Still_Small_Voice

Dear @Still_Small_Voice. I will pray for you! Hope you feel better soon. 

Start praying that you will find joy on Sundays.  You might need revelation on what to do.  Sunday is likely my favorite day of the week with all the spiritual power I usually feel.  But I pray for joy a lot, for spiritual nourishment and that burdens placed upon my back to bear will feel light.  Our LORD is a God of joy.  He wants us to find happiness in this life.

I am lying awake in bed unable to sleep.  I feel very sick and weak.  I felt okay yesterday but not anymore.  Please pray for me.  

TO every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2  A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3  A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
 

Fair enough.  I will share my personal story of growth.
Wife and kids embarked into things 4-H, and we got chickens and turkeys and stuff.  When it was fall, I got the mixed blessing of being sent to the meat processing folks, turn some of our chickens into "chicken".  Wife already knew all this stuff, but daughters and I learned.  We all cried as we loaded them up.  It was a somber and quiet ride back.  Wife taught daughters where their food comes from, and we're all more mature now.
That wasn't the story - here's the story:
The next spring, they sent me again, with more chickens.  These chickens weren't culled in the fall.  We kept them through the winter.  I was loading them up at 5am, shivering in the cold, making sure they would have protection from the wind as I drove to the plant.  Because you treat life with respect, and making critters suffer, even if they're going to be dead in an hour, isn't what you do.   As I loaded them up, several things dawned on me.  First, they'd been in our barn the entire winter, which had been a heck of a lot colder than this morning.  That was fine - chickens are just fine pretty much no matter how cold it gets - as long as they're dry and out of the wind.  But it wasn't like they were out frolicking in the sun eating bugs.  When you're livestock, winter is something you endure and live through - not something you particularly enjoy.  It's a law of reality.
It also dawned on me that these chickens had been perfectly ready to go to the processors last fall, and they had endured the winter because I had NOT taken them to be processed.  That was the personal growth I'm talking about - these critters were born to live and then die and be food.  It was their nature.  Their God-given purpose.  
It dawned on me that these tiny-brained feathery critters understood this better than I did.  I anthromorphized a discussion with them when I got back.  
Wife: How did they do?
Me: Just fine.  They weren't happy with me though.
Wife: What do you mean?
Me: They kept calling me fat boy.  They said "It's about dang time.  Wake us up early to take us on a drive that should have happened last year.  We were cold last winter, fat boy."
I learned about stewardship over the earth and the creatures that crawl upon it that day.   I learned about the law of the harvest.   I got no better way to explain it than this.  If you still don't get it, maybe it takes actually raising something and killing it to teach this lesson.
The firefighters did right by the piglets, and the farmers did right by the firefighters.  To have let those piglets die would have been unethical.  To expect the saved piglets to be anything besides pigs, would have been to ignore the law of the harvest.

I wanted to share a resource I had used recently. For veterans here, if you're dealing with something that you just can't handle or need help with, don't suffer alone in the middle of the night thinking that there is no one that understands you. They also provide other services for veterans besides 24/7 crisis, counseling, VSO for housing, etc. They will do regular follow-up calls with you, see what you need and work toward getting it handled. Not all scars are visible. So, for our brother and sister LDS veterans, don't be too proud to call. 
It is called Veterans for Warriors, it is exclusively staffed by veterans, so, they will understand where you are coming from. The number is 855-838-8255

I am happy to see the Church doing charity work with the LORD's resources.  I only wish we could do more.  The resources of the church are so limited compared to the needs of 7 billion people on this planet.  But we do our best I believe.

I also thought the Book of Mormon movie was terrible.  "17 Miracles" and "Ephriam's Rescue" were good movies in my opinion especially for the amount of money they had to work with.  I could tell they were low budget but they told the story well in my opinion.  I have heard of many people who were touched by the trials they saw the old Saints had to endure. 
They are hoping to make a short movie with the $150,000 and then get a lot more money for the full movie production with: "Reign of Judges: Title of Liberty."

Seashmore, if you have no funding to support this movie share it with as many people as possible.  I want to see the "Reign of Judges: Title of Liberty" movie succeed.  I think this will do some good in our telestial world.

"Reign of Judges: Title of Liberty" looks like it would be a great movie and a missionary tool.  If anything it is a message of liberty like "The Patriot" movie was.  I know freedom is not free.  The creators of the movie are asking for $150,000 in funding to start.  Right now they have close to $22,100.  I may donate some funds to this.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darinsoutham/reign-of-judges-title-of-liberty-concept-film-shor?ref=327578&token=ca4a9ad0

I wish we could go into a church classroom we many of the members on this church forum and have a discussion on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the many opportunities, joys and blessings it will give you if you follow His commandments.  I am sorry you were hurt and feel used.  Do not talk with this missionary anymore and begin to focus your life on the way of happiness. 
Begin a prayer strategy with your Heavenly Father who wants you to succeed in your life.  Set goals in prayer, begin to dream, find joy (pray for joy of the LORD to fill your life) and work toward those goals.

I had an accident happen to a car that was parked on the side of the road.  It was hit twice with no one in it.  The car had around 130,000 miles on it.  We ended up with about $3,600 after my wife fought with the insurance companies which is more that what we would have gotten had we tried to sell it. 
I am glad to hear your wife was not hurt in the accident. 

So my wife and I are newly weds, both off our missions for only a year and pretty poor (though I feel we are doing better than most college students).
A week or so ago I took our little fiat into the shop to get the oil changed and get new tires. They then pointed out 3 different parts of the car that needed fixing. All pretty obvious (like my back left wheel wiggling and slowly coming apart). The price to fix these essential parts were going to range from $600-$1000. My wife and I were pretty stressed out. We would not be going into debt, but the price would drain our savings as well as a bit of our money we are going to use on our honeymoon in August. But because of promises made in my patriarchal blessing, I decided to be patient, gained hope and chose not to be devastated.
But then the miracle happened!
The very next day my wife took our other car (The shop told us not to drive long distance and the wiggly tire was enough to convince me they were right) to see some friends and family. On her way home she was rear ended On the freeway! She was totally fine, only minor cosmetic damage on the car, and now the insurance claim is enough to pay for her car repairs!
God watches over all of us guys! 

I read the book and I hated it. I read it aloud to my aunt and cousins in the car ride here about 4 weeks ago, mostly to help keep my aunt awake. I don't know how many times we "quit" that book and then picked it up again because I literally had nothing else to read and it was my job to keep my aunt awake while she drove. I didn't have a problem with the depiction of the Godhead. It's fictional and although I found it corny, it wasn't an issue for me enjoying the story. No, what I had a problem with was the clear agenda in the book, posed by the author. Like, not only does the main character not want to bring a gun along to his little trip(when at that point, he's just assuming it is the serial killer and it hasn't even entered his mind that it could actually be God) but when he brings it and first meets Papa, she asks for the gun from him because he won't need it...and then she holds it like a dead rat that she's going to dispose of. Now, whatever, you want to posit that God, who created everything, is anti-violence, fine, I agree with that; take the gun, by all means. But don't try to sell me on the idea that it is SO distasteful to Him that he cannot bear to touch it and has to act so snooty and hoity toity about it. I think God Himself can hold a gun in His hands no problem, even though our creation of them and us feeling it necessary to do so, probably saddens Him greatly. And then there was even a bit about global warming and how humans are destroying the earth...
I also didn't like the religious moral relativism the book pushed and the neverending contradictions and the way none of the Godhead seemed to ever answer any of Mack's questions. You can tell when an inexperienced writer is trying to write for a character that is smarter than them because of the mistakes they make. Weaving, meandering, circular dialogue, vague and mysterious hints with clever one-liners intended to allude to something deeper, or rambling on about nothing and saying just as little, all to make you think this character is smarter than you, smarter than the writer. The problem is, you have to back it up with something. You can't write an evil genius with a super, complicated plan that defies common understanding without knowing the plan yourself. You just can't. Because there will be questions about what the plan is and you will need to deliver on it. And I truly think Young doesn't understand religion or how it works.
Papa was the worst culprit of this. God is everything and nothing, yet God is very distinctly a father and a son. Structure, rules, and independence are bad, yet she can justify punishment and very clearly relies on structure and the universe running a certain way. Mankind's fall was an unplanned mess and yet it was what they intended all along to have this mystical, indepth relationship with all of humanity, based on love.
I don't mind if you have a theory but stick to a point once you make it, especially if the bulk of the book is based on this theory of man's relationship with God.

A lot of the Old Testament is accurate.  It is what is missing that is the real problem.  Many plain and precious prophecies of the Messiah were taken out from the Old Testament.  Most of these were restored in the Book of Moses which is contained in the Pearl of Great Price.

A lot of the Old Testament is accurate.  It is what is missing that is the real problem.  Many plain and precious prophecies of the Messiah were taken out from the Old Testament.  Most of these were restored in the Book of Moses which is contained in the Pearl of Great Price.

Then again we were talking about what is taught in the For Strength of Youth.  It teaches not to have sex before marriage and to remain faithful to your spouse after marriage.  Nothing has changed for adults.  We are still taught (even as adults) that we are not to have sex before marriage and we need to remain faithful to our spouse.  Again, nothing has changed for adults.  It's not a childhood standard.  It's a standard for adults as well.  Adults should not be sexually active unless it is with someone that they are legally married to.  

I'm all for not judging individuals.  
But let's not pretend God is copacetic about people who deliberately expose themselves to graphic and gratuitous violence/sex/other immorality; and let's not pretend He doesn't notice when people are using sex appeal to draw attention to themselves.  Let's not pretend temple attendance is irrelevant.  And let's not pretend that a generalized effort to take care of our bodies, above and beyond avoiding certain verboten substances, isn't part of the intent of the Word of Wisdom.

Hi Kimberley.  I hope you find more joy in the Latter-Day Saint religion than me.  I am very happy to be a member of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It is not easy being a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ but I found it is the way of happiness.   Give us any updates when you can.

Prayerfully study the Inspired Version of I Corinthians 15 in these verses and ponder the meaning.


38 but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
39 All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.
40 Also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial, and bodies telestial; but the glory of the celestial, one; and the terrestrial, another; and the telestial, another.

https://mormonhub.com/blog/buzz/buzzfeed-schooled-reactions-missionary-parody/
if you haven't taken a look, you should read. I feel like this is quite the anomaly! I felt the spirit so strongly while reading those comments

Awesome, congratulations!

It looks as if I start my new Information Technology job on the 22nd of March 2017.  Anyone that prayed for me thanks!  I had been fasting and praying that my clearance would be processed.  The two week vacation break off from work was very nice.

This reminds me of Entertainment and Sports Programming Network firing a man for saying they found "a chink in the armor."  He was talking about a team that had found a weakness in another sports team and were gaining advantage in the game.  One of the players was oriental so obviously the sports announcer was being a racist.  (Gag!)
Many in the mainstream media are out to make a point that blacks and other minorities "victims" of this oppressive American system.  They want to tear the system down and replace it with something else.

This reminds me of Entertainment and Sports Programming Network firing a man for saying they found "a chink in the armor."  He was talking about a team that had found a weakness in another sports team and were gaining advantage in the game.  One of the players was oriental so obviously the sports announcer was being a racist.  (Gag!)
Many in the mainstream media are out to make a point that blacks and other minorities "victims" of this oppressive American system.  They want to tear the system down and replace it with something else.