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I plan to buy all the series when they come out, I hope that as the series gets more books out that there will be books primarily based on the series that state what the most significant documents are, both for Church history, and for Joseph Smith, as well as other prominent Church leaders at the time. One thing I’m hoping for, is when the series has published it’s final book, that one of the major editors of the series will write a book about the series, his/her reflections on the series, what was learned about Joseph Smith, what questions still need to be answered, and just general information like that.

I read Beowulf after watching the Hollywood animated movie, I don’t want to spoil anything, but to say that they are different. I suggest reading the Cliff Notes summery of the book, and to listen to the unabridged audio recording along with the book, it helped me a lot.

Some of the problems of these old books are, one, since they are old, they will have situations, words, phrases, and even sometimes morals, which we don’t have today. There are also problems with the fact that books, along with other media, like movies, and music, is mainly based on popularly contest, for an example, I will read a Steven King novel well before I read a book by someone I’ve never heard before. This may be the case with most of these books in the list, that, plus the fact that the older books are well known, well researched, and in many cases, cheap if not free.

Here is a list of books that are Public Domain and the e-book versions are free on electronic book readers, like Kindle: 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14 (under various titles), 23, 24, 29, 31, 32, 34, 35, … I’m sure there are more, but I got tired listing all the books.

If your interested in the American civil war, then see this site, or logos.com and buy their Bible study software, either way the three hundred plus books, and newspapers in the collection is free. Some noteworthy books in the set are: 4 volumes of Battles and leaders of the Civil War; several books written from the Confederate standpoint; biographies of various Civil War leaders, from both sides of the war, and several other interesting (to a Civil War buff) books.

Here is a little quote from Albert Einstein, “Science does NOT EXPLAIN; it only describes.” This is not the quote that I was looking for, but from the quote that I remember, plus this one, it would seem to suggest that science describes what happens, it doesn’t do a very good job at describing how, and as to the question of why, that’s out of the scope of science.

One thing I forgot to mention, missionaries are strongly encouraged to pay as much as the $375 a month expense that the Church set as a standard rate for all missions. That being said, some missionaries would not only see a waste of time to talk to someone that have been talking to the missionaries for years, or even decades, but also a waste of money.

Here are some things to know about the missionaries: Like most people here have said, missionaries stay in one area for a short time, I only stayed in an area for roughly two to three months. Missionaries are only formally taught for three weeks, at the Missionary Training Center. That being said, there is little time to teach tact. Yes, baptism is important, but sometimes people, even missionaries, forget that it should be conversion, not baptism, that should be the goal. This may be surprising, but, missionaries are not required to read the scriptures, learn about Church history, learn how to be a missionary, or anything like that, before going on a mission.

I’ve noticed that no one stated the Doctrine and Covenants, or the Perl of Great Price, so I will. If your LDS, then you should be able to read all the scriptures in four years, since Gospel Doctrine studies the scriptures in a four year cycle. There are four main ways that I have read the scriptures: Read them like a novel, from beginning to end. Read them along with the audio narration. Read them along side with commentary books, Institute manuals, and other helps. Read with a specific topic in mind.

Here is a quote by Joseph Smith: There has been no consensus on who or what the “great and abominable church” is. Is it a church where you can worship, or is it the worldly things, like strip clubs, bars, X-rated movies etc… ? I don’t know, but I think our church who is sensitive to “Anti-Mormon” attacks, should not be “Anti-Catholic”, or anti anything else, if we don’t like it, why should we do it to someone else?

It would be nice for the Prophet to be clear about the WoW, back in Joseph Smith’s time; there was no soda, Coca-Cola started in 1886, and Pepsi started in 1898, no energy drinks like Rock Star, or Red Bull, very little ways to process foods, so no flavored ice cream or anything like what we have. I do urge caution in making the WoW more precise, what if one day there is a new drink or food that doesn’t have what is stated, but is still bad for you? Would it be “okay” since it is not in the Wow, or not?

Here is a quote from an atheist that would fit here: “I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize, [who] believe that there is a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell (or not getting eternal life or whatever) and you think that, well it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward. And atheist who think that people should not proselytize--“Just leave me alone, keep your religion to yourself’… How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”

I may be wrong, but I think the exceptions for tattoos are culture and identification. People like making themselves the exception to rules, that is why the Church always speaks in general terms, and in hard yes/no type of speech. I’m not mad, or jealous that someone else in the Church can have a tattoo and I can’t. I don’t have any desire to have one, so it doesn’t bother me.

With seed keep in mind you need good top soil for them, so keep several bags of fertile top soil around, just in case you can’t use, or don’t have good top soil, in your garden. For my 5 things list, here is my book list: 1. A quad scripture set; the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price all in one book. 2. A survival book that tells me what I can, and can’t eat, how to do minor first aid and other survival stuff. 3. An instruction book on how to make a wind, or water powered, generator. 4. An instruction book on how to make hand-carts, plows, simple tools. 5. A journal, so I can record what I, or others did, their successes, and failures, so future generations can learn from them. If my list has to be items, and not books, then that would be hard, since most everything, including books, wear out, break down, or in a short supply, like oil, ammo, and the like. It always makes me laugh when I see an end-of-the-world movie and people in the movie still treat limited supply things like gas and ammo, as if there still is an infinite amount. So don’t make that mistake, use limited supply things in only an emergency. Just remember, once your out, your out for good.it Edit: If you do bring books, put them in Ziplock bags, that way they won't get wet.

I read the ‘Missionary rules’ web site, and like a lot of other people said, whoever wrote these rules clearly made them more worse than what the rules really are. For example, there are several ‘rules’ are really the same rule, just phrased differently. I can make a similar list: 1. Wash hands 2. Wash face 3. Wash back 4. Wash legs 5. Wash head 6. Wash hair See what I did? I split one rule of washing yourself into six. This is what the website did with several different ‘rules’.

I don’t know all the details, but on my mission there was a man that his life was in jeopardy if he was placed completely in water. The Mission President said that he could wait after he was dead, and be baptized for the dead, but the man really wanted to be baptized, so he was on a gurney, with EMT’s nearby, just in case something went bad. In short, if your life is at risk from being baptized, you can wait, God will understand, and won’t hold it against you if you die before you can get baptized.

As long as you dress modestly, you can wear whatever you want and no one will throw you out. You, as a woman, can even wear Levi’s, but it will be clear that your not a member, and people will come up to you and try to convert you, so if you don’t want that, then wear something that is semi-formal.

I agree, especially if you are in a service type of profession, like construction, mechanic, in-home nurse, counselor etc… some people expect you to ‘donate’ your professional knowledge and skills to all the needy in the ward. That is not possible since those people will eventually tell their friends and then they will expect you to help their friends for free too. Charity is great, but not at the cost of your profession.

I went to see Thor 3D, the graphics seem, to me at least, to be a 2D movie that was adapted to 3D, that’s frustrating, since there was hardly any points of the movie that was designed just for 3D. I’ve seen four 3D movies so far; 2 were awesome, Avatar, and Born to be Wild, and two that weren’t good in 3D, Alice in Wonderland, and Thor. The stories in all these movies were good, but I didn’t pay extra money for a good story, I paid for 3D effects, so beware on paying for Thor 3D.

Creating jobs is one of, if not, the highest form of charity, the lack of quality pay jobs in the mall, is the matter for debate.

Some things to consider before the supernatural: All those creaks you hear at night, are most likely your house adjusting to the heat or to the cold. This happens to electronics too, especially to the TV. These adjustments can shift the house just enough to cause books, or silverware, or really anything else, to fall down in the middle of the night. I know since it has happened in my house several times, waking me up scarring me half to death. All those noises that could sound like words, have you considered recording the sound during a calm day? If not, consider it since the wind can make a lot of strange noises, especially if it is concentrated in small cracks, holes, and aided by trees, animals, or even humans. The wind can make most all vowel sounds. Have you let anyone stay over night at your house that doesn’t know about the ghost? The power of suggestion is huge, don’t underestimate the power of the mind to create something that is not there. I know in suggesting that ‘it’s all in your mind’ sounds like I’m dismissing your experiences, but I’m not, if the human mind were compared to a computer, the human mind would receive millions, if not billions (trillions?) of bites of information each second, sometimes to save time, the mind uses short cuts, like I know how ‘like’ should be spelled, in a rush I might skim what I wrote here, and not notice ‘like’ spelled ‘lke’ since I’ve seen the word millions of times. My mind, since it was in a hurry, would assume the ‘i’ is there, and move on. Are you doing something similar with the ‘voices’? How many trained independent audio masters heard the recording, and came up with the same words?

Who here knows who this group is: “Religious Society of Friends”? How about their more commonly known name: “Quaker”? If someone said that he or she belonged to the “Religious Society of Friends”, I would stare at the person in confusion and ask questions. If they were to say that they were “Quaker”, I would still ask questions, but, at least I would have a starting point of understanding. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” is a LONG title, so long, that if someone that has never heard of the church before, would be lost half way through, and will ask, what. The problem is, there are splinter groups that have words like: Mormon; Latter-day Saint; Church of Christ, and other “Mormon” title words, in their title, so you almost have to say both the full name of the Church, and the more familiar Church name, so they won‘t confuse you with any other ‘mormon’ splinter group.

Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Nag Hammadi Library, Qur’an, Talmud, and other books that I don’t know about, have in common? They all either fill in information that the Bible doesn’t have, tell us what happened after, or have a different point of view (hint: Qur’an). With this sea of books to shift through, it’s difficult to know what is good, and adds to Biblical knowledge, and what just confuses things.

I think you are missing a LOT of pertinent information about evolution, like where are all the evolutionary links from single cell organisms to cats, dogs, horses, alligators, apes, man, ect…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus) comes to mind, I’m not saying that this is a hoax, but one year the bones known as ‘Lucy’ was an ape, one year they were human, and another year they were somewhere in-between. There are two different types of evolution, one that is within one animal type, like horses, fish, etc. and another type of evolution that is between two or more animals. Like I asked, where are the alligators with crude wings, or feathers? Like you said, they have millions of years of normal evolution, and thousands of years of human intervention, and at least thirty years of gene and DNA tampering. Why haven’t science have seen any reliable transforming animals? Or created a new animal, that can breed by itself, in a lab?