WillowTheWhisp

If god is god through procession (he is god because he served his god, who served his god, who….), then that implies that at some point there was a god who always was god or that found a way to become a god on his own. Which is it? If there was an original god would that mean that the god of this world is a lesser god and that since his power came from this original god that he is not all powerful? If god is only the god of this world, where did the other worlds come from and why are they lifeless? Why have we not discovered life on other worlds yet? In Genesis is says that God created the stars. If you believe there are other worlds with other gods then none of these had stars or suns. If the Bible claims that God is eternal, then how could he have become a god? We do not know that all worlds are lifeless. We haven;'t investigated all by a long way. Of the ones we have investigated we do not even know if they were at one time inhabited. It could have been so, millenia ago. We haven't discovered everything yet, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. America was still there even before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. How do we know how far creation goes? How do we know what there is beyond the things which we are aware of? Infinity is an awful long way. We do not know how many stars/suns there may be with planets (inhabit) in orbit around them, which may have created by other Gods. How do we know that some may have already come and gone? Eternity is a long time. If a Mormon can claim to be Christian can a Muslim claim the same? Islam believes in the Bible as Christians do. They believe in Jesus (in that he was a prophet). They say they believe in the same God as Christians. They say that they were given the continued and true gospel of God. They too believe in salvation through works. I'm a Mormon and I claim to be a Christian because I acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God in the flesh, as my Saviour. Whatever anyone else thinks of me and my beliefs does not change the fact that Jesus is my Lord. I know he lived and died for my sins as much as anyone else's and as a follower of his teachings and having faith in his atoning sacrifice I believe that entitles me to claim the designation 'Christian'. As others have said, Muslims do not believe Jesus is the Son of God. They do not believe in his atonement. They revere him as a prophet but no more than Moses, Abraham and they set greater store by Mohammed. They would never wish to be called Christian because they do not accept Christ as their saviour. How can a Mormon say he is Christian by his own opinion when other Christian denominations do not agree because they do not share the same doctrine? I.E… God always was and always will be, there are no other gods, Jesus is God, and we are saved through Christ and not through works because we can never be good enough through ourselves…. Wouldn’t this be equivalent to me calling myself the President even though nobody else agrees with me? It doesn't matter to me what other Christians think of me, many have misconceptions about what we Mormons believe and base their opinions on incorrect information. It matters to me what Jesus Christ thinks of me and if he accepts me, which I believe he does. Baptists and Methodists do not share the same doctrine and yet they each describe themselves as Christian. Mormons do not believe that we earn our salvation by works. That doctrine was taught long before our church existed. We believe we are saved by grace. However we do believe that good works must follow if we are to be obedient to our Heavenly Father. We are told in the scriptures "by their fruits ye shall know them." You calling yourself President even though you are not the President is actually more akin to people saying we Mormons are not Christians even though we are - just because they say it doesn't make it so.

Is there anyone else who can help out during the day to give you chance for a nap? If your husband is working full time he may not realise how hard it is for you during the day 'just' staying at home with the baby. It will get better.

We have been told that we shouldn't shout out to people on the stand, even if they have missed announcing something. If it's really important we should get a note passed to whoever is conducting the meeting. I don't go to church to be entertained, although we have had some speakers who are very entertaining and tell stories which make us laugh. I go to church to worship Heavenly Father, to take sacrament and renew my commitment to the Gospel. If I don't go with the right spirit then I find I am critical of the speakers. If I do go with the right spirit then it doesn't matter how talented or gifted a speaker is, if they have the spirit with them then I gain something. I remember being told in a lesson once that it's not about what you take from a sacrament meeting so much as what you bring to it. I suppose we are lucky in our Ward that we do have some quite hearty hymn singing and I always enjoy the hymns. From time to time we have had talks on the importance of hymns in our worship - maybe that helps. Sometimes we have a piano, very rarely we have the organ but there are times when we even sing 'acapulco' because there is no-one available who can play and yet we still sing our little hearts out. I'm afraid that I find the all singing all dancing hand clapping 'praise the Lord!' type churches seem quite irreverent to me because all that chaos seems to get in the way of spiritual feelings and the 'still small voice'. I too find adult whisperings to be incredibly irreverent. One of the worst is an adult telling a child to be quiet and telling them what privileges they will forfeit if they don't sit still. The adult often makes much more noise than the child. However, having said all that, we don't go to church for the other people (good or bad experiences) we go to church for ourselves and for the Lord. If we believe the Church is true then we can overcome the obstacles in our way

If the note is a slip of paper just tucked inside it may well have been a Sunday School assignment to read a chapter and then speak about it in the lesson. I have all sorts of little bits of paper which I have been given in Relief Society or in Sunday School either for the same thing I just said, or if it's just a few verses then for reading out in the class. I don't keep all of them but if a verse or a chapter seems particularly to speak to me I will mark it off and often keep the slip of paper tucked in the cover of my scriptures to remind me to go back and read that one from time to time. It's good to find little treasures like this. I find them very helpful. I came across some in my late husband's Triple just recently. I hadn't looked in those scriptures at all since he died and it;'s like he left little messages for me which is lovely. That chapter of Alma is a great read. :)

You know that is sometimes kinda hard to do in areas where church membership is very small. It also creates situations where all the Ward members are related to each other through marriage because there's no-one else available to marry except for your cousin's brother-in-law's nephew!

It's very sad that people should treat you that way because you didn't go on a mission. Your reasons for not doing so are between you and Heavenly Father and nothing to do with anyone else. Don't let people upset you and keep you away from the blessings you could enjoy in the church. I know loads of people who haven't married a RM. The best I pray for my daughters is that they marry an active priesthood holder. I've known some pretty unspiritual missionaries and one RM who is currently inactive so going on a mission doesn't automatically make someone a 'better catch' Anyway it's a bit sexist these days for a girl who hasn't served a mission to expect to marry a boy who has!

OOoer, what a responsibility

Sounds like she will be needing your friendship more and more. You sound like a really great friend to have.

Our Ward in Accrington was closed but not due to Apostacy. The neighbouring Blackburn Ward had shrunk and we were amalgamated with them. We are now in Blackburn Ward as that's where the chapel is. We didn't have a chapel in our Accrington Ward.

That's a very interesting thought Charley. There must needs be an opposition in all things.

I remember seeing him when he first entered the auditions for the TV competition - was it X Factor? We watch all those kind of things. I thought his voice was wonderful. Then when he won the newspapers here pulled him to shreds and one even said that he was mentally disabled. It's brilliant that he is doing so well now. He really deserves it to be able to bring so much pleasure to people through his singing.

Oh funky I was just checking my emails this morning before going to church and saw the link to this in my forum updates. I wept tears of joy. I am so glad your friend made the decision to let her daughter live.

What a wonderful day for the both of you. :)

Thankfully we don't seem to have anyone like that. We have black and mixed race members in teaching positions who are looked up to by the paler skinned of us. If people leave the church because they can't handle black people being treated as equals how do they cope with the knowledge that in the pre-existence we were all brothers and sisters?

Maybe that term doesn't register with me because we've not had a 'negro question' as such in this country. I'm puzzled by the last part of your post. I may have misunderstood you but are you saying that individuals within the church are prejudiced against black members? I'm not aware of that here because we have members of different races and all are treated equally.

Daniel is your attic strong enough to take a heavy tank? Water can be very heavy and some attics don't have strong joists because they are only there to support a ceiling rather than a floor. I don't think heat affects water at all because we boil it to drink don't we?

Well, we've got something in common there because I too do not believe that any man made church has the whole truth. Some have some parts and some have others. Where we differ is that I believe that because of this Jesus has restored the full Gospel to the earth in the church which bears his name.

When my youngest daughter was small she was saying her bedtime prayers. It started out "Dear Heavenly Father" but then her voice went very quiet as she mumbled the rest of the prayer and ended "in name of Jess, Chris and men". As I tried not to smile and added "Amen" I said "I really couldn't hear a word of that prayer Em." She turned and smiled at me and said, "Oh that's OK Mum, I wasn't actually talking to you."

Hello Lexish. Welcome and hope you enjoy it here. Reading and finding out as much as you can is good but praying about it is best to be able to discern the truth from the half truths and distortions of which there are many. I can say for sure that I know the church is true and no amount of anti literature could change what I know.

Thank you for sharing those with us Reve. You look so happy in the 2nd one. :)

Indeed good works do follow - as a result. We are offered the gift more in spite of ourselves than because of. I don't believe that we must do good works in order to obtain grace - despite that concept having been taught throughout the middle ages even including the sale of 'indulgences' to buy your way out of purgatory. Can you really believe the true Gospel has never ceased to exist when the only church which existed at the time had drifted so far away from the true concept of the free gift of grace? Surely you must agree, after all you have just said that one doesn't earn or pay for a gift. We may try - but after all that trying Paul tells us we are saved by grace after/despite all our efforts because we can't earn something which could only be paid for by the atoning sacrifice of one worthy.

Thank you Drew. I can see that I muddled my terminology and misunderstood. I do that sometimes. I suppose we must all be failing to live up to that covenant by the Bishop's standards as we surely all do things for pleasure and use our talents in ways other than for the church. I know I do.

I know this my be a slight tangent to the original topic but I sometimes feel that we are tying ourselves in knots over political correctness and words. To use the word 'negro' is unacceptable whilst the word 'black' is preferred. The irony of this is that 'negro' means 'black' as in Rio Negro and yet even the darkest of skin is not black any more than the palest of skin is white. We've had people say that 'black' is no longer correct and we should ay 'people of colour' and yet not too long ago 'coloured people' was unacceptable. So what's the difference between 'coloured people' and 'people of colour'? I'm a coloured person. Pink is a colour. All this is just playing with words. We've had nursery schools changing the words of nursery rhymes so as to avoid offending pupils - so we get 'Baa baa rainbow sheep'!!! I wasn't aware there were any sheep attending nursery schools, let alone black ones who might be offended. We can't have a blackboard we must now have a chalk board but we can have an interactive whiteboard. I can't call my neighbours Pakistani, I have to call them Asian - but if I say Asian to an American they think I mean Oriental. It's mad. If a word is used in a non-derogatory way with no intention at all of offending the person being referred to then no-one should take offence. It's a word, that's all. What happens in languages where the word for 'black' the colour IS 'negro' - what are they supposed to do? We've got people afraid of speaking these days in case they say the wrong thing unintentionally. Elderly people here were brought up to call people with darker skins 'coloured' - it wasn't meant as an insult, it was the normal word used but now if an elderly person uses that word they are told they are being offensive. Back to the subject matter of the thread: My non-member husband has been looking up things on the internet and found what he regards as some very offensive statements about non-whites made by early church leaders (Brigham Young in particular) and this is beginning to turn him against the church. He seems to be finding more negative things than positive ones. Its very difficult to tell him that was then and this is now when Brigham Young said such awful things and said the Lord's attitude would never change towards black people.

That is terrible. She has a family who want this child and she would rather kill it than let it have the life it deserves with parents who want it? One day she will face judgement for her decision. How can she deprive her baby of this chance of life?

I haven't heard of this. Can someone explain to me what it's about?