What are /r/latterdaysaints' favorite Products & Services?

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Wow! Did I write this post? You sound like me a few years ago. Seriously. After disaffliating from the church, I gave the Gospel of Jesus Christ another look.

>What do I do from here?

I'd study what you makes you happy. Read the passages in the Book of Mormon that you like. Study what brings you peace.

For me, I love studying about the Doctrine of Christ; the Book of Mormon arguably has the clearest presentation of the Doctrine of Christ than any other scripture.

I feel peace studying about the concept of grace. Brad Wilcox's The Continuous Atonement and Changed Through His Grace are wonderful books that I have enjoyed reading about the subject.

Find what makes you happy.

An interesting perspective on marriage (and divorce) in a study from a professor at BYU. This was a nationwide study and not restricted to LDS folks. His conclusion was actually that Millennials actually tend to remain married at a higher rate than previous generations. A big factor in that (aside from an older age of first marriage) is a more normalized co-habitation step prior to marriage (that didn't exist to the same extent as previous generations) and therefore those who take the plunge tend to know what they are getting into. Since we tend to frown upon that co-habitation phase in LDS circles it doesn't surprise me that our behaviors may mirror older generations.

White Golf Pants changed my life. Made the temple a lot more comfortable.

NIKE Men's Flat Front Golf Pants, White/White, Size 32/30 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H1SOFBS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Ai7nBbVQ9WXDD

It's a three hour meeting. Usually the first hour features announcements, hymns, the Lord's Supper/Eucharist/Sacrament, sermons from a few of the members of the congregation, and a couple of prayers.

The second hour is a Sunday school hour, where people break off into smaller groups, usually by age (the kids go to classes with kids their age, the teens go to classes with each other, and the adults do one or more adult Sunday school classes). It's usually focused on a specific section of the scriptures in more or less a classroom format.

The final hour is similar but the teens and adults are further split into groups by gender, the point being for men to focus on being better men, and women to focus on being better women.

Each meeting is usually started and ended with a prayer.

This app (for Android) has all the scriptures and lesson manuals, and using a mobile device to access the material during the sunday school classes is normal.

There's a similar one for other systems.

edit I guess I should say that you should expect to have to introduce yourselves to a lot of people.

There is a version for you :)

Try either the

Reader’s Edition

or the

Study Edition

of the Book of Mormon, both by Grant Hardy. He’s a literary scholar who felt as you do.

My father in law was in the program. He is still real close to his "foster family". My understanding is that it was a mixed bag. Some kids got placed with really good and stable families and some got placed with not so great families that kind of used them as in house labor. I know one of his brothers also got another good one and they are still in contact. The other brothers didn't fare as well.

My FIL has a college degree and has had a stable job and everything. My MIL was a teacher so they were dual income.

He doesn't talk about the program much at all and I've tried to ask him about it in the past but he wasn't open and didn't share much. Later my MIL said that it wasn't a great experience for him, at least the boarding school aspect. They couldn't speak their language, they couldn't talk about home or family, stuff like that.

On the other side his parents were alcoholics and would bail for days or weeks at a time. He was the oldest so it was always on him to care for his brothers when they bailed. Supposedly this happened often and when he was real young, like 10 and younger.

He doesn't talk about growing up on the rez or boarding school. Basically we talk about raising his three kids, and sports. Mostly sports to be honest.

He is real active in the church. He doesn't talk much but he knows the scriptures and has a steel trap of a memory about church history and conference talks from back in the day to now.

A while back when I was looking into it I found this book that I wanted to read. I never ordered it or anything but I've got it bookmarked. "Making Lamanites: Mormons, Native Americans, and the Indian Student Placement Program."

https://www.amazon.com/Wrestling-Angel-Foundations-Thought-Humanity/dp/0199794928

Terryl Givens in the early part of this book talks about the differences between the Restorationism that came through Joseph Smith and what we see in the other Restorationist groups of that time. I believe it's within the first 2 chapters or so, so wouldn't be too hard to find if you have access to the book.

> Does the Book of Mormon contradict biblical scripture?

That depends on how you interpret the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

> If anyone has good sources for a theological comparison I would really appreciated the help

Several years ago an LDS biblical scholar named Stephen Robinson wrote a book with a protestant theologian named Craig Bloomberg called 'How Wide the Divide.' The text is a conversation about how protestants and Mormons view different Christian doctrines differently. It isn't meant to be combative, tho - but I'd still recommend it.

From http://www.vaccines.gov/basics/safety/side_effects/ many vaccines are known to cause severe allergic reactions in a small percentage of the population. For MMR they say it is 1 in a million. It is horrible beyond belief when you or a family member happen to be that small percentage of the population that gets devastated by a side effect. That being said, the benefits of vaccinations to society in general is almost irrefutable.

A good cartoon (although very, very pro-vaccination) that describes the history and effectiveness of vaccinations is https://medium.com/the-nib/vaccines-work-here-are-the-facts-5de3d0f9ffd0

The notion of herd immunity is a very real concept and it doesn't take very many people to stop vaccinating their children to cause herd immunity to fail.

The ancient Semitic pantheon (which included 70 sons of El, including Baal) was widely believed in across the region. What made Judaism unique was its eventual push toward monotheism, although traces of the old pantheon are still in the Hebrew Bible.

Mark Smith has put out some good scholarship on the topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

Asherah was originally a wife of the father God El, although later Yahweh was brought in (possibly from contact with Edom) and El and Yahweh were eventually merged.

This interesting convergence tends to be brought up in apologetic literature but I haven't seen it from church leaders. The Deuteronomic Reforms removed "pagan" altars and gods from Hebrew worship, including the worship of Asherah. Is it the LDS position that those reforms were correct? Incorrect? Somewhere in between? There isn't an official position as far as I know, but if Asherah is to be associated with Heavenly Mother it might be necessary to take one.

It's an interesting area of LDS theology that hasn't really been explored much.

The Masons themselves believed this too in the 1840’s, when the Endowment was first introduced by Joseph. But we have lots of historical analysis now that shows how the Masonic ceremonies were written and revised in the 1500’s through 1700’s, coming out of the morality plays of the guild structure of England:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Freemasonry

https://www.amazon.com/Masons-Words-History-Evolution-American/dp/061585382X

It's a good point, but it doesn't mean that the other ones aren't available.

You can see general conference reports extending back to about 1897 on this here site

Many of the General Conference sermons during the pioneer era are available through the Journal of Discourses, available at www.journalofdiscourses.com

And most such info during Joseph Smith's time can be found in the Joseph Smith Papers: http://josephsmithpapers.org/the-papers

Well, here's the deal: you're flying internationally to Japan, so you will want to travel light. Also, you can pretty much buy anything you need in your mission too. This said, here's my recommendations.

1. You will want a good pen for writing in Preach My Gospel. Please don't go buy a pack of Pilot pens for this. My favorite pen for pass-along cards and PMG was the Zebra F-301.

2. Bring a small album of photos of your family. You will meet people who will want to know about you and your family, etc. Keep this small and compact so you can travel with it easily.

3. A small digital camera will be very useful to you. Just try not to look like a tourist.

Edit: buy a zebra, not a pilot. My goodness.

The context for this in the talk is that he was teaching against unreasonable expectations. These inflated, perfectionistic ideas drive some parents to become helicopter parents, controlling their kids lives to make them some kind of super beings.

I recommend the whole original talk. I can't find it at the moment. It was in general conference I think.

Your are right - your impression is the opposite of what the gospel teaches, which is that "men are that the might have joy." Check out the Given's excellent new book that talks about this:

https://www.amazon.com/All-Things-New-Rethinking-Everything/dp/1953677002/

I’ll second this post. Pre marriage is not the same.

Get counseling as you two definitely need to learn to communicate tour feelings.

One book I would recommend to get you started and is available at most libraries (even as audio)

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Marriages-Succeed-Fail-Yours/dp/0684802414/ref=nodl_

If you've never read it before, I highly recommend reading Odds Are You're Going To Be Exalted.

From the description of the book:

> Many Latter-day Saints worry whether they're capable of reaching the celestial kingdom. Are these anxieties born of a sense of unworthiness, or is it that we just don't think we can "do it all?" Author Alonzo L. Gaskill believes that such pessimism results from misunderstanding God's great plan of happiness and what it is that the Lord actually requires of us. In this hope-filled book, he reviews the teachings of the scriptures and modern prophets to instill in readers a greater sense of God's unfailing love and mercy and of His power and desire to exalt His children. Exaltation may be not only possible but probable!

​

You should check out a book called Traditions About the Early Life of Abraham, which is a bunch of extrabiblical stories about Abraham passed down through the generations. It's broken down into Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Apocryphal, and other legends, so some of them overlap, but it's fascinating to see how many of them align with the Book of Abraham. So many of those old apocryphal stories match up to parts of our own scripture, it's really interesting.

Strange, as in different than many other parts of the OT? Yes.

Strange, as in not speaking to important, beautiful, and spiritual parts of the human experience? Absolutely not.

I recommend Adam Miller's book "The Sun Has Burned My Skin: A Modest Paraphrase of Solomon's Song of Songs" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078CQ7HYD/ .

Human sexuality is an important part of our experience, joy, and even spirituality. I think it deserves a celebration even in scripture. I personally disagree with Joseph Smith's write-off of it, but I understand his era's attitude regarding sex and how that would inform his take on the matter (as my era informs mine).

You could marry the perfect girl of your dreams, your true and actual foreordained soulmate...

... and at some point in your marriage I guarantee you'd feel like you do now.

Every marriage goes through tough times, and that doesn't just mean fighting. It means feeling like you've "fallen out of love," or you're too tired to do anything after getting the kids to bed, or you find you share no interests, etc. You're going to have crushes on other people, keep secrets, hold grudges, etc. -- and this is in the best of marriages (I'm happy to say I think mine is in that category).

Every one of those is common, and every one can be overcome if you want to.

Take this advice from Steven Covey (and if you haven't done so, go read "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"):

> “My wife and I just don't have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore and she doesn't love me. What can i do?"

> "The feeling isn't there anymore?" I asked.

> "That's right," he reaffirmed. "And we have three children we're really concerned about. What do you suggest?"

> "love her," I replied.

> "I told you, the feeling just isn't there anymore."

> "Love her."

> "You don't understand. the feeling of love just isn't there."

> "Then love her. If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her."

> "But how do you love when you don't love?"

> "My friend , love is a verb. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?”

Source: (Aside from Covey) I have been married almost 40 years, together longer than that. In all truthfulness, it's still awesome and amazing and wonderful. Except when it isn't, and then we need to work to get it back there.

Joseph L. Bishop was president of the Provo, Utah Missionary Training Center in 1983. You can still find his books on Amazon, but no longer on Deseret Book as of yesterday.

>I don't really know where to go from here! I was thinking of loading up Amazon and trying to get a copy of The Standard Works and reading it. Is that a good idea?

Great idea! Oh, don't pay for them- get them for free- Go here: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/formats?lang=eng

or here if you have an android device: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.lds.ldssa

Thank you. My understanding is the quotes are from a couple different places in his memoirs:

https://www.amazon.com/Abundant-Life-Memoirs-Hugh-Brown/dp/1560851236

I don’t own the book unfortunately, so I can’t independently verify. But they are well quoted all over the place so I’m fairly sure they are accurate.

From what I understand there are a few reasons:

  1) The JST was still a work in progress at the time of the martyrdom

  2) The transcripts were mostly owned by the RLDS Church (Now Community of Christ)

  3) Because the transcrips were not in custody of the LDS church there is no way to know if changes were made after the martyrdom

 

You can, however, but a copy. It's published by the Community of Christ.   https://www.amazon.ca/Joseph-Smiths-New-Translation-Bible/dp/0830900322

>and try to complete my first read of The Book of Mormon.

Do it! 2 chapters a day is very manageable, 1-10 minutes - closer to 10 usually, and gets you through it in a few months. You should easily be able to finish it before the year is over this way. I find it easier to knock it out first thing in the morning than any other time in the day as it's easy to find excuses to postpone. I wake up, get a podcast playing while I use the bathroom and look at email real quick, pause the podcast and hammer out my 2 chapters.

For reading it cover to cover I would highly recommend this version as it is much nicer for reading cover to cover with the way the pages are formatted, I've actually been doing just as I said above with it this year and should finish it Tuesday.

https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/coffee-new-health-food

My LDS father in law was actually prescribed coffee by his doctor for Alzheimer's. Both tea and coffee are chock full of antioxidants. Caffeine is a stimulant so it can obviously over used, but tons of data shows that they're super good for you.

I used to use this website a lot: http://www.kids-in-mind.com/

It rates new movies based on the amount of Sex, Violence, and Profanity they contain. It also describes every questionable scene, so you can decide for yourself if you think it's bad or not.

Mostly. No one seems to make a long sleeve dress shirt in my neck size (but do in short sleeve) in a tall unless you're talking stuff well north of 100$ (ha! 100$ for a shirt?!?) so every time I stood up I was definitely tucking my shirt back in.

For pants, I went with these red kap pants that were the right length and used a seam ripper to remove the red tag off the back right and the orange tag inside the pants so I didn't have to mess with a tailor/seamstress for hemming them.

For shoes, I just got the largest slippers from store.lds and for the tie the clip on they sell.

I was mostly surprised by garments too, I find that 2 different waist sizes fit fine but for the tops they don't have anything that's wide enough and long enough for me... I train in Hanes 5xlt t-shirts... so all of the top sizes I ordered aren't long enough to not feel like I'm trying to be a belly dancer or Fat Guy in a Little Coat. #powerbellylife

I recommend checking Kids In Mind and educating yourself on exactly what you'll be exposed to. You know yourself better than anyone here so only you can know how negatively you'll be affected.

If you see anything on Kids-In-Mind that you feel may be even a little too much and still really want to see the movie then you could try getting your parents to spring for a VidAngel version.

Pandora tip: If you go to your settings in Pandora, there is an "Explicit Content filter." Just check the "No. Do not allow explicit content." option. That's been my setting for a while, and it's always worked great.

If you don’t have it, I highly recommend the Scripture Citation Index app (also on Android).

For that verse, there is a reference from Elder Gay’s October 2018 conference talk.

Here is a portion, with some good footnotes.

First, to take upon ourselves the name of Christ means we faithfully strive to see as God sees.4

[See Mosiah 5:2–3 Part of the mighty change of heart among the people of King Benjamin who took upon themselves the name of Christ was that their eyes were opened to “great views.” Those who inherit the celestial kingdom are individuals who “see as they are seen” Doctrine and Covenants 76:94

How does God see? Joseph Smith said, “While one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard,” for “His love [is] unfathomable.”5 [Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (2007), 39.]

Just an FYI, the church has created Apple and Android Book of Mormon apps, that are specifically for these kinds of situations. They have in-app ways of asking questions about doctrine that are answered by operators online - all in the app. It's a lot less overwhelming for an investigator than Gospel Library.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.lds.bom

https://www.lds.org/pages/mobileapps/apple?lang=eng

Word of caution, the path in that link appears to be part of the personal files of Tim Gurr (possibly this LinkedIn profile) which are inappropriately access controlled. This is not an authoritative statement from the LDS Church.

Given Mr. Gurr's position and the fact that all the other content of that PDF is legitimate and has been published at the official S&I website it is possible that the Church is preparing that as an official statement to be released shortly. It is also possible that those words are his own and he wrote them out of frustration as something he would like to see sent out, but there is no plan to do it.

I'm not taking a position one way or the other just putting it out there that this isn't on official church statement. Search the S&I site for Julie Rowe and you won't find anything as of the time I wrote this. Personally, I would be happy to see an official statement from the Church that Mrs. Rowe's writings are spurious, because I think they are, but that hasn't happened yet.

A trip to the liquor store is a terrible thing to do when depressed.

>Drinking will only make depression worse. People who are depressed and drink too much have more frequent and severe episodes of depression, and are more likely to think about suicide. Heavy alcohol use also can make antidepressants less effective. Alcohol is a depressant. That means any amount you drink can make you more likely to get the blues. Drinking a lot can harm your brain and lead to depression.

https://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/alcohol-and-depresssion#1

The book "Mother's Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother" has a lot of poems that does the same gender-swap with spiritual language (taking scriptures and phrases about Heavenly Father and applying them to Heavenly Mother). https://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Milk-Rachel-Hunt-Steenblik/dp/0998605220/ref=sr\_1\_1?dchild=1&keywords=poems+in+search+of+heavenly+mother&qid=1632052327&sr=8-1

Well, there are things like reading the Book of Mormon or going to church with her. Just be warned that if you do, a lot of Latter-day Saints will start to think that you're "investigating the church" and get excited and try to convert you. That being said, there's a lot of Latter-day Saint belief and culture you can only pick up going to church or reading the Book of Mormon.

The current acting president of the Twelve, M. Russell Ballard, wrote a book years ago called <em>Our Search for Happiness</em> which is geared towards people not of our faith. Ballard has a pretty amicable tone as well, which you won't find in other classic expositions on our faith like James E. Talmage's works. A good pro to this book is that all missionaries are supposed to have the book as a reference book as missionaries. That being said, there are missionaries who don't care to read it or for whatever reason they have a spare copy sitting around the apartment. So if you know the local missionaries you can try to talk them out of a copy. At worst, they'll just order a copy from the mission office for you.

I recently read a study that suggested that higher rates of internet/tech usage correlated with higher suicide rates.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/11/14/563767149/increased-hours-online-correlate-with-an-uptick-in-teen-depression-suicidal-thou

They used to publish "conference reports" which were given to ward libraries. You can find them here.

Also, if you are looking for a specific keyword, you could probably use the BYU Corpus of General Conference talks.

I don't buy that it increases societal fertility .... I'd say division of the males attention between multiple females is just as likely to lower the rate of fertilization, not increase it.

Some quick sources (I'm sure ya'll can find better): "Men ain’t everybody. Polygamous women actually had fewer children than monogamous women—and that means that the pioneers as a whole had fewer children than if they’d stuck with monogamy."

"Moorad’s research group found that for each additional wife in a marriage, all wives’ “reproductive success” decreased by one child or more."

http://youngmormonfeminists.org/2013/05/11/what-if-polygamy-was-for-birth-control-part-1/

https://www.scribd.com/doc/49314559/Moorad-2010-Effect-of-Mormon-Fundamentalist-Polygyny-on-Genetic-Evolutionary-Fitness

I've been in the same situation as you have. You're not going to like this (I hated the idea at first), but I think you should go to one of the Addiction Recovery Groups from the Church.

You're probably now thinking, "Nah, I'll just do this on my own." or "No way do I want to go talk about this in front of other people, some who may be in my ward and know me." I was the same way for a while. Eventually things got so bad I decided I'd do whatever it took and I went.

It was the best decision I ever made. I was nervous at first and I saw many people there that I knew. But that was one of the most empowering things to help me recover. I realized, for the first time, that I wasn't alone. As other people shared stories of their battles, I saw myself in the same stories. If you're like me, you've been battling this for years by yourself. Now you'll see that you really aren't alone. There are people that you looked up to in your ward and thought, "If only I could be like them." that are right beside you fighting the same fight. And they respect and look up to you.

There's a very special spirit at those meetings. I've had several people tell me that the only other place that feels like that is the temple. I know you'll be blessed for going, especially if you really do go through with the program.

Also, I'd recommend reading The Power of Habit. It helped me understand what was going on with me, and what the Addiction Recovery Program was trying to do.

Finally, I've never once run into a problem with someone who saw me there mentioning it to anyone outside of the group. It takes guts and a real problem for all of us to go, so there's some mad respect going on.

Feel free to PM me if you want. I'm happy to help however I can.

I was the same way my whole life with money. Read "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. I went 25 years thinking my income was the issue. ..my behavior was the issue. Change the behavior and you get different results. Also, going on a mission later in life is totally an option. So is working with the local missionaries, going on exchanges, working as a ward missionary, and just being a great example to everyone you know. Get control of that debt, you are young and can change your whole future in just a few years of work to clear it up. Good luck!

The sub topic links have been there since at least October 22, 2014

>You make a good point though. There was no organized movement to bring black people equality, no historically prominent individuals comes to mind. And no individual was EVER excommunicated for opposing the black priesthood ban. kappa

That's not even true though. This 1977 newspaper article discusses one and mentions another that happened two years prior...

> only a policy put in place by Brigham Young and was never put into cannon.

This is something I struggled with for a long time after reading the exchange between Lowry Nelson, and the First Presidency from 1947.

Nelson, (LDS sociologist) through a series of letters, extols the horrors of passive racism, especially in the aftermath of WWII. He was very public in his dissent on the LDS policy towards blacks, and the First Presidency responded.

"From the days of the Prophet Joseph even until now, it has been the doctrine of the Church, never questioned by any of the Church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel." If you click on the hyperlink you'll see David O'McKay and George A. Smith digging in their heels on the matter. They could not be more explicit in their sentiments that interracial marriage is in violation of God's revealed plan to His prophets.

Furthermore, if there is no scriptural background for female ordination, explain:

Miriam (Exodus 15:20) Deborah (Judges 4:4) Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20; 2 Chronicles 34:22-28) Noadiah (Nehemiah 6:14) Anna (Luke 2:36) Isaiah’s wife (Isaiah 8:3) Philip’s four daughters (Acts 21:8-9)

I believe that he was talking about individual contributions. A member has the right to know what he/she contributed.

As far as making financial statements available to the membership in general, that hasn't happened since April 1959 (statement starts on page 91).

Here's a Sunstone article by D. Michael Quinn describing what was going on when the church stopped publishing financial information ("New Era" baseball baptisms, building in anticipation of members, N. Eldon Tanner saving the church financially, etc.): I-Thou vs. I-It Conversions: The Mormon &quot;Baseball Baptism&quot; Era

Look for running / hiking skirts. My wife wears those and the spandex liner on the inside holds the garments up so they don’t show.

BALEAF Women's Outdoor Skort UPF 50 Active Athletic Skort Casual Skort Skirt with Zip Pockets Hiking Golf https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZRNNB38/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_PN897DAFXJ9D8YJVDKG9

Why I'm LDS:

I was born a member and have been devout all my life, for many decades. However, I think that many thinking, educated people will at some point analyze the faith they were taught as a child, to see if they still choose to believe it. I have and I do.

On the practical side, LDS teachings are greatly beneficial to me. The theology is the most optimistic that I know: God is our parent, this life is a school he has set up for us, he will bless everyone to the level they are able to qualify and accept those blessings, and we have the potential to become like him (in the far future).

If you accept that God is our parent, the rest of our theology follows pretty logically from there. As Joseph Smith said, "This is good doctrine. It tastes good."

The key to an LDS "testimony," however, is a witness from the Holy Spirit that it is true. I have felt this on many occasions.

If you want a deep dive into our theology, I highly recommend the following book (you can download the first chapter or two on Amazon for free to check it out):

Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity, Terryl L. Givens, https://www.amazon.com/Wrestling-Angel-Foundations-Thought-Humanity-ebook/dp/B00NQ9R1IG/

Two things:

1 - We caught a frog

2 - Our butterflies emerged from their chrysalises. Everybody should really consider doing this. You can get a kit on Amazon for $25, and it comes with the habitat, feeding equipment, and five caterpillars. You don't have to feed the caterpillars, you just let them sit in their jar on the counter for a week or two, and then they make their chrysalises and you transfer them to the butterfly habitat and then a week later they emerge as butterflies.

It's a ton of fun and educational. We have our kids sketch the growth and changes and make notes every couple days and then we get to watch them emerge as butterflies and see them stretch their wings out and everything. Then we get to feed them sugar water and fruit, which is fun.

At the end we take them outside and let them go. They will stop to rest on our arms and clothes to say goodbye before leaving to make their way in the world.

It's way cool. Once you have the habitat and feeder and stuff you can get refills on caterpillars for $15 or so. We do this every year and really enjoy it.

Fascinating. Here it is on Amazon.

It says 1953-54. Do we know the Life Magazine issues that these photographs appeared in? My novel has a storyline in it from 1953. If the dates align, I could possibly use it.

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books, "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl (another book that I feel is essential for everyone to read and study.)

>“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Taken from a psychologist who survived the concentration camps, I'd say it's a trustworthy principle.

President Uchtdorf gave one of my favorite talks of all time along the same vein. Grateful in any circumstance

I haven't read "This is Water" but I'm excited to now! Thanks!

>Like what exactly?

I don't know. I'm not that creative. :)

I guess he could've instituted some sorta religiously motivated free-love communalism like the folks at Oneida that wouldn't require a guy to be personally financially (or emotionally) responsible for the women he was with or the children he fathered.

Maybe he could've adopted some of our pal John C. Bennett's ideas when he said the Relief Society was a cover for the secretive, debauched Cyprian Saints and the Chambered Sisters of Charity. (My favorite 19th-century anti-Mormon screed.)

There's an app called "Take My Name" that searches through your family history and pulls out ordinances that need to be done. You can even reserve them right from the app.

There's also a new feature on lds.org called "ordinances ready". You can learn more about it here.

It has nothing to do with empathy. You can empathize with another person, but that doesn't make them right. People are free and able to believe a great many things, but not everything one can and does believe is the truth. There simply is no such thing as a "your truth" or "my truth"- only the truth. Truth by its very nature demands this understanding of it. Look at the definition. Truth is what accurately, factually,is with all veracity. The more we are in alignment with it, the truer our beliefs. The farther our beliefs veer form it, the less truth we have.

I don't know how the tradition originated, but, over thousands of years of living without a homeland, suffering pogroms, arrests, expulsions, and, more recently, the Holocaust, Jewish culture has evolved a very powerful tradition of giving God a piece of their mind. One of my favorite examples of this, which I treat in the book, is a short story written by a Holocaust survivor called "Yosl Rakover Talks to God," which is online here:

https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kolitz-god.html

I just looked it up on kids-in-mind and they only gave it a 5/10 on the sexual content category. That's the same as "Daddy's Home" and "Spectre", both rated PG-13.

http://www.kids-in-mind.com/r/revenant.htm

But the movie seems to be really violent.

>her evidence amounts to oral history and tradition.

Aside from Chapter 6 of the dissertation, which reviews archaeological, fossil, and DNA evidence of pre-Columbian horses in the Americas.

I'm not saying the case is airtight, but I think it is strong enough to keep an open mind and hope that future research is done with less bias.

The same can be said for pre-Columbian contact between the Americas and other cultures...one Mesoamerican scholar (Edwin Barnhart, PhD in these lectures) says it is "heresy" to suggest there was contact between Mesoamerican people and Phoenicians, and yet there are some threads of evidence to suggest it.

I agree that a strictly literal interpretation is problematic, but in my view that's not the same as challenging what is "known" about life in the americas and looking for plausible settings for the Book of Mormon events.

Firstly, I have to say I don't really appreciate your condescending tone. Why is "being in the Celestial Kingdom" in quotes? Because I didn't use the proper verbiage? My apologies. And 1/3 (33%) correct, as you see it, IS bad. Why are you being patronizing?

Next, please tell me if I'm wrong. To be admitted into the Celestial Kingdom, you need your temple sealing and endowments taken. To do these things, you MUST have a temple recommend. Therefore, if you didn't have a temple recommend, you will not be able to enter the Celestial Kingdom. And if you don't pay tithing, you can't have a temple recommend.

Can you explain to me a scenario where, in THIS day and age, you could both not pay tithing and reach the Celestial Kingdom?

Lastly, what is the point of your last paragraph? What I'm saying has nothing to do with if the church is true or not. What I'm saying is that not paying tithing has very real consequences - not attending the highest level of heaven in the afterlife for all of eternity. You can't just make your decision because you don't like how church funds are spent (like the original comment implied), there's more to it than that.

Lastly, forgive me if I disagree with God spending 17k on a rug

Funeral potatoes might be my favorite food of all time! For information about funeral potatoes and other Utah/LDS dishes, check out the book This Is the Plate. (If you live in Utah, a lot of the local libraries carry it).

For a recipe, check out Mel's Kitchen Cafe. She is LDS, shares her family recipe--and as an added bonus: she is, in my opinion, the best comfort-food blogger on the internet. My family's meals have become 10x more delicious since discovering her blog.

Final note: I kind of hate that green jello is Utah's trademark dish. It should 1000% be funeral potatoes.

Honestly, the idea that a CD you listened to on your mission is near-impossible to find now is not unreasonable. The tabernacle choir routinely vets their available discography as they release newer compilations and such.

That being said, I’m having a hard time finding any evidence of the Wilberg arrangement existing prior to 2009. I was able to find a 1996 CD released by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the name of “Amazing Grace” with one song on the disc being that same song, but it is a Excell/Newton arrangement, not a Wilberg one.

http://www.josephsons.org/slmtc/mtc_rec.htm

It also doesn’t have the other songs you mentioned, but it is an example of the song existing in a very hard-to-find way on the internet. I couldn’t even find a recording of it or anything, however you can buy the CD used on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00000DUO4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_1nQcGbC5A939J

If you can't go to counseling for your depression, then at least read this book. It was recommended by a counsellor and has helped me a lot:

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, by David D. Burns

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380731762/

I like this app a lot. It reminds me of the LDS Scripture Citation Index, though I'm glad to see that these two apps solve different problems.

Great job!

I tie it to the principle of agency. "Debt is a cruel master", we're often told--and it's very true. Between student loans, car payments, credit cards, mortgage (or mortgages?), we can very quickly spend much of our time and money just on interest. When we do that, we limit what we can do with our money, time, and life. Money is less of tool and more of a burden.

But when we are free from debt, we can begin to save that money and put it to good use. Saving for the future further increases our freedom in the future paving the way for missions, ability to visit family, traveling, education, etc. Having an emergency fund greatly increases our agency when surprises happen and can keep us out of going back into debt when life happens. We are also freed to follow promptings to give generously to our neighbors, and fellow man.

Providently living fits into this as a set of tools/practices which help us turn money from a curse into a blessing. Given that money/wealth is mentioned in the scriptures over 200 times, I think understanding how the Lord would have us use it is important. To learn to subdue it and us it for our (and God's) will to bless others rather than have it be a tool for other's to use their will over us.

For me, a good starting point for provident living besides the church's wonderful website, is this SNL video clip.

EDIT: Yes, debt can be a tool for good too when entered into with clear understanding and with a solid plan to manage it.

What were you making, $ wise in the job you just lost?

The Employment ward specialist can help with reviewing your resume.

Think in terms of what you did on a day to day basis, how would those translate into another job.

Continue to check the job boards Indeed.com and others. Remember, Call centers are almost always hiring.

Also, if you're poor enough, you get grants for school. You could look into a production job, many of those will start at $9-10 an hour. I worked a full time production job while I finished my degree. Had two kids along the way.

http://www.indeed.com/q-Production-Worker-l-Utah-jobs.html

There were individuals excommunicated for opposing the priesthood ban in 1977. It's not all that dissimilar. Byron Marchant for example.

I like The Scripture Study Podcast. It's a husband and wife (I think he's a seminary teacher, it something). It's good quality and seems to fit the bill. The interpreter discussions is the worst podcast that I can't seem to make myself delete.

You have to read more about what they mean by "Irish". There is any option to click on it and find out more info. There's some info below, but it looks like for "Irish" they do not mean "from Ireland" but rather a more generic Celtic ancestry. This means your people could have been in Wales, Scotland or Cornwall.

https://www.ancestry.com/dna/ethnicity/irish

Lots of cool work being done here. We have a long way to go in the fight against cancer, but it's really cool this has helped so many people. Aurelia Lewis is my sixth cousin four-times removed (click "view my relationship" on that link to see if you're related), so I doubt I have that same genetic mutation, but coming from a family with a history of health-related challenges I can only imagine the benefits of efforts like this.

I know I'm late, but can I offer another point?

I'd like to point out the definition of priesthood. Priesthood is referring to nothing more than a "hood", like neighborhood, of priests. It's a group of priests. Do they act with authority and God's power for the salvation of souls? Of course!

But so do women. Their organization is the Relief Society and YW. That's their group, where they act with authority and power. An argument can be easily made that they're more effective at the work of salvation than men.

And a final, separate point: Men are like lightning, women are like the sun. Men typically act and perform like a bolt of instant power. Need something done? We'll help you move, mow your lawn, or give you a blessing. Women, on the other hand, nurture, provide long-term strength and support, and consistently uplift and build people up. These are just general observations, and show an important difference in the attitudes and effects of men and women.

IMO you're verging into territory where you try to apply "calculations" to things that can't be calculated 9consider for example the nonsense created by Bishop Ussher's chronology that led him to proclaim that the earth's creation began on the afternoon of Saturday, October 22, 4004 BC). So it's no wonder you're getting tangled up. You're demanding a consistency within certain narrow parameters that you have defined, even if those parameters don't actually exist within the scriptures.

This isn't about believing the scriptures to be factual or not; it's about misapplying a need for precision based on woefully incomplete information that you nevertheless require to be sufficient. In other words, you can't get to "the numbers adding up" because in the BoM we don't have all the numbers!

Amazon. I wear these to the the temple https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O4W957Y/

I did remove the tag with a seam ripper though as it was either red or orange and I was mildly concerned about the color showing through the waistband.

As a direct answer to your question, I would personally think it would be hard to not believe in the Book of Mormon and remain a faithful member. (Simply based on the fact of what the Book of Mormon stands for, between prophets, the character of Christ, Preisthood, etc.)

Based on the answers others are giving, I'd recommend reading Book of Mormon on Trial

It's a fun read made in a comic style that brings up arguments against the Book of Mormon and then defends against said arguments. It makes it easy to follow along! (Of course, other resources people have said will be more scholary and contain more exact answers to any specific questions)

I was required to purchase non-KJV bibles for some of my BYU classes. One class, the professor told us simply to buy a non-KJV bible. There were quite a few to choose from in the BYU Bookstore. I bought a NIV. He dedicated class time to having people share what bibles they bought/found. And he shared some neat ones he had.

This bible a required purchase, The Oxford Study Bible. I read it often still, 20 years post-BYU life.

I’ve been reading This is My Doctrine by Charles R. Harrell (this book is not for the spiritually faint of heart) after hearing about it in this sub. It talks about how scripture is the word of God but not necessarily God’s word, and how prophets throughout the Bible wrote from their own perspective and biases in their own language (which, if you think about it is not much different than the experience of giving a priesthood blessing).

It shows how prophets borrow heavily from previous scripture as they’re writing and compiling. Harrell makes a good case that Joseph Smith seems to have translated / written / produced (pick your word here) the Book of Mormon in a very similar way as the Biblical prophets did the Bible. For me, some of the criticisms - for instance, Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon or the evidence of strong 19th century influence - then reinforce, rather than undermine, the idea of Joseph as a prophet.

Thank you for sharing.

BYU had a wonderful commencement speaker not too long ago named Arthur Brooks. You can read/watch the speech here

Or read more in depth about his thoughts on the topic in his book,
Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

I think he does a really good job at pinpointing the problem of Contempt that keeps us from even being willing to hear/discuss/exist around someone who thinks differently than we do!

I'm sorry for what you're going through man. It's all hard, I've been through some similar but different struggles, and it can absolutely consume you. Marital issues have been the only times in my life where I literally could not eat or sleep, etc.

If you've never read it before, there is a book I highly recommend - Bonds That Make Us Free. It helped me tremendously to come to grips with some relationships in my life that had tremendously negative effects on me and to come to realize that I had much more control (and ownership) of that than I had thought. I sincerely think it could help you tremendously; at the very least, it did that for me.

There are probably better ways to pass your time than spamming us. Here's one - you should check out 'Patriot' on Amazon. Have you seen it? It is a really, really well made television show that takes a whole bunch of memetic ideas about spies and totally subverts them in a really emotionally raw, hilarious, sad way. I think you'll enjoy watching it and talking about it a lot more than serving the agendas of a hate group on Reddit.

The first episode is free to stream: https://www.amazon.com/Patriot/dp/B017APUY62/?ref=dvm_us_dl_sl_go_ast|c_182289441520_m_D4LNjsi0-dc_s_&amp;gclid=CM-2utK349ICFZFcfgodtFcC6Q

When you've watched it, create a new account and come back and talk to me about it.

There is a great book one the symbolism of the Tree of Life throughout the scriptures and other cultures from scholars such as Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, Andrew C. Skinner, John W. Welch, and Margaret Barker. It is an academic work, so it is a bit dry. But it is full of information and well worth the $10 used on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Tree-Life-Eden-Eternity/dp/1609086740

In addition to my first reply, I'll also add another thing that has helped me a lot. This book:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Zen Living, https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Zen-Living/dp/159257243X/

This may seem like an odd thing here in an LDS forum. I'm LDS too, not Buddhist. But I've found a lot of wisdom for daily life from books like this from our Buddhist friends. They have taught me a lot about letting go of past regrets and future fears, accepting reality, experiencing this very moment of our mortal life, not becoming too attached to things in mortality, etc.

If you want an example of what I'm talking about: My experience in driving on freeways in cities (Salt Lake and Utah country, for example) is complete stress and chaos. It honestly feels like a war zone to me. What if instead we all took a zen attitude that we're all going to get there and just flow together. Other examples are how so attached some people get to sports teams, politics, becoming rich, etc.

The spiritual teachings are the main thing.

It was written as a spiritual history, so many secular details are not included. This makes it hard to study from a scholarly angle.

However, I think scholars can give us a lot of insights. For example, Nibley's BYU class Book of Mormon lectures are mind-blowing: https://www.amazon.com/Teachings-Book-Mormon-Part-One-ebook/dp/B007F422NC/

Other things like geography studies seem to be an unimportant waste of time to me. We have no idea where the events happened, besides somewhere in the New World, and it doesn't really teach you anything valuable anyway.

This is a thing from "The Richest Man in Babylon" - an early 20th Century financial advice tract, not an LDS thing: this teacher is working with a group and telling them to save 10% of their income. Someone pipes up with essentially the same problem: I'm barely making ends meet, how can I forego 10% of what I earn and rely on? The teacher asks around the room, and it turns out the first guy's 90% is another guy's 100%. Everybody's 90% is somebody's 100%.

There are a lot of great scriptures and teachings and talks on the subject, but sometimes, just reframing the situation is what helps people make the jump to positive changes in their lives.

I've really fallen out of the reading habit in favor of more technological pursuits, unfortunately. The bulk of my reading these days is honestly MLP fanfiction, which I also write from time to time. Not sure if anyone's interested in the particulars of that super-genre though.

For more traditional reads, I'd have to say I absolutely adore Lovecraft. Small scale stories of puny humans against incomprehensible cosmic forces, set in Byzantine prose so lush you can roll around in it. At the Mountains of Madness is amazing overall, and the Dunwich Horror has one of the most gorgeously unsettling opening chapters I've ever read.

In a slightly different vein, I've never read any Stephen King novels, but I've devoured On Writing a handful of times. It just speaks to me for some reason and always gets the creative juices flowing.

"Salvation is not a cheap experience" - Elder Holland

Edit: One more of my favorite quotes, from a Jewish Holocaust survivor - "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances" - Viktor Frankl (from "Man's Search for Meaning", I highly recommend it)

This is a book that gave me some great insights as to WHY it seems to take so long, at times, and the road is so hard to get the answers to my prayers. I suggest picking it up. When Your Prayers Seem Unanswered

Also, one book I think every human being on earth aught to read at least once in their lifetime is &quot;Man's Search for Meaning&quot; by Viktor Frankl. It really isn't a religious book, but it's in my top 10 spiritually uplifting books. It was his account of his struggles through the concentration camps in WWII. He was a psychologist and analyzed the process of endurance, what it takes to survive, and what it was like when people gave in. Its horrifying and uplifting at the same time. In your situation, you may find it comforting and validating.

You are right.

While it is true that the exact phrasing is from Will Durant, it is so close as to what Aristotle says in Nicomachean Ethics that it is almost as much translation as summary. The idea is certainly Aristotle's.

But it is always good to be careful in attribution.

Great article, well thought out and well worth the time to read it. One of the aspects that I like to emphasize that I've never quite seen the appropriate treatment - and it's touched on a bit in this article - is the difference between "choice" and "options".

Ultimately we always have the agency to choose between the options that are presented, though the options may be few. For instance, the author brings up the "I had no choice" statement, which is a bogus statement. "I didn't have any other appealing options" would be more accurate. I think that's where the "right to choose" argument gets lost. Maybe the "right to more options" would be more accurate. But do we really have that "right"?

For instance, if I were to drop my bag of nails on the floor and my 2-year-old wanted to put them in his mouth, would I be robbing him of his "right to choose" if I picked them up, or just removing the option? Or, if I were to fall off of a skyscraper, what are my options? Could I fly? If I flapped my arms real fast? No. Gravity would be the result of the fall, but it's not gravity robbing me of my "right to choose" to fly, it simply isn't an option. This scenario really narrows down the view of agency - what is my agency in this situation, what are my options at this point?

I think Victor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning, said it best >"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances…".

In this light, we always have agency, and the attitude with which we use it will ultimately define our eternity.

Wasting time on my phone. The other day my toddler sat on my chest, between me and the phone, put her hands on my face, and said, "See me!" Big wake-up call.

So I've got a blocker app on my phone now, and I set it for hour-long blocks of unplugged time. Two days in, but it feels great so far.

In case you didn't know about it, check out the archive.org 'wayback machine'.

https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://lds.org

They pull regular snapshots of most popular websites. You can click on the calendar to see how things looked on an available day.

> And how do I best deal with the internet firewall that surrounds our chapel?

I've used the Tor browser on my laptop to bypass the firewall and show videos from mormon.org or the LDS Youtube channel with success. If you share a building with a lot of people though, you might not have enough bandwidth.

Thank you for this reply. To this day that is my favorite interview. If the podcast means something to you please consider helping the podcast by checking this out and sharing this with others https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1715601630/mormon-discussion-podcast-leading-with-faith-podca

Jeff can certainly be snarky, but I didn't really see any of that in this post.

I also didn't read this as saying that those of you who struggle with the 'totality of information' are 'idiots'. To be perfectly honest, it appears to me that you are reading too much into it.

I agree with what he says, though, which is that these "Big List" arguments are meant not to encourage constructive discourse, or even to find the truth:

> The Big List is loaded with barbed questions that weren't written in search of a real answer. If there is a good defense to the arguments raised at first, never mind, there are many more to be launched in different directions.

It's truly is fallacious reasoning to conclude that the Church can't be true "when there are so many arguments against it". These "Big Lists" are meant to instill doubt, not to find answers.

In fact, at the end of Jeff's article, he provides a starting point for those with questions:

> To help those coping with Big List issues, I've begin compiling my own list of recommended reading for students of the LDS religion. I hope it will be helpful to some. I'm not saying that you have to read this list before you leave the Church (or join it), but if you're willing to look at answers and evidences, it might be a great place to start.

I don't think you can accurately characterize his post as reducing doubters to idiots, nor can you accurately characterize it as dismissing genuine doubts. It seems (to me, at least...maybe I'm the odd man out) to be much more about dismissing fallacious reasoning, and not being overwhelmed by criticisms.

All that said, I can certainly understand where you're coming from, and I know how all-consuming those doubts can be. I would just ask you to take a step back, and never fall into the vulgar mistake.

You can link the two accounts (even with a free ancestry account- but I think it is just limited to the first four generations). I just did this, but can't really seem to get it all to work right, maybe you'll have better luck.

https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/exchange-details-ancestry-family-tree-2/

Byron Marchant

Douglas A. Wallace

There may have been others, but these are the only two I'm familiar with.

Here is the original article

And this

lots of music and dancing. Usually they do church activities, bible verses and some type of school. Our girls really enjoy them. We live in the bible belt so I don't know where they have them elsewhere. Many of the LDS families do them since it is a big part of summer culture.

I tried starting A Princess of Mars a few times and really couldn't get into it. Then, at my job, I ended up on a project doing a lot of data entry type stuff, so I decided to listen to an audio version instead. I found this version on Librivox (a site that provides audio recordings of works in the public domain) which was rather pleasant. The ending was a bit weird, but otherwise I enjoyed it! I just need another dull project like that and I'll listen to the second one! :)

I've never tried Lovecraft, but I'm not much into horror, so . . .

Huh. I was going to suggest that they called them "firesides" after FDR's famous radio addresses.

But Google informs me that word peaked in the mid-19th century so I wonder if Mormons have been using it for a very long time.

I largely agree, but I think you might be interested in knowing about software like Calibre, which can convert ebooks from one format to another.

It's free. I used it to convert a book I wrote from word document to Kindle format in order to self-publish on Amazon, and it works pretty well.

I don't know if it supports Moonreader, but it might enable you to manage your library legally if you wish to.

This is an important distinction. A recent anthropology course I took from Hebrew University talked a bunch about myths. For example, banking is a myth. So is the military, nation states, judicial systems, economies, music, art, etc.

They aren't myths because they lack reality. Basically, anything which is not controlled solely by gene expression could be considered "myth" since it is expressed via cognition, memes, culture, etc. not merely genes. A naturalist world-view is limited to saying religion is merely a human cognitive creation alone. Other world-views are not obligated to make that same conclusion.

I wear these to the temple https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O4W957Y/ I just used a seem ripper to remove the inside tag as it was stitched on with red thread which was visible on the outside rear waistband.

If I were sending a gift in that situation, I'd mail it to their future address, because transporting something more that they didn't plan on might be tough. Maybe something of a housewarming gift. (A collage of your family or the kinds of activities you shared, a Welcome to the ____ family home sign (though in some places this wouldn't be okay for security reasons), Or maybe get something to read (?? https://www.amazon.com/Jehovah-Testament-Richard-Neitzel-Holzapfel/dp/1606411365) or do on the plane? (Or if they are travelling with kids, maybe pack them lunch or some games for the kids?)

I think I'd really appreciate a thoughtful letter about the good times we'd shared.

I have recently been enjoying the "brief theological introduction" series. It has given me new ways to look at the BoM. I have also had fun woth Josephsmithpapers.org

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0842500073/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_XMTSFMDZG5W4E4KDVX80?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1