- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
george, can you provide a source? I’d be interested in seeing it. This applies to LaLaLove’s MIL as well, but some people just say and do some really, really, really stupid things. (since it is flat-out impossible to do your genealogy back to Adam)
Old-Timer wrote:george, can you provide a source? I’d be interested in seeing it.
This applies to LaLaLove’s MIL as well, but some people just say and do some really, really, really stupid things. (since it is flat-out impossible to do your genealogy back to Adam)
Hi Ray,
My knowledge of the subject comes from half a century of serious genealogical work. We used to review Nauvoo period baptisms, which were performed in the Mississippi River before the Nauvoo temple fount was finished, to try to avoid duplication of work. Only records of family living within your lifetime were allowed back then. Since many folks knew their grand parents or great grandparents as “Granny Smith” or “Grandpa Jones,” the records often reflected the same. Given names had not been learned as children, before old loved ones died. Instructions of the time were only good moral people were to have their work done, “no enemies of the church,” and certainly not murderers. I think the new FamilySearch.com might give you some data, also the fine old book, Temples of the Most High. I would look at the works of Alvin S. Dyer as well. Sorry, my old books are packed in a half dozen cardboard boxes and buried in a storage facility fifteen miles away, near my old home.
Thanks, george. I understand. George – my Navajo brother – I’ve missed hearing your comments the last few months. Welcome back. I think you probably have a pretty good sense of the topic, from your church service, and i think this comment sums up a ton of how I personally feel on this LDS issue – and could be said of many other problems I have with my LDS tribe.
Quote:Why is this allowed? What has happened to reason? To critical thinking? A loving ordinance has become a nightmare…
Amen brother.
George wrote:Food for thought. Over a hundred expensive buildings, built to facilitate the saving of deceased people on those endless genealogies. But concerning the thousands of children whose lives are threaten daily by poverty and lack of food in Africa (and elsewhere), I sometimes question the priorities for those who would act as “Saviors of Mount Zion.” This life, next life, why is a chose so difficult? I realize there are ordinances for the living as well, I respect that. Wasn’t the original “tabernacle” made of tents, so it could be moved? Any old testament scholars out there?
PS: My current calling is family history specialist. I am known as a research helper mostly, not so much focused on the vicarious end of the program.
The standard answer to this is the quote from the Bible when a woman annointed Jesus’ feet with oil. Judas objected, saying, “the oil could be sold and the proceeds given to the poor”. Jesus said — “the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me with you”. So, he suggested that being close to the Savior is more important than feeding the poor when there is a tradeoff. This has been used to justify the amounts invested in temples.
Personally, I have trouble buying it. I think the family history concept is there to keep us with reasons to renew our temple recommends so we keep enduring to the end on commandments like tithing, for example. If you went to the temple once and had no reason to go back, it would be easy to backslide and forget your covenants.
For me, it’s not so much the fact that the Church has buit such lavish temples, and usually, an upper class home near the temple for the temple president to live in (as it is in our temple district) — at least there is some spiritual basis for it, and the saving ordinances for the dead do bring a sense of fairness ot the whole plan of salvation that is sorely lacking from traditional Christianity.
For me, its the money they spend on their business interests, such as malls, risky real estate developments, and how so little of the funds donated by members go back to the Wards to fund the programs to make them good. I sat with our social activities people a while ago and we brainstormed things we could do to make the activities better attended. Some of hte suggestions cost money, and they expressed the fact that they barely had a budget.
This has been typical in any adult calling I’ve had — beyond printed materials and funding for youth and primary, there isn’t a lot of resources committed to enriching the lives of adult members through socialization and such. Most of the things we are expected to do as adults are just plain hard. Moving, getting to the chapel early just to sit there if the seminary teacher is female, home teaching. Sitting through Stake meetings that require travel to hear the same things over and over again. I was in one ward, and one of hte members, a good, long-time member started slipping in his Church attendance. He said to me “The Church isn’t very fulfilling socially up here — it’s just hard”.
Not that we should be paying for trips to Hawaii for the adults, but I think we could do a lot more to make life in the Church socially satisfying, rather than requiring the members to be operating at the spiritual level of Ghandi to find any fulfillment.
SilentDawning wrote:…Not that we should be paying for trips to Hawaii for the adults, but I think we could do a lot more to make life in the Church socially satisfying, rather than requiring the members to be operating at the spiritual level of Ghandi to find any fulfillment.
cwald wrote:George – my Navajo brother – I’ve missed hearing your comments the last few months. Welcome back.
I think you probably have a pretty good sense of the topic, from your church service, and i think this comment sums up a ton of how I personally feel on this LDS issue – and could be said of many other problems I have with my LDS tribe.
Quote:Why is this allowed? What has happened to reason? To critical thinking? A loving ordinance has become a nightmare…
Amen brother.
cwald, my Navajo brother. Thanks for the welcome back. I had gotten into the Mormon Stories Podcasts. They are wonderful, but so time constraining. Recently I snuck back to StayLDS and immediately loved about ten of the ongoing threads. Thus my “rebaptism” into the website. In my “middle road” approach to all thing LDS, I’ve turned a little more in the direction of the church (be it a “trademark” of the Corporation of the President). My path is probably influenced by temple marriages of three grandchildren in fifteen months. Although I chose not to join them in the temple, still their love gave renewal and perhaps, a little hope for the future. My new grandson-in-law hugged me before the wedding last Friday and said he was looking forward to hearing first hand, my remembrances of a half century in the church. I could but smile (if he only knew). Time marches on, the church and I both age. I will eventually die. I wonder about the church? WIll the story of the “Shakers” repeat itself? Young love on the other hand springs eternal. It is the true mystery of life. Now, returning this thread to endless genealogies… (sorry)
I’m glad to see you back too, George. I can’t see the LDS being Shakers. They banned sex, we just restrain it.
😆 Am I the only one who thinks it’s ironic that people called “Shakers” banned sex? 😮 I don’t think “Movers and Shakers” meant the same thing when Ann Lee started her church… 
Old-Timer wrote:Am I the only one who thinks it’s ironic that people called “Shakers” banned sex?
😮 I think it’s highly ironic, particularly when you consult the lyrical canon of scripture produced by the great moral beacon and contemporary rock group AC/DC. The song “You Shook Me All Night Long” is at complete loggerheads with the Shaker’s ban on sex.
I feel your pain in some ways. What makes or breaks a ward are the members positive attitudes toward changing things for the better. What my brother did when he moved into a new area was invite people over for dinner each Sunday, he would start off with the new people first and then work his way into the body of the membership. This was really wise, since he could know the people that were similar to him that were the newbies, then he would already have established rapport; he would already be beating the ward at what it should do. I sometimes did the same thing, I was proactive and invited people out to go Christmas caroling. I didn’t need permission from anyone in the Church; I went to home teaching families, other members, and non-member friends and hand my own group of about twenty. It’s all about just having fun and being proactive. Their are a lot of good things you can do outside of the Church that are in harmony of the Church doctrine. We have to understand that we are just a small part of a much larger culture that accepts fun activities like potlucks, picnics, flying kites, running, biking, etc. I think we expect the church to do stuff for us but forget that we are agents unto ourselves and the church provides networking options. Hope this helps.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.