Mormon Bloggers

Assignment for the day: Write a blog about why you have a blog

I am not good at making friends. Not even a little. Mostly I have W make friends for me, and then take over from there. My best friend is no exception. She and W went to EFY together, and she has the honorable distinction of being the only girl at the camp that did not make out with my husband-to-be, who was a notorious man-whore. I think God knew that I needed her more than his lips did.

We met randomly, when he introduced me to her at UVCC/SC/U as she happened to pass by. We were in the dining hall, which was the only place he frequented during his first year there. I was visiting from The Lord’s University (slumming) as the introductions were made. I didn’t think too much about it.

Then, randomly (but not really, I think) she and her husband moved in next door. And after a few weeks I left my husband for her. And her Hawaiian Haystacks.

Later, after I moved from West Pro to EP she sent an email saying that she had started a blog. So I started one, too, because I thought hers was awesome. And I am a copier ALL THE WAY.

And from there, ran into another friend from college that W made for me. And another friend that ~J made for me. And another. And another. More and more and more and more and more friends. More than I have ever had.

And I found myself surrounded by these women on the internet. And when I visit I am surrounded by these women in person. And I love them more than most things in my life. And I want them to love me. And know about me. And that is why I have a blog.

Also, because I sometimes like to post letters to children’s characters. (Stay tuned for that collaborative gem…)

Jesus taught, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2.)

Heaven, in the most correct sense, is the place Jesus and God live, and it is where we may also go if we are worthy to enter into His presence. However, Mormons do not believe there are only two places a person can be sent after death. People live their lives with varying degrees of commitment to God and so there are several homes, or mansions, depending on the choices each person makes in life.

It is important to first understand that through grace and the atonement of Christ, all people who live on earth can be resurrected and live forever, without any action on their own part. Grace does not come with a price for those who made the choice to be born. Through grace, each person may be forgiven for his sins if he repents. Mormons are among the few religions that teach that grace is ours without works, not even the work of accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior. Of course, for those who do accept the Savior, there are even greater rewards.

Each person who lives on earth is given the gift of agency. We used our agency to choose life on earth and throughout our lives, we continue to use our agency to decide many eternally significant things. We decide whether or not to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior if we’re fortunate enough to learn of Him in this lifetime. We also decide how much we love Him and how many of His commandments we’re willing to live. Obedience requires sacrifice, but also comes with great blessings and each person decides for himself whether or not he is willing to give up some temporal pleasures in order to gain eternal ones.

Mormon beliefs teach that each person is accountable only for his or her own sins and not for the choices made by Adam and Eve. Accountability means we are held responsible for the choices we make and will be judged accordingly. The Bible tells us no unclean thing can enter into Heaven, meaning into God’s presence, and so there has to be a judgment. This does not mean a person must be perfect. As mentioned earlier, the atonement allows us to repent and to be forgiven if we do so.

Mormons teach that those who accept Jesus as their Savior, take His name on themselves, and honor that name through righteous living will be allowed to return to God’s presence to live forever. This is the Celestial Kingdom, God’s own home. Naturally, every faithful Mormon has this as his goal, as does every other faithful Christian. It cannot be won by simply accepting Jesus once and then going on about your lives unchanged. The process of exaltation into God’s kingdom is a lifelong and even eternal pursuit, requiring the faithful to strive each day to draw closer to God and to bring his life more in accord with the teachings of God.

Jesus taught: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven,” (Matthew 7:21).

Naturally, those who can dwell in God’s kingdom will be good and valiant people.

Mormon beliefs include the promise that those who never heard the gospel but who would have accepted it if they had will have the opportunity to accept it after their death. This is not a second chance, but a first chance. A fair and just God would never punish someone for something entirely out of his control.

The second level of heaven is known as the terrestrial kingdom. While they may not live with God, they will be visited by the Savior. This kingdom is for people who were good people, but who allowed themselves to be misled by Satan and by other people. It will also include those who accepted the gospel but who didn’t live it to a celestial level. This demonstrates a reduced commitment to God and His teachings. Those who reject the gospel when they’re taught it on earth may dwell here if they accept it after they die. While this is a place for those who did not earn the highest reward, it will be a peaceful and happy place, even though tinged with grief over losing the presence of the father.

The third kingdom is the telestial kingdom. This kingdom will be a temporary place for those who did not receive the gospel or a testimony of the Savior during their lifetime. For these people, it will be a happy place if they lived their lives to the best of their knowledge and accept the gospel when it is presented. They will receive a greater glory in time.

There are, of course, some who will not dwell in any of these three kingdoms, known as kingdoms of glory. Those who have a sure testimony of Christ and then deny it and others who have forfeited their right to redemption will live in Perdition.

Generally, Mormons do not live lives of fear about their eternal state. They know what they need to do to be where they want to be, and they know that most people will live happy lives for eternity, even if there is some sorrow for missed blessings present.

Because Mormons believe in the gift of repentance, which comes through the Atonement of Christ, they do not live lives of fear. While they are accountable for their choices, and sin is serious, they understand they can repent. If that repentance is complete and sincere, they are forgiven.

For Mormons being saved is a lifelong process. Accepting Jesus as our Savior is only the first step in a life lived out of love for the Savior over any worldly concerns.

MormonsMadeSimple.com is helping Mormons spark casual conversations about the LDS Church on Facebook using simple, explanatory videos.

Silicon Valley, California, August 31, 2009 — A new website, MormonsMadeSimple.com, is using online video and social media to help set the record straight on what Mormons believe.  In Aug 2009, MormonsMadeSimple released a series of five explanatory videos about LDS practices, beliefs, and lifestyles, including such titles as “Mormon Myths”, “The Book of Mormon”, and “Attending a Mormon Church Service.”  They also issued a challenge to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: start a conversation about the Church on Facebook.

The Facebook Missionary Challenge is a 5-8 week program that uses simple, explanatory videos to help Mormons share their beliefs online.  Each week, participants in the challenge are emailed a new MormonsMadeSimple video, along with instructions for posting the video to Facebook, and guidance on how to answer questions relating to topics covered in the video. Participants are encouraged to post these videos to their Facebook profile and then respond to inquiries and comments from friends.

Accordingly to Doug Hatch, one of the project founders, “We saw the wonderful professional video content being produced by the LDS Church, but realized that there might also be a need for something a little more lighthearted and fun.  We’ve been careful to keep the tone of the MormonsMadeSimple videos informative, but not preachy.  We wanted to create videos that members of the Church would feel comfortable posting to Facebook to make a very simple statement: ‘Here’s what I believe.  Take a look if you want to.’”

MormonsMadeSimple videos are specifically designed to address and correct the most common misconceptions about the LDS Church—as identified by an extensive poll conducted by Lawrence Research in 2008 and published in “How Americans View Mormonism.”  The light tone of the videos, and the fun, fast-paced cartoon graphics, make them perfect for online sharing. When used in combination with social networks like Facebook, these videos provide an easy, non-confrontational way to spark casual conversations about the Church.

About MormonsMadeSimple.com:

The MormonsMadeSimple project was started in Jan 2009 by Doug and Laurel Hatch, an LDS couple living in Northern California.  The project consists of a series of videos, a website, and the Facebook Missionary Challenge.  The project is being funded entirely by private donations.  MormonsMadeSimple is a member of the network of LDS-oriented websites hosted and maintained by the More Good Foundation.

Contact:

Douglas Hatch, Producer
MormonsMadeSimple
650-265-8339

doug@stuffmadesimple.com

http://mormonsmadesimple.com

An article worth noting.  However, the following shouldn’t be used as a testimony maker/breaker.  But I do love science, so I wanted to keep a link.  If you like this stuff, too, enjoy!

I’ve discovered a fantastic, thought-provoking website at LDSPhilosopher.com. I’ve enjoyed reading through their archives and I’m sure I will be sharing more from their site as time goes on.

One of their series of posts is named “Intelligence & Agency” and I wanted to link to it from here. The series is about what the Lord means by intelligences in the scriptures. There has not been too much revealed on the topic and these guys do a pretty good job deciphering. After reading the series, I posed a question regarding the millennium and received a satisfactory answer. Here are some excerpts:

Part One

There are a lot of vital doctrines the Lord usually focuses on: priesthood, repentance, the second coming. Usually it seems like he chooses such doctrines because they are vital to our salvation or help us in the process of repenting and becoming like him. On the other end, there are a lot of things he has chosen to not reveal: the full process involved in creation, the timing of the second coming, the history of the lost tribes. Usually it seems like he withholds such doctrines because we’re not ready to understand them, or because we don’t need to know them. Revealed truth doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The Lord always has a purpose for every bit of information he reveals, and it usually involves some kind of moral obligation on our part. He doesn’t reveal things on a whim, just to satisfy our curiosity.

So why bother telling us there is a mysterious something called intelligence and then not tell us anything more about it?

Part Two

Some people think of humans this way: since we were created by God, he decided the initial set of variables in our spirit, and that set of dispositions and inclinations causally determines all our later decisions, which cannot be genuine choices. Free will, then, must be a myth. But since the set of variables and equations are so complex and beyond our understanding, it appears to us that we have free will. So it is a helpful myth that we like to believe.

Part Three

Through the lens of creation ex nihilo, humans seem like mere puppets that act out the will of their divine puppeteer, or dominoes that merely fall because they were pushed by another domino from behind. It’s difficult to see how humans have a will of their own, because every part of their makeup was determined by the Creator, and thus every “choice” is just the inevitable result of the initial set of conditions they were created with.

But when we understand that a part of us, “intelligence” as used in the standard works, has always existed, then it’s easy to see that we have a will of our own.

Part Four

Imagine for a moment a situation in which only some of these ingredients [for there to be agency] were present. The potential for agency would exist, but agency in its fullness would not be functioning. If I tell you to choose whichever candy bar you want, but I only offer you a Butterfinger, agency is not in force. When you complain that you don’t like Butterfingers, imagine if I said, “Then why did you pick it?” I may remind you that you are accountable when exercising your power to choose, but it’s a farce of agency, because you didn’t really have anything to choose between (opposites).

Perhaps intelligence, before it is organized at spirit birth, constitutes such a situation, in which not all the ingredients necessary for agency are present.

Introductions and links for each post in the series can be found here. Great read!

Oh La Yen. Why do you keep joining? You have no time.

Nevertheless.

The glory of God is intelligence, you know. And I have been feeling pretty unglorious for the last four years, what with the brain suckage that has been Jooj and Army and the gigantic nuclear furnace that is the EP.

So I joined. Thanks to ~J. You can too. If you want to be all glorious or something. Or not. Eithers.

See you in class!

More signs that I am not popular:

1. The t-shirt my mom got me in Nashville that says “Not Popular”

2. Even the missionaries and Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t knock on my door.

3. My 4-year-old daughter has as many blog followers as I do.

4. The ladies I work with at church keep giving me fake addresses so they can have meetings without me.

5. I’ve started to enjoy a certain companionable silence with the ants that are out by my pool.

6. I left my diary sitting out in the open and nobody wanted to read it.

7. Nobody in this whole wide world has named a baby after me. Hizzigrelda happens to be a wonderful name, and really, it could work for a boy or a girl, so there’s no excuse.

8. I played hide and seek with my kids Saturday morning and nobody came to find me until they got hungry for dinner.

9. I feel left out when my foot falls asleep without the rest of me.

Last week I shared powerful scriptures to remember when faced with temptation. However, the devil is very powerful as well. We need a lot more tools than just a scripture to defeat him. The most powerful tool available to us is prayer. Brigham Young said, “Prayer keeps a man from sin. Sin keeps a man from prayer.”

I’m going to be lazy this week.. and simply point you to two articles I’ve come across about Baptism for the Dead.

The first is by Hugh Nibley and can be found here:

Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times

The focus of this paper is about evidence for the practice in the original church that Jesus Christ established.

The second is by Jeff Lindsay, a Latter-Day Saint blogger on the subject:

FAQ: Baptism for the Dead

Both are worth a read. My wife and I taught a group of 15-16 year old youth today at church on this subject. These articles were very helpful in preparing.

Enjoy!

These two essays are amazing:”Hope Arising from the Ashes of Grief,” Part 1 and Part 2I will say that I had the privilege of also talking with these women. I saw a presentation they did a few months ago and was so impressed. Amazed, really. I have since had personal discussions with each of them (one is a good friend of mine, and the other has become a friend). When I talked to them this week

I got the written copy of my patriarchal blessing in the mail today! It came to my house in Oregon so my mom was awesome and scanned it and sent it to me! Thanks Mom–you made my day SO much better!

While Moroni was abridging the Book of Ether, he marveled at the powerful words of the Brother of Jared. Moroni worried that those who read his book would mock him for his awkward writing style and his clumsiness in expressing things of great spiritual import. When he brought his concerns to the Lord, the Lord told him not to fear. “Fools mock,” He said, “but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness” (Ether 12:26). He followed this promise with words that are consistently comforting to me. “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness” (v. 27-28).

The Apostle Paul, miraculously converted on the road to Damascus, relayed a similar experience in pleading with the Lord regarding his own weakness. “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12: 7-10).

Moroni’s words–and those of the prophets whose books he abridged–are great and powerful, and have been translated into over 100 languages. It was Moroni who penned the beautiful promise that has led millions to pray and ask God and thereby gain a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon (Moroni 10:3-5). Paul, who complained about his weakness, wrote most of the New Testament–including great discourses on faith, grace, charity, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

I have recently become more acutely aware of my weakness and inadequacy. But I take comfort in the Lord’s words to His servants, “Wherefore, I call upon the weak things of the world, those who are unlearned and despised, to thrash the nations by the power of my Spirit; And their arm shall be my arm, and I will be their shield and their buckler and I will gird up their loins, and they shall fight manfully for me” (Doc. & Cov. 35:13). The Lord has promised to uphold, defend, preserve, and even strengthen those who serve Him, no matter their weakness. He has promised that through humility, weak things can become strong; that through the Atonement, all things can be overcome. “And by giving heed and doing these things which ye have received, and which ye shall hereafter receive—and the kingdom is given you of the Father, and power to overcome all things which are not ordained of him” (Doc. & Cov. 50:35). This He can do and He will do, if we will turn to Him. Our weak things will be made strong, and the thorns that pierce our flesh will draw us closer to our Savior who wore them as a crown.

“For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled” (Mormon 8:22).

Picture from http://oneyearbibleimages.com/