted by something else... like more mandates that threaten their livelihood. 
When you can't win anything abroad and you have burned all our international credibility, try threatening those at home with the sword instead. 

If the Taliban are the new choir boys... then simply classify the unvaxxed as the new terrorist? Pit family against family, neighbor against neighbor or church member against church member.
Our city just received one of the recent 13 KIA service members from Afghanistan. 
Our city for one, will not be so quick to forget or easily distracted.  



 
 

These are the types of decrees that are clear signs that the Constitution will hang by a thread.

President Dementia-Biden-Vaccinista now thinks the Labor Department has emergency powers to mandate private companies to require vaccines. What a croc!
This should be a rather short court fight before it is stayed.

And herein lies the real problem with CRT. If racism were the source of discrepancies, then when those laws and discrepancies were removed we should have seen an improvement in the life of those who suffered under it. We did not. Discrepancies have shown:
 
Discrepancies in wealth: (White families have, on average, 8 times the wealth of black families and 5 times the wealth of hispanic families)
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disparities-in-wealth-by-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-2019-survey-of-consumer-finances-20200928.htm
The counterargument is that averaging wealth isn't appropriate in this case. If a tiny proportion of white individuals have absurd wealth, or are more likely to enter in to absurd wealth territory industries such as banking, then we aren't showing real proportionate examples.
The problem with CRT is that it has no falsifiability. Falsifiability is just having a test by which a hypothesis can be proven false. Without it, you can prove anything. I could say, for instance, "Human brains are actually just swiss cheese." to which people could say, "But FunkyTown - We've cut open people and found that brains actually contain brain matter and not cheese." to which the Swiss Cheese hypothesist would say, "That's because our brains are made of swiss cheese. Do you really expect legitimate answers to tests from something whose brain was just swiss cheese?"
Science-based knowledges, like chemistry or physics or even maths, have falsifiability. Asking most Sociologists what the falsifiability is for their theory will get furrowed brows and confusion, followed by statements like "If you want to prove that racism isn't behind racial disparities, just prove there are no racial disparities at all."(Or something similar). This is not falsifiability. That's just a circular argument. Proving there are disparities does not prove the causation, which is just a fancy way of saying "What caused this to happen?".
Causation is an important thing to discover. If you walked in to a parking lot and saw your formerly pristine car suddenly had a dent in it, you could infer that another car hit it. That wouldn't mean it necessarily did, however - It could have been a shopping cart, or an angry thug kicking it, or a meteor from the sky smashing it in the side. Some of those are more likely than others, but the cause in this case isn't guaranteed. If you want to solve the problems of your car being dented, you need to figure out what caused it in the first place. CRT assumes the cause, and that cause has to assume motive on behalf of another person. Assuming motive is difficult to prove.

I am a bit unclear on the word mandate and its meaning / enforcement / punishment.
I remember back in the day when we used to vote.

I don't believe the most recent statement to be doctrine of any kind. It has no direct bearing on salvation one way or the other whether one masks or vaccinates (and following the guidance of government and health authorities varies greatly by area), but it does make a difference if one follows the 1st Presidency's counsel. Prophetic counsel can simply be specific to a situation or individual without being canonized into any doctrinal umbrella. Consider counsel given to a leper to bathe in the River Jordan or other such acts (that were likely not necessary, but either bolstered faith or tested obedience) and yet they were never taught as something that others needed to do for healing, salvation, or anything else. However, these instances do showcase the outpouring of blessings available to those who follow the prophet, even in matters not tied to doctrinal teaching.

@JohnsonJones the Covid death numbers are inflated and we all know it.  That is a huge part of the problem with this whole mess.

I frankly don’t know if life begins at conception or not.  I rather suspect that it doesn’t, based on things my wife and other pregnant LDS women of my acquaintance have said about “quickening” and so on.
But I’m not so sure about that, that I’d counsel each and every rape victim to go out and take a Plan B.  Though I suppose, in general terms, that if an abortion is going to take place, it’s probably a little less inhumane to do it earlier rather than later. 
 

It’s about sex too. Not being funny or rude, just stating a fact. So combine sex with money, politics and power, and you’ve got a “controversial” topic. 

Showed up in my Facebook memory feed today.  Nothing has changed.
 

As a very happy non-member family who became a very happy member family, I can confirm that at least in my experience I didn't realize how much happier I could be.

I have never heard anyone ever mention anything like that in or out of the church. It is better to make assumptions based off of the standards in place...not the exceptions. Plural marriage has been authorized by the Lord at various times for various reasons, but the standard is one man and 1 woman. Maybe God does, but it is much more likely that He doesn't. Show me one scripture that says plural marriage is an "eternal principle". You will be searching a long time, because it is not. It is a special additional/optional blessing given to only a select few who have been prepared to enter into more than one marriage covenant. In no way will it be ever required of anyone.

Honest question here. If a woman was raped, why in the world would she not go out and take a plan B pill at the soonest opportunity? They are readily available and not expensive. I would recommend it even if it was near the end of her cycle and chance of pregnancy was slim to none. Far better to prevent an unwanted pregnancy then to end an actual life several months later.

@clbent04, how can we, or you, or anyone else know "where the dividing line is"? We can't. We all agree on that point. But your argument is not merely that we can't decide when someone has had sufficient opportunity to accept the gospel; rather, you seem to be saying that our beliefs and doctrine about the importance of membership in God's kingdom are to be called into question. This is simply false. Those who are saved must necessarily be denizens of God's kingdom. There is no other way; indeed, the very meaning of the word "salvation" demands this.

Odd thing for the chap to think...but many missionaries are impressionable and like to research "deep doctrine", some of which is false. The word Restoration means returning something back to what it originally was. The first and standard marriage relationship is 1 man and 1 woman. Plural marriage will never be required of anyone...it is not something that is 100% coming back to the church someday. And, even if it does, no one will be required to enter into multiple marriage covenants...as one is all you need to qualify for exaltation.

Discussion of a Mother of heaven or a heavenly hosts has long been something discussed in religions.  It has been discussed in Judeo_Christianity in far greater detail and with much more ease in the past than it has been recently.  Our own Church has discussed it openly at some points in it's history, with some notables such as Brigham Young and other General Authorities at times opening up on the subject.
It goes both ways in whether it is good to discuss the subject, or bad.  In Judaism this topic became subverted and a bad situation occurred on multiple instances.  It was taken for granted that Deity had a spouse, but the Israelites would then start worshipping a female deity (in many instances identified with woods or trees and groves) in regards to idolatry and idol worship.  This was a downfall and a sin which brought great grief to the Nation of Israel and later the Nations of Israel and Judah.
However, the inspiration from the ancient ideas and ideals of our Deity having a Spouse was used symbolically to show WHY we worship a Father and NOT a Mother in our religion and other Christian religions (and Judaic for that matter).  The idea is NOT solely Judeo-Christian, but in fact can be seen as something in other religions, some of the most notable being those of Rome and Greece (of which many of our customs and traditions are traced to more powerfully than that of Judeo-Christianity).
In these traditions, a WOMAN or more specifically the WIFE was the ruler of the Home.  She was the law and justice of the house.  HER WORD was the law.  Outside the home her Husband may rule, but in the home, she is the one to be obeyed.  This gave her power to organize the home and raise the children as they needed, especially when the Husband was away at war, or politics or other reasons.  Outside of the Home, the KING ruled.  Inside the home, the QUEEN ruled.
We see this related in texts from other societies as well, the impact of this idea being a VERY strong idea in the ancient world.  The Odyssey is one which expresses this idea in a way that even modern audiences can understand the dynamics of how it worked.
While we do not know the situation from heaven, there may be many houses and many mansions.  Speculation would be that if we have a Mother there, then if it is as religious tradition dictates, she was the one who raised us and ruled the home.  We would have followed her as she followed her husband, and her guidance would have been essential to our young spirits.  HOWEVER, once we left home, it is the FATHER who we would need to listen to and obey as the FATHER rules without.  Furthermore, the King is HIGHLY defensive of his wife and her honor.  Being outside the home we may have some hope of escaping his punishment if he deems not to take it upon us, but as ancient texts show us, insults to his spouse inside the home generally mean he will kill the interlopers.  The Father will go to no lengths to protect the honor of their spouse.  If we are told not to take the Father's name in vain, it would be a thousand times worse if we took his spouse's name in vain going from how it is presented anciently.
For those who feel as if there is a Heavenly Mother, this speculation regarding how those in the past treated this subject can perhaps shed light on WHY it is only a Male Deity that we worship rather than others. However, the above paragraph IS speculation based upon historical reference, but without any hard evidence based on current scriptures.
That said, we do believe that we have a Spiritual Mother, but in the modern day church over the past 50 years very little has been said about it.  Further in the past, Brigham Young referenced such things, though his words are often taken out of context and misunderstood and are NOT written as scripture today.  The same would apply to Joseph F. Smith who also talked about such things, as well as Lorenzo Snow.  However, as is the case of milk before meat, I'm not sure going into it in detail in this thread is the right location to discuss it presently.

I generally agree with this. But I also don't think it's particularly harmful (as suggested by @clbent04) to ponder and wonder and even discuss, though I do also see and relate to @Vort's sensitivity on that side of things.
I guess the question isn't whether anyone would be required to live plural marriage (I think your statement on that is actually an unknown...), but whether or not anyone who wanted to would be allowed to. If anyone who wants to can then it does, indeed, apply to everyone, eternally speaking.
Since we understand so little of what eternal relationships will be like I'm not so sure we can say with any certainty what will and won't be of value to us in that regard in the eternities. It's easy to apply our mortal insecurities and jealousies and perversions to the matter...but none of those will actually be of any note then.
We really don't understand this principle at all. I think it's generally best to just leave it at that. We accept it as a true principle. We don't currently practice it. And that's about the end of our understanding.

Correct. But as I said, it is better to make assumptions based off of the standards in place...not the exceptions.
Even better is not making assumptions on matters that have no impact in our lives. This matter is of no real importance, and is in fact a slippery slope. There is a reason why such references are few and far between (and usually come from the odd member in the ward who secretly thinks he knows more about the eternities than the rest of the group). God holds Her in very high esteem, and does not want Her image disrespected in the way that He and His Son are in the world. He also wants us to concentrate on what is essential here and now...our progression and relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ.