NeuroTypical

All sins need to be confessed. Some can be confessed solely to God. It doesn't sound like sexting someone else's husband is one of them.Go see your bishop. I'm betting he hasn't.

You will? By whom? Here's a short list of the people my wife and I have worked with and around - sometimes as part of a church activity, although usually not: * Folks coming to a soup kitchen * Homeless folk * An alcoholic suicidal lesbian baptist * A guy slowly destroying himself with his meth addiction * A lady and her daughter who had escaped an abusive environment and were hiding out in our state No Mormon I've talked to has tried to discourage me or my wife from trying to help these folks... I mean, it's not like your work with these people will be church-sanctioned activities or anything, but then why would they have to be? We're all sinners and unrighteous. Someone wants to hear about the salvation offered by the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, which will help them lift themselves out of their hole? Why on earth would someone tell you to stay away from such a person?

Hi and welcome from someone who is quite happy outside of Utah. :)

Chrissy, you're asking a board full of sound-byte posters, a question that history book writers take volumes to answer. I guess the best sound-byte I could give here, is "Go watch Saints and Soldiers".

"Hi Bishop, I want to talk to you about getting a divorce from my abusive husband but i really dont know how to start the conversation. I also wanna talk about getting me some personal counseling outside of the church."Seems like that would work pretty well...

I've been involved in ward tithing in two different wards under three different bishops. None of the bishops were ever involved in the actual process. You'd have much better luck bugging the ward financial clerk to see if your tithing arrived. It sounds like your bishop doesn't do email very much or well. You might want to consider email as a not-good way to communicate with him.

Where I work, some phones are internal only, others can call out to the outside world. I called our helpdesk to request long distance ability for my phone. The guy asked me to send him a screen capture of the error.

Yeah, I do more than geek on a computer at work. I also geek on a computer at home. And I geekily use a budget tool to track our family's spending. Just for grins, I thought I'd see what our (real, un-made-up, unmassaged) health insurance spending over the last 4 years looks like. This is genuine unaltered LM family budget data.

Something to remember about the pentagram - It symbolizes Christ, as every Christian understood until about 1854 when some drunk defrocked Catholic priest decided to call the pentagram something evil. Mormonism and temples/Inverted Stars on LDS Temples - FAIRMormon Mormonism and temples/Inverted Stars on LDS Temples/Further Reading - FAIRMormon

My (very non-LDS, very anti-religion for that matter) father was a Mason. He liked drinking beer and laughing at funny shows on TV. And swearing when he perceived injustice. When he died, he had a Masonic funeral. It was beautiful. Sort of the exact opposite of the words 'evil' or 'creepy'. I do have one of his decorative masonic plates hanging on my wall. About one visitor in five cares, about 1 in 20 of the ones who care get weirded out about it. *shrug*

One would think that if nefarious bad guys are keeping the price of silver artificially low, that it would be a logical step to buy silver. Wyoming? California? Either of you folks buyin' at around $33/oz?

Meh. If she actually comes up to you and talks to you about problems with you, then she's blaming you. If anything less than this is happening, then you don't really have anything to do. Snippy comments in the hall doesn't count. Someone else telling you this co-worker is blaming you doesn't count. If it gets bad enough, then it's on you to walk over to her and mention that you're hearing that someone is not happy with you, and you were wondering if someone does.

The other thing I'm training my kids in: Ok, let's say God have made a match for you in heaven. It might have been so you will know the depths of frustration in amounts equal to the highs of love.

Disciplinary Councils are to help a member avail themselves of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and help one remove any burden of sin one carries. The details are unique to every individual. For example, the council for someone who has broken the law of chastity will follow a different path than the guy who was recently convicted of child abuse and sent to prison for five to life. Or the guy who embezzled from his work. Or the guy who cheated on his wife. Be honest, be open to the spirit, and hold nothing back.

So what do you say oralinde? Folks are talking about ways you can gain skills and money and whatnot, and get out from under your parents' verbal abuse.

Funny. How come we all became LDS.net moderators? Yeah, 25 years ago I was not a happy camper either.

Hi Bad - my wife has attended and sponsored at numerous AA groups in two different stattes, and this is not her experience at all. Certainly you can find groups poisoned with such nonsense, but no, this is not an overriding attitude of all, most, or even many of AA mtgs, at least the ones in UT and CO. When someone is thinking about going to an AA meeting, my wife suggests finding a list of all the meetings in your area, picking one that sounds good to you, and just showing up and not saying anything until you feel comfortable with that particular group.

Surely these are serious matters. But I still hesitate to jump into the mob advocating excommunication and whatnot. I still hesitate to even get all upset and angry about these people. I'm thinknig Elder Oaks' discussion on how to make righteous judgements applies especially here - and there's just no way the people on this forum can even come close to judging those involved. I've told this story before: Years ago, I received an account of a bitter former mormon lady who rejoined the church for a year under false pretenses. She was active for a year, and lied her way through the temple recommend interviews, for the express purpose of obtaining a temple recommend in order to record the various things done there, and post videos for the world to see. She had enough of a change of heart to go tell the bishop what she had been planning before actually posting the videos. The bishop thought and listened for a moment, and let her know that he appreciated her honesty, agreed she was not worthy to attend the temple, but the spirit did not want him to take her recommend at that time. She should keep it and think about things and come back for another meeting later. The lady telling the story years later had come fully back into the fold. The Lord is on record as saying he is not to be mocked in the last days. He will not be mocked. And yet, there are no shortage of people out there mocking God every day, in and out of the church. What does this mean for us when we see it going by? He reserves vengance for Himself - we're commanded to love and forgive. The day cometh when a full accounting will be made, right? It's not on our timetable, or with our emotions. We don't have the tools to properly judge the roots of snark, or come up with appropriate consequences. We just act like who we are, people who wanna bust our brothers and sisters because they were bad. Yeah, tell the bishop, do whatever you need to do. Got love and forgiveness? Got tender feelings of sadness for what these people have done? Got empassioned motivation to help them? Got charity towards them? If not, then we got something to work on in our own back yard first.

Let's take your last sentence, and change one word to summarize how LDS folks think:I love my family with all my heart, AND I am really excited about being able to see my Savior face to face, to hold His hand, to walk with him, etc...! Maybe this will press home how much we really think of God as our father, and Christ as our elder brother. We don't need to stop thinking about family in order to start thinking about God. When we are thinking about God, we ARE thinking about family.

Dandy little phrase I learned in economics class: "Ceteris paribus" - it means "with other things the same," or "all other things being equal or held constant." Basically, it allows economists to lie about what would happen in reality when considering different scenarios. So, ceteris paribus, yes, my family would be fine if the Federal Govt no longer existed. And ceteris paribus, we'd be able to survive for a year with no job or income. Of course, in the real world, when all the consequenses of no national govt started happening and everything started changing, I suspect we'd be in deep doo-doo. Same answer if whatever makes me go a year with no income impacts my neighbors/community/state/country.

Hi Finrock, I'd refer you to the Elder Oaks "Judge Not" and Judging link I gave. He lays out seven ingredients or principles of a righteous judgement. I just mentioned two. I'd also remind you I prefaced my comments with this:

I'm not arguing for inaction. I'm arguing for righteous judgement, and keeping the commandment to love thy neighbor. Please don't mistake my light-heartedness for light-mindedness. Of course this is serious stuff. Maybe you do end up taking decisive action of some kind here. Elder Oaks' article is very relevant to figuring this out.

It's not that I'm disagreeing with a lot of what is being said here. I guess I just know a pile of sinners who ought to be ashamed of themselves, and I've figured out how to love them like I'm commanded to. So it's easier to not get all hot under the collar when I hear some story online. BTW, this article is a great roadmap to figuring out what to do when stuff like this happens: “Judge Not” and Judging - Elder Dallin H. Oaks

I get a kick out of thinking of Apostles being regular folk. Because they are, but nobody believes it. I once attended a meeting where an apostle spoke to us, and it was a point he tried hard to get across. He claimed his calling really wasn't that much different than our other callings in the church. Maybe more of a time requirement, and certainly one that required him to argue with people demanding receipts from him. As one or two people were getting choked up just being in his presence, he asked us to consider something. If we saw something in him that we had never seen before - some great spiritualness or wisdom or something - that only meant that maybe we hadn't availed ourselves of the full blessings of discipleship in our own lives, and he invited us to do so. Then he quipped about submitting receipts.

This falls under "here, let me stop working on my sins so I can talk to you about yours". Of course it was dishonest and wrong. Judging actions are easy - assuming you have your facts straight. But a few questions to consider before judging the people involved: Think of stewardships - do you have any in this matter? You cannot judge a righteous judgement without stewardship to do so. You've now discovered something about someone. You say "the family", but do you know all the details? Did they hold a family counsel? Is there shared guilt by inaction? Are they weak and easily manipulated? Or are they weak in understanding or keeping covenants? Were they intentionally mocking God? You can't judge a righteous judgement if you don't have all the facts - and insight into their motivations and contents of their heart are necessary. What do you do? I dunno. You say 'close friend' - maybe you ask them what they were thinking? Show up with a big smile and say "I've given into temptation on a lot of stuff over my life, but I've gotta admit that smuggling a Catholic into the temple hasn't really hit my radar until now. Tell me all about it!" If you find out, then you'll know a bit more about how someone else struggles with doing the right thing. Maybe it would give you some ideas on how to be their friend in more useful ways.