WillowTheWhisp

So can anyone actually tell us what those specific verses relate to specifically if they relate to ancient Israel?

My answer would have been that the scriptures tell us that anyone who takes sacrament unworthily is taking damnation upon themselves so in advising your husband not to take sacrament until he is worthy your Bishop is actually wishing to protect him from spiritual harm. It's an act of kindness in much the same way that a mother would prevent a child from putting his hand in a fire.

How about the fact that they can't find any evidence that the BOM cities existed? Or the fact that after all those battles in the BOM we have never found any of those old weapons? Why haven't we found any of the money they used? Just because something hasn't been discovered yet doesn't mean it isn't there. Mt Everest was still a pretty big mountain even before anyone climbed it.

How do you guys explain that no Native American DNA matches up to any DNA from Israel? There's a thread on this subject somewhere, but it is a very complicated one. I don't claim to know much about DNA but I really wouldn't have expected Native American DNA to match DNA from Israel. For one thing Lehi and his family left Jerusalem in 600 BC and I think a lot has probably happened in Israel in the time since then. Can we even be sure that DNA in modern Israel would match DNA in ancient Israel? Also, the Lamanites from whom the Native Americans are said to be decsended are not just descendants of Laman and Lemuel. There were the Jaredites, who date back to the Tower of Babel and would they have had Israeli DNA? There were other peoples there too. The term 'Lamanite' was adopted by people who joined forces with the literal descendants of Laman and Lemuel and their DNA would not necessarily have been similar. If someone is adopted into a family even though they bear that family's name they will not have the same DNA and nor will their descendants. On top of all that, DNA isn't the foolproof science we are led to believe. What about that woman who knew very well she gave birth to her children and yet they do not have her DNA? We humans aren't as clever as we think we are. To me it would have been more odd if the DNA had matched.

It's probably a very practical way of dealing with death but I don't think I'd like to watch either.

:) She came to our Stake Centre a little while ago and bore her testimony. It was beautiful. It was such a pleasure and a privilege to meet her and shake her hand (we British do hand shaking a lot!)

I find it rather sad that people feel the need to 'rescue' us poor Mormons.

There may not be concrete answers to some of your questions but the way to deal with it is to continue to live as you know you should, especially setting the example for your children of the life of someone who keeps their gospel standards against the life of someone who doesn't. If they can see that ultimately you are fulfilled and happy because you have that deep reassuring peace of knowing that your Saviour loves you and will care for you whatever happens around you they should see the contrast between that and the temporary pleasure gained from not living the gospel standards and by drinking which diminishes ones awareness and any presumed pleasure is shortlived (usually followed the next morning by a headache and hangover - maybe even the inability to recall what was so enjoyable the previous evening) If you keep your covenants He will not forsake you. How He will do it we none of us know. It may be that your husband will one day see the error of his ways and come back to the church. It may be that you do not receive the solution until the resurrection, just rest assured that solution there WILL be because you are promised the blessings.

I knew I probably hadn't said what I meant to say. I'm not very good at explaining things. I don't mean that you are not proud of your son for what he has achieved in his life, for having overcome obstacles to get where he is. You are obviously proud of that, but where he lets you down is in not being proud of you and who you are. If he is ashamed of you then anything else he has in his life which he is proud of pales by comparison. You are obviously not proud of his attitude towards you.

I see what you are saying inquirer.Yes it would be very foolish to try to make the parable of the Good Samaritan mean something it was never intended to mean and yet to me your own analogy of the way the parable can be misinterpreted instead of taken at face value is exactly how I see Isaiah 29. You have to work hard at it to make it mean something else, like working hard at the coins to make them mean baptism and communion etc. But if you take Isaiah 29 at face value then the sealed book is a sealed book, the book comes out of the dust (ground), the three witnesses are three witnesses, the additional witnesses are the additional 8 witnesses, the learned man is a learned man (Charles Anthon) the unlearned is an uneducated man (Joseph Smith) - you don't have to work at it. It's plain and simple. Everything is exactly what it says it is, just as the coins are coins with which to pay the innkeeper. So what do those things specifically relate to as regards the fall and restoration of the nation of Israel? You claim that it is so evident but I cannot see it. Before I knew about the Book of Mormon I hadn't a clue what Isaiah was on about so please if you could explain it to me how you and others see it I would be very grateful, but please be specific and not just vague woolly references to rising and falling.

How sad that anyone should feel that way about their family. It's hard to put into words what I want to say without it sounding patronising. I have noticed that the people I admire most are the people who accept others for who they are and don't make distinctions based on social status. I remember a scene from a film many years ago where a young man from a poor background had come into some money and 'gone up in the world'. He was invited to a dinner party with some rather snobbish upper class guests. Faced with a series of knives and forks he hadn't a clue which one to use for which course and one of the other dinner guests made fun of him loudly declaring that if he wanted to be a gentleman he'd have to learn his table manners. The rest laughed along and enjoyed making the young man look a fool until the host quietened them all by saying that as far as he could see there was only one gentleman guest at the dinner party and that was the young man himself because he was not so ignorant as to make fun of someone else. Perhaps the son who is a snob could be shown that where he feels you do not come up to his expectations it is in fact the opposite and with his attitude it is he who falls short of yours and yet unlike him you do not choose to be ashamed of him but still love him despite his shortcomings.

I just read through Isaiah 29 this morning and it speaks so specifically of things relating to the Book of Mormon. To make it mean anything else is actually quite difficult. If I were reading it and didn't know about the Book of Mormon, the three witnesses, the eight witnesses, the sealed portion of the book, the fact that it came out of the ground, Charles Anthon (the learned man) and Joseph Smith (the man with little education) I would still be wondering what the heck it was all about and assuming it was some sort of prophecy which hadn't happened yet - but now that I know all these things I can see that Isaiah 29 is describing them perfectly. I got a really strong assurance of that this morning as I read.

I don't know except that it's hard being a mother and bringing children into the world and bringing them up with all the heartaches that go along with that. From personal experience at the moment I can say my sorrow is greatly multiplied.

My first reactions when I heard this DNA story were: 1) What about the Jaredites who go way back to the Tower of Babel? 2) Lehi and his family lived in Jerusalem but do we actually know what their DNA was? Was their DNA the same as others in Jerusalem? Are there any modern Israelis who have DNA the same as anyone who lived in Jerusalem in 600BC? To me it was such a non-story because of so much information and evidence that we do not have. I live in a town in the North West of England but my ancestors don't come from here so would my decendants DNA compare to the DNA of the decendants of my next door neighbours? Well no, it wouldn't because my next door neighbour originally came here from the middle east! See what I mean?

Do you mean we aren't missing an odd rib? Well we wouldn't be would we? We don't have to have one removed to create another human being. This makes me think of that age-old question about whether or not Adam and Eve had a navel. Why would they? They were not born so would not have had an umbilical cord - but then again we don't know that they weren't created with one just for the sake of continuity.

One thing I notice there is that he says "Not only.........but also........." He does not say "Not....but...." In other words it is history and it is symbolism. It does not have to be one at the expense of the other. I can look up the reference in Doctrines of Salvation but not the others - I do feel it is necessary to look at the original as often when people refer to something they may well have misunderstood what they are referring to.

Hang on a minute, putting Improvement Era November 1909 aside for a moment as I do not have access to a copy - lets look at the Book of Moses. Yes indeed it does say that everything was created before it was in the earth. It also goes on to explain that they were created spiritually before they were naturally upon the earth. In other words yes they did exist elsewhere before they existed on earth but that elsewhere was in spirit form in the spirit world. Aren't we told that Adam was Michael in the spirit world?

I use the present tense when repeating something which is a principle being taught - as in "The Bible says" but use the past tense when repeating a one-off statement.

I was just wondering where it went off topic.

OK, lets take #1 -"Jesus would have returned in 1891" Let's look at Doctrine and Covenants and see what Joseph Smith actually said. (D&C 130:14-15). "I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter." So you do a quick calculation and work out that Joseph was born in 1805 and would be 85 in 1890/91 and conclude that it means the Saviour would return then, but that is not actually what it says. There's an 'if' in there. IF Joseph lived to be 85 he would see Christ. The first valid thing worth pointing out is that Joseph didn't live to be 85 and it was never prophesied that he would. The second point worth considering is that he was only told that he would see the Son of Man - he wasn't told that the whole earth would, so whichever way you look at it, this is not a prophecy of the date of the second coming. It's more like the Saviour saying 'stop pestering me about it. that's all I'm going to say on the subject." It is also worth noting that Jesus himself said that he doesn't know. Only the Father knows. (But then again to a Trinitarian that wouldn't mean anything if Jesus and God are the same person would it?) Joseph then goes on to say in verse 16: "I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face" #2. The American Civil war was not poured out upon all nations but WAR was - twice with WWI and WWII and numerous other wars between and since. It seems that the whole world is constantly in some sort of fighting. #3. This reminds me of Jonah's prophecy about the destruction of Ninevah. Are we therefore to dismiss Jonah as a false prophet and have his book removed from the Bible? #4. Look up prophecies in your Bible of things which would happen 'in this generation' and which have not happened yet! #5. I think you may be referring to Deuteronomy 18:21-22 What you need to bear in mind though when using that scripture is whether or not the prophecy contains an 'if'.

Not quite as bad as "I see where you're coming from." - but I've said that myself.

What Holy Places? Doctor Steuss I don't quite understand what Brigham Young is saying there, do you? Is he saying that Adam was not created on the earth and that he was not caused to fall into a sleep and a rib taken from him from which Eve was made? If that part is not so then why are we taught it in the Temple? And if that part of what we are taught in the Temple is not true then how do we know at which point to start believing things to be true? If the creation is not factual then is the fruit factual? Is the tree factual? Is Eden factual or is it all a metaphor?

'could of' or 'would of' done something or other instead of 'could have' or 'should have'

My first suggestion is to stop doing that. If you are going to places where you are uncomfortable you are obviously meetings girls who go to places where you are uncomfortable. Does this mean that those girls are interested in things which do not interest you and therefore are perhaps girls who would not be interested in you? When I was younger and didn't have a boyfriend my mother suggested I go to a local disco where I would 'find lots of boys' - but I didn't like discos so what would have been the point in finding someone who did? I concluded that we would have one major hurdle at the very beginning because he would want to take me places where I didn't want to go. So instead I did things that I wanted to do and eventually I found a young man who also did things that I enjoyed doing and we enjoyed doing them together - I married him. I would never have found him at a disco.

My advice would be move on. You did the forgiving and forgetting bit but she didn't change. Learn from that. My further advice would be live your life so that the next person you find will be loyal and faithful. In my book that means living the law of chastity and being the sort of person you want your partner in life to be.