DennisTate

One of my favorite arguing buddies, is an old guy in my ward.  He's a California Jew, converted to Mormonism and moved to Colorado.  He's anti- many things that I am pro- (guns, conservatism, etc).  Absolute level best Old Testament Sunday School teacher ever.  He once put on a ward Passover supper, which he once battled the correlation committee personally to gain their permission.  His talk was fascinating. 
He is very open about liking bacon, it's one of his many reasons why being a member of the church is good.

I know a lot of Jewish people, grew up around more Jewish then Christians so don't get me started :). Beng a minority works both ways, its hard to be the odd one out. Without shaming and blaming, if you mean how to we find Jewish people open to conversion NOT! Out of the question they don't want to hear it.  They have  been some of the kindest and most wonderful people in my life and some of the most viscious. STRONG feelings to say the least. What I do like about them is you can talk to them, I see them as approachable, I have learned much from Jewish people. You can have differences and still respect. 
They know about Jesus, I think we are in a spiritual war, there is a lot going on in the world today.  That would be NWO and Zionism, Christian Zionism. That might be a better question. How much do you really know about Christian zionism and do you support it as a religion or do you see it as a political movement. Those are HUGE and whats running the world today. I think most people don't undersand zionism, best to read up and learn. 
That is who is making the decisions for our future. along with Mormons and NWO, i could be wrong but if suffering is part of the plan, I get the plan. I support Israell because the bible tells us to as Christians. Does Israel need us meddling, no, will they take our help, of course. Is it a real democracy? umm up for debate, they don't allow you to bring out the BOM and prostize so there is a mutual respect as long as you don't cross the limits,  they are firm on that. 

@pam, here's one of those things.  I wrote I long-winded response to this.  I clicked Submit, and you know how when there's heavy network traffic, it takes a while for mormonhub to actually get the thing to post... and if you click submit reply again thinking you might not have clicked it properly the first time, you end up with a double post?  Anyway, so I click Submit on this, it takes a while to post, so I go do something else, I go back and it never got posted.
The other one that I tagged you on, I clicked Submit Reply, it spins a while so I go to the thread on another browser tab and start replying to another post on that thread... the spinning post eventually showed up but all it posted was that thing I tagged you on... the long-winded texts were gone.
 
Anyway,  @MaryJehanne, I didn't want you to think I ignored your post.  I replied to it and didn't go back to check if my reply got posted.  Unfortunately, it disappeared into the ether... and I only found out now.

Hi! I haven’t read through most of the replies to this thread yet, so I’m sorry if someone’s already addressed this!
Thank you for adding this, Anatess! Although Purgatory isn’t quite that... there’s no pleaing for salvation, since everyone in purgatory is already saved! Prayers can lessen the duration of purgatory, but regardless, time in Purgatory will end and the person will go to Heaven. To quote something I wrote for someone else: 
We do hold that Purgatory is an objective truth, so that teaching will never change (The idea of a place called Limbo, different from Purgatory, was a theory that was proposed in the past, but it was never official teaching and has been decreasing in perceived validity).
There are, however, only two ultimate destinations for a soul: Heaven or Hell. Purgatory is an intermediary to Heaven, so if a soul is in Purgatory, her ultimate destination is Heaven. Purgatory is the place where souls go who have died in a state of grace (which basically equates to not being in unrepentant mortal sin), but are not yet completely pure. Purgatory is a path for those souls to become pure, so they can enter the kingdom of God in "wedding garments" like Christ's parable mentioned (Matthew 22:11-14).
From Catholic.com:
_________
I see you explained the LDS viewpoint, but I’m not really sure about what’s lacking in the Catholic and Protestant theologies! It seems that we, looking at it from what you’ve written, skip a step, going to that ultimate destination you mention, without a lesser heaven and hell in between. 
In Catholicism, the joy of heaven is more of a state of being, of being in perfect Union with God. For Catholics and Protestants, there is a step after being in heaven as spirits separate from our bodies, when a new, perfect earth is created and we are united with bodies once again.
 
God bless! 

Here is another update.  I have ground up over one hundred pounds of wheat now into flour by my estimate.  I have probably given away over sixty pounds of wheat flour to people in my ward.  Recently I gave one hundred-fifty pounds of wheat to my neighbor.   The estimate on how much wheat I had was low.  Likely I have over two thousand pounds of wheat remaining.  It has become a fun side hobby of mine now to grind wheat.
Another person I was also talking to in my ward said she would take five pounds of wheat flour.  If you live in northern Utah and are interested in wheat or whole wheat flour send me a personal message.

I've eaten bread I made with 20+ year old wheat, so I'm thinking if it's sealed and stored correctly, it's not going bad any time soon.
No idea where / how to sell it.

I have about 700 pounds of wheat in my food storage. It is close to ten years old. There is no way my family will consume this food in the next fifteen years. I wish to sell it for a modest price, exchange it for other food storage or give it away slowly to charitable organizations. I have a wheat grinder and can grind the wheat to flour for others. Any ideas on how I can use this commodity to bless others who are less fortunate and will use it?
 
I see too many Latter-Day Saints acquire food storage and then wastefully throw it out after it goes bad. This is sad to me and I do not wish to do this.

http://www.ldsliving.com/Brigham-Young-s-Near-Death-Experience-and-What-It-Taught-Him-About-the-Spirit-World/s/81924
Lds prophets and near death experiences 
@DennisTate

@DennisTateDan Peterson is an lds scholar who teaches lds religion iin YouTube broadcasts and collects near death experiences http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/07/the-near-death-experience-tunnel-c.html

Kol Hamispalel by the Yeshiva Boys
 
Translation: 
"Whoever prays in this place, in Jerusalem, it is as if he has prayed before the heavenly throne [literally "throne of (the)Glory" -- 'the Glory' meaning 'God']. For the gate of heaven is there, and the doorway is open for prayers to be heard."

Ohh!!  You just triggered a memory.   In our old house, our next-door neighbors are Jews but I didn't know it at the time.  She invited us over to dinner and I told her I'll bring something.  I felt she wanted to decline it but was too polite to say so but then I thought, nah, that was just my imagination.  So I brought Filipino pork sticks!  That's when I found out they were Jews.  Hah hah.  She was very nice about the faux pas though and asked me if she can put a sign next to the dish that says Filipino Pork Sticks.  Of course I said yes.  That made it easy for her Jewish guests to avoid and the non-Jewish ones to partake. 
Those guys are also smart as all get... I don't think I've met a Jew yet that wasn't smart.

We would love to do the work for you.  I suggest you create a record of your dad in familysearch.org.  It's a free website that the LDS Church provides for everybody regardless of faith.  The Church also provides this website to members of the Church to organize their information to help them prepare for temple ordinances.  So, it would be easy to just hand over your dad's info by entering all of it on familysearch.org then authorizing a member of the church to pull the info for temple ordinances.
BUT... I strongly suggest you hold off on it.  Baptism for our dead loved ones is a very very special moment.  If there's any possibility - even just a small teeny-beety possibility - that you will accept the teachings of the Church and be baptized yourself, it would be one of the most special moments of your life to be able to go through the baptism again on behalf of your father.  We would not want to rob you of that moment.
Right at this moment, my 14-year-old son is at the Nauvoo temple waiting to be baptized on behalf of his great-great-grandfather who was born in 1880.  He is in a very  special spiritual moment and we spent most of yesterday talking about his great-great-grandfather.  I spent the last 3+ months in the Philippines digging up all the information surrounding my great-grandfather, asking all my elderly relatives for stories about him - the oldest of whom is around 90 years old who is my great-grandfather's daughter-in-law.  It was an awesome experience for me just getting to know my great-grandpa.  It was a special moment passing all those stories to my son, and it was a special moment for my son to go to the temple on his behalf.

Purgatory - being the staging ground before salvation where those penitent plea with Christ for salvation and saints help and pray for those in purgatory to be saved - is closer to the LDS teaching of the Plan of Salvation than the Protestant teaching of heaven and hell simply because of the fact that heaven and hell is taught as a final destination.
In LDS teaching, the similar teaching of heaven and hell is spirit paradise and spirit prison.  These are estates that are part of the progression and is not the final salvific destination.  Therefore, spirits who die go to either spirit paradise (heaven) or spirit prison (hell) and continue to learn about Christ and accept his saving grace (heaven and hell being like purgatory where it is not the final destination).  Spirits in paradise have accepted Christ and has overcome their mortal challenges in such a way that they have freed themselves from unGodly Will - this is similar to the Catholic saints.  Spirits in prison still haven't accepted Christ or have not overcome their sinful nature so they continue to learn and grow and repent until such time that they qualify for paradise - this is similar to Catholic Purgatory. 
Baptism for the dead - a temple ordinance - is an act of love for those who are in prison by those who are in their mortal probation as baptism is an ordinance performed on mortal bodies.  Those in prison may accept the baptism done by their proxies as a covenant they make with Christ to accept his atoning grace.  Also, those in spirit paradise continue their work as teachers and ministers to those in prison to help them free themselves from bondage (similar to Catholic saints aiding spirits bound in purgatory - so it is like in Catholic tradition where mortal people pray and plea to the saints to aid them and intercede on behalf of their dead loved ones in purgatory).
This is the important teaching absent in either Catholic or Protestant teaching:  After the completion of Christ's work of atonement, spirits in paradise/prison go through the final judgment of Christ where we are sifted to the final estate within the Plan of Salvation - outer darkness or any of the degrees of glory where Christ reigns.  Those who pass through the waters of baptism and make the covenant (including those baptized by proxy) will be in glory, the lowest degree being degrees of magnitude more glorious than earthly paradise and the highest degree of which is being in the constant companion of the Father.  Those who reject the covenant with Christ will be in outer darkness - a spiritual death that is a complete and eternal separation from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
So, in a way, the Catholic teaching is somewhat closer but still very far.  And that is because of the missing teaching on temple ordinances.  This exact same missing teaching is what causes Catholics and Protestants to argue endlessly over works vs. grace.

@DennisTate Hi Dennis! I confess that I don’t know what purgatory is! There is an lds temple in Dartmouth. Although nonrecommend holders cannot enter, many people find inspiration by being on the grounds. 44 Cumberland Dr, Dartmouth, NS B2W 6M1, Canada

Well @anatess2 hit the ball out of the park.  No way I can add anything to those 10-star posts except "Amen". 

Purgatory as a Catholic doctrine seems to have really taken root in the high Middle Ages, very possibly entrenched in the European mind by Dante's classic Divine Comedy trilogy of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.
The idea of purgation is that of the continuation of the soul and its progress after death. Purification of some sort needs to happen, either from sin or from the filth of mortality. This is an ancient idea, had by many peoples and cultures through the millennia. I believe it is a remnant idea surviving among various groups of an early established truth.
Today, the best, fullest explanation of that truth about "purgatory" is found in the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Those doctrines teach us that we are eternal beings currently undergoing a mortal probation, and that that probation continues after our mortal death. We continue to be the people we were in mortality, and insofar as we have preserved our ability to exercise agency, can still choose and grow.
So yes, the Catholic idea of purgatory is more accurate than the binary idea of our eternal abode immediately after death being either heaven or hell for all eternity. But it's still an inaccurate doctrine, similar to saying that the idea of the sun being fixed in the crystalline heavens and rotating around the earth is more accurate than the belief that Apollo drives the sun chariot across the sky every day.

That may be where it became "pop culture".  Catholics have always held this belief though whereas Protestants dropped the teaching as the scriptural basis for it is in the deuterocanons which the Protestants excluded from biblical scripture.

@DennisTate
Thank-you for this thread.
If you haven't read CS Lewis' "The Great Divorce" already, i'd highly recommend it.  i've been reading near death experiences also (though not nearly so long as you), and i think it's a really unique insight that has a lot of wisdom.
Amy Call's Near Death Experience really touched me also.  You can find it on Youtube, if you have any interest.
As you, i find it rather confusing that so many good people can report so many different things.  In the end, i think i've come to the conclusion that there is quite a bit of variety in the afterlife.  And also that i think that God and Jesus give people the things/experiences they most need (some pleasant, some not so much), choosing from those that the person will accept - while continuing to work with each of us.  
And i am not active in the Mormon church - so please know that my statements reflect that.  

For the record...... Dennis Tate is my real name and I do live in Nova Scotia, Canada.  
After teaching English in Quito, Ecuador for over a year I returned home to Canada
determined to become more socially and politically active........ seeing real poverty with our
own eyes will often have that effect on those of us who spend a significant amount of time in
a nation where a large segment of the population is illiterate and poor.  
My dad, Robert S. Tate passed on January 1, 1990 and the fact that I was studying near death
experience accounts at that time I went into a pretty serious philosophical and theological crisis.  
I have began this same discussion on at least one other forum and I will copy and paste
this same discussion exactly as I posted it over there:
 
I have been asking myself this question since 1990 when I began to study near death experience accounts?

Twenty eight years later after studying hundreds of NDE's I think that yes... the Roman Catholic idea of Purgatory is closer to the full truth than the Protestant heaven vs hell teachings. I believe that the key to understanding this is to realize that time is an invention...... that was created by the most off the scale intellect in the universe / Multiverse... and time... was invented to assist human and angelic souls to progress from point A to point B spiritually, mentally, emotionally and yes... even in the types of bodies that we are given.
 
I replied:
Purgatory is just a word...... it is subject to definition....... it may have been the closest word that your dad could think of even after several months of being in a higher dimension of space - time. For example.... the word translated "forever" in the Bible in English..... comes from a Hebrew word that actually means....."until the end of conditions last."
https://www.near-death.com/experiences/notable/george-ritchie.html#a05d
Please notice this last sentence:
"These are the spirits of people who grew beyond selfish desires while on Earth; but, like the spirits in hell, these spirits cannot see Jesus either." (Dr. George Ritchie)....
if these spirits cannot see Jesus.....
are they in the Christian heaven????

Sorry for the necromancy - but that line from the NT would never have been in Hebrew. Jesus would have spoken in Aramaic, or possibly Greek. Not Hebrew. 

http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10602-melchizedek

I guess this seems so obvious to some of us that it never occurs to us that any reasonable person would think otherwise. Of course the Church doesn't claim to be "the sole container of truth"! Having a "fullness of truth" doesn't mean being the unique source or receptacle of all available truth, or even of having possession of all truth. Indeed, if the larger world (especially the larger world that considers itself Christian) did not possess many truths, our work as a Church would be immensely more difficult, seeing as how we would have no common ground with anyone.

The title is actually that of a book by Gary Lawrence, and LDS member, former bishop, and professional analyst. He grapples with the most common accusations, "Anti" attacks, and questions, mostly that would come from traditional Christians. Perhaps the biggest take away from his writing is that the LDS claim to be the one true church is meant to indicate the church's unique authority, not that it is the sole container of truth. Other Christians, including myself, may not agree or appreciate the belief. However, focusing on authority gets to the heart of LDS vs. traditionalist disagreement. In fact, even between Protestants, Catholics, and the Orthodox, the real issue is authority. One could even argue that authority is what divides Jews and Christians (does Jesus have authority as Messiah and Son of God or not?).
THOUGHTS?

I have a simply amazing genealogy program I just love. It has the best views of the family tree I have ever seen. It's called iFamily, and it cost about $29. I couldn't be happier with it.
Unfortunately, the sole developer of it passed away. While it is certainly not an emergency, I am in the market for a good Mac genealogy app. Reunion is the 800 pound gorilla in this room. Has anybody used it? Is it worth the $100 it costs?
Can anybody recommend a different Mac genealogy app? Free trials are good. I can export in standard GEDCOM format, of course, to migrate my data, and would prefer to be able to do so in the free trial to see how badly it mangles any custom fields on import.

Jew-dar, like gay-dar, is a real thing. And it is rarely wrong. Jewish souls recognize other Jewish souls.
There is a belief in Judaism that all Jewish souls, including the souls of future people, were present at Sinai and accepted the Torah. Unfortunately, some of those souls are born into non-Jewish families. Those people have the difficult task of figuring out that they are Jewish, have always been Jewish, and they convert to get their Jewish status recognized by other Jews. Other Jewish souls are born into families of those who were forcibly converted or those who lost their tradition due to the need to keep it secret - crypto-Jews. They too must usually convert to be recognized by the Jewish community. But the majority of lucky souls are born into Jewish families.
You say you have done your genealogy. Does it go back to Eastern Europe between WW1 and WW2? A lot of “Christian” immigrants to the US then left their Jewishness behind in the old country. Does it go further back, to Amsterdam, France, Turkey or the New World after 1497 and the expulsions from Spain and Portugal? Is your surname a typically Jewish one?