NeuroTypical

I can't believe this thread has gone 4 posts, and nobody has picked me. I'm the obvious choice. LM (And just oozing so much humble it makes you sick)

Understand, down to the core of your being, that the person you are engaged to will be the person you will end up married to.That means, the stuff he does right now that bugs you, will be the stuff he does 2, 5, 10, 50 years from now that bug you. For the love of pete, (and for the sake of your future children), do not go into a marriage with the notion that you've got a 'fixer-upper' spouse, and once he changes this or that, then he'll be perfect. He will most likely NEVER change this or that - he'll keep doing this or that until the day he dies. So, everyone has their own handful of this's and thats. A period of engagement is to give you the chance to discover the blemishes, and see if you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone who is so blemished. If the answer is yes, then hooray and happy marriage! LM

Excellent quote (and a life-changing article too). I only like to add that forgiveness is not a refusal to protect yourselves and your loved ones from additional harm, when additional harm is likely.LM

Sounds good to me. I appreciated people with testimonies for two decades before I worked up the initiative to see about finding one myself. LM

Our just-barely-released Bishop's testimony is one of the most bare-bones testimonies I've ever heard. As a teenager, he was thanking God while observing a pretty sunset, and he heard the words "I'll always take care of you". That's it. According to him, that's about the sum total of his spiritual experiences, even during his 5 years as Bishop. That experience has carried him for 20 years. I've felt the burning in the bosom on many occasions. One time, I was even able to switch it on and off like a light by praying "Lord, should I do this thing?" [burning on] "Lord should I not do this thing?" [burning off] [repeat]. I guess I needed that level of clarity that I was receiving divine inspiration at the time. There are similarities among our experiences, but yeah, there are a lot of different ways in which we can come to a testimony. LM

Powerful post inter! I shudder for you to think we're only 5 months into '09 - but it sounds like you're facing it with things in the right place. It certainly helps to have God in your corner when you're in the ring. Best of luck!

I think Wingnut's poem is the best answer so far. Prayer is appropriate any time we sincerely yearn to communicate with our Heavenly Father. I did some remarkable spiritual growing in my early 20's while volunteering at a haunted house in Salt Lake, surrounded by addiction and sin. I remember a few very impactful prayers there in the only secluded area available: kneeling down in one of the filthy toilet stalls. LM (I hope 'impactful' is a word...)

Hi Rachel, So, you don't mention if you have kids or not. If you do, I would suggest you put them in front of your own happiness and emotional needs. Keeping stewardships and serving others will often fix other problems. (Related scripture: He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.) If you don't have kids, well, divorce would still be unfortunate. But at least it wouldn't be dragging innocent children along for the ride, giving them higher chances of all sorts of awful things from catching an STD to going to prison. LM

Ya mean they're NOT? BURN THE HERETIC!

Who is the person/entity doing the expecting?I urge my kids to do both - I don't 'expect' anything. We're not very well plugged in to LDS culture, so I don't much care what it expects. LM

I've met a facist mormon or two. We're a church - our membership includes sinners of all stripes. But no, facism is not enshrined in the organization of the church. Evidence: * You can leave whenever you want to - it's a voluntary organization. * You can do whatever you dang well please in this church - and the most severe, most horrible punishment the church can do in response is kick you out. And the door is always open to someone kicked out. * Our highest leaders often condemn unrighteous dominion in the strongest terms. We're constantly told that abuse will not be tolerated in any form at any time.

A thing to remember: "Cheek smiting" (a fancy term for slapping someone in the face) does not injure you physically. It's often been (and it was back in those days) a symbolic act to let everyone watching, know the smiter thinks you need to be brought down a peg in some way. It's meant as an insult - a way to injure pride, not break a bone or kill. It's a way to start a fight, not a fight itself. The act does not put anyone in danger of serious harm, unless one responds violently. So to me, this verse says "endure humiliation". It does NOT say "endure injury or serious harm". You have to forgive, regardless of whether you are insulted or actually harmed. However, although we're urged not to respond to humiliation, there is no scripture I know of that says we need to sit there and let ourselves take a beating. Self-defense is encouraged in scripture. Protecting those in our stewardship from harm is a commandment. The scriptures say we must be humble, not door mats. God does not want us to be victims. But either way, yes, we must forgive. It is in our best interests to forgive. Just a few verses away from the cheek-smiting verse, we read: "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; " A good way to do good to an enemy intent on serious harm, is to have cops arrest them and the court system imprison them. That way, they can't commit that sin against you. Various means of self-defense is appropriate for various threats. I will not stand idly by and have someone unjustly injure my reputation by spreading lies, for example. LM

I've never understood how such a complaint can be reasonable at all. The role of communication is to take an idea or concept, move it from inside of you to some sort of medium, move the medium to a recipient, move the message from the medium into the recipient, and have them decode what they find. The end goal is to have the ending message be close to the intended message (a difficult thing since there are problems associated with every single step of the process - even with divine assistance).So someone comes along and looks at a printed page in which: * the original source has been translated into a different language by someone other than the original author * there is at least a couple of centuries separating the source used to translate to the original source * the original source is describing events they were not present for in the first place * The original source, the derivitave source we can look at today, some of the translating sources, and the person looking at the page are ALL from different cultures and times. That's what we do when we read the Bible. Along comes Enlil-An, wondering why he's finding some discrepancies. Fine - there are some discrepancies. But to assume that the original source WOULD HAVE written a certain thing a certain way if he were truly trying to communicate a certain message, seem to me destined to failure. And on top of that, you're not even talking about a communicated message - you're griping about why the message didn't explicitly contain something to help you not infer something that isn't even there to begin with! At the end of the day, I'll tell you what I tell any other person who attacks the veracity of my church (which you are doing by advancing the notion that the authors of some books of the Bible lied intentionally to turn a mortal into a God). The only good reason to be Mormon, is you figure God wants you to be. A testimony that hangs on anything besides the reality of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, is likely to be shaken off it's foundation by whatever earthly whim or discipline or line of reasoning someone holds in higher value. LM

Just out of curiosity, could you name a few people you consider to be LDS scholars?LM

This one is easy. Bethlehem IS part of the land of Jerusalem. When King Solomon divided his kingdom, Jerusalem was the "administrative center" for Bethlehem. According to the Bible, the cities controlled the nearby lands. Thus we read of "the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land" (Joshua 8:1) and of the city of Hebron with its suburbs, fields, and villages (1 Chronicles 6:55–56). Tappuah is both a land and a city (Joshua 17:8, and Joshua 16:8–9.) Also, Jeremiah prophesyied that Jerusalem would become "a land not inhabited" (Jeremiah 6:8; compare 15:5–7). Here's the modern borders of Jerusalem - please note that Bethlehem is part of it. Similar concept was going on 2 millenia ago. 2 Kings 14:20 And they brought him on horses: and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David. Luke 2:4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem... Maybe you just don't know where to look...LM

Church leaders are not encouraged to contact social services in cases of abuse, they are encouraged to contact LDS Family Services.Actually, here's the wording from the handbook: The handbook goes on to state that church leaders should urge members to report their illegal activities. And where reporting is required by law, the leader should urge the member to get qualified legal advice. The book also mentions that church leaders should avoid testifying in proceedings involving abuse. There are additional booklets and pamphlets available to various church members: Responding to Abuse: Helps for Ecclesiastical Leaders Preventing and Responding to Spouse Abuse Preventing and Responding to Child Abuse Protect the Child: Responding to Child Abuse - Video LM

This was on that rickross link earlier in the thread:"The National Day of Prayer was established by an act of Congress in 1952 and amended in 1988 to designate the day as the first Thursday of May each year." But regardless of how old it is, canceling it was just as much a political move as starting it was. Heh. Are you wunna those short-term memory folks, or just making a jab at them?"We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, When yellow will be mellow, When the red man can get ahead, man, And when white will embrace what is right!" No political stunting going on with the current administration, no sir! LM

Hi there - welcome to the board! If you are a military wife living on base or something like that, you can bet there are other military wives closeby doing the same thing. They would be a great source of comfort and support - especially if you end up moving around a lot.

That statement seems obviously false. I would suggest a more thorough reading of the darker parts of human history, georgia2. Here's a short list of subjects:* Cambodia after Vietnam * Pogroms against Jews through their history * Human sacrifice of the Mayans and Aztecs. Or the Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Chineese, who killed off slaves and servants when the master died. Or the Phonecians and Carthaginians, who sacrificed infants to their gods. Or the Celts, who filled wicker statues with living humans and burned them. Or the tantric Indians, killing each other in connection to worshiping Shakti. * What Ghengis Khan did when he conquered a village * Stories from the Holocaust * The accounts of abuses and genocide in the Book of Mormon Then I'm sure you can share a study or two with us. Call For References.I'm thinking you're watching the horrible stuff on the news and getting (rightfully) shocked and dismayed. But I'm thinking you're dead wrong about such things being worse now than at any point in the past. LM

I only saw one such comment - mine. And if you read the whole post in context, I'd hope you realize that I presented a list of different sins, with two examples of sinners. Their attitudes (gleaned by their outward behaviors) are what dictated my responses - not the sins themselves.The intent of my post was missed by you, bytebear, and also by TheOgre. Exactly. Those who are disfellowshipped (think about what that word means - removing fellowship) or excommunicated are given a path back - it's up to them to remove or overcome the roadblocks and pitfalls on that path. Should they embrace their sin, it's they who are turning away from church, not the other way around. No argument here. I don't think I've posted anything to the contrary, and I know I don't believe the contrary. You can judge righteous judgement without comparing yourself to the person being judged. I am glad sarcasm is alive and well, by saying this I'm sure you recognize nothing is as simple as this line of reasoning.I wasn't being sarcastic at all, and although I put it simply, I didn't mean to imply that overcoming any of these things should be as easy as flipping a light switch. But I stand by the line of reasoning. If you have a testimony, but figure you're locked in some various trap of sin, if you figure you can't escape from it, then of course you're in a world of hurt. But regardless of how painful the world of hurt is, the solution remains the same. Overcome.Again, most of us can usually understand that no matter how deep the addiction, how grave the sin, how often we've engaged in it, the answer is to forsake the sin. But for some reason, we get sheepish about understanding the same thing about innapropriate sexual urges of a same-sex nature. Again, phooey. LM

Sounds better this way. It helps folks understand that "helping" means helping cope with or lessen or eradicate the struggle. I'm still not buying the whole line about "you just gotta understand that accepting gay behavior is the only thing that will help". LM

Hi NgNmNb, Thanks for that link. I'd seen the picture, but I never knew the story behind that guy!

I didn't see where drugs or mental illness was in the story - did I miss something? I mean you're right - drugs are a potent tool. But some folks just choose to do acts of horrible evil, even if they're sober and in their right mind...

I hadn't heard that one before - sounds like an urban legend. Surely, sinners already enter temples, because we're all sinners. Also, people who aren't currently "up to snuff" on the worthiness questions enter temples, and not all of those sins leave a cigarette butt behind...LM

Oh, humans have argued back and forth about what "rights" mean for so long, I forget if we all decided on a definition.At the end of the day, if you're in charge, you have the power to judge and impose judgements, wether you have the right to or not. I'm more concerned with the measuring stick I will be judged against. If it's something arbitrary, if we're held to account for things we never understood or felt, well, that would tend to be a tad unrighteous in my book. LDS folks figure nonbelievers will be judged against the portion of righteous laws they had access to in this life. That bodes well for Mother Theresa, it bodes less well for serial killers. We're also big on the notion that God understands us perfectly, and will apply that understanding when applying his perfect blend of justice and mercy. He knows why sexually abused kids often go on to abuse others. He knows the heart of the person who commits suicide - in a way that nobody on earth ever will. As He truly is our loving father, who wants what is best for us, He knows when a beatin' will do us good, and when a hug will do us good. LM