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Re: Blacks and the priesthood Ecclesiastes 3
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
What am I doing spiritually? That’s a good question for me. In short I’m trying to become active in the Church again and become Temple worthy. Patti and I, my wife of 35 years, have never been inside of a Temple. We have been out wandering the face of the earth communing with Heavenly Father and visiting His creations for the past 3 years. We have not been to church in 10 years but we read the scriptures and try to keep the Sabbath as best as we could while in foreign lands and at sea. I’ve wanted to go to Church in some of these countries we’ve visited but it’s really hard. We anchor out and take a rubber dinghy to shore. Keeping nice clothing is impossible, they mildew fast. I bought a new set of church clothes when we left Mexico and by the time I dug them out in Samoa they were toast. It’s a wet ride to shore etc…lot’s of excuses. But while at anchor in Pago Pago I felt the Holy Spirit calling me to go be sealed to my wife and to start doing proxy baptisms. We have a lot of dead friends and relatives that need the chance to be ministered to in the spirit world. I can’t face them without doing something about it.
Now we are back in the Los Angeles area parent sitting Patti’s folks. Her Dad is 90 and step Mom is 87. We can no longer leave them alone. We had 2 good caregivers but none are willing to work Sunday morning. One has taken a construction job so we are down to one caregiver. We kept the caregivers because they needed the work, her folks can afford it and Patti has had 2 hand operations. Patti really can’t be doing a lot of hand work, she cries at night in her sleep due to pain. She is a trooper and does not complain in public.
So I guess my first step is to go to Church by myself and meet some people. I don’t mind saying I’m scared. We have Word of Wisdom problems (which are minor compared to the past), there seems to be an apostasy going on (which surprised me) and we live in a high dollar area on a low budget. I’ve bought church clothing for me but we still need Patti’s.
I’m not so worried about appearances and feeling out of place as I am about this apostasy. I really hope our Bishop is guided by the Spirit and believes in the ordinances. We have a few issues to work out before we could become Temple worthy and I’d like to get some worthy people to start on the proxy baptisms. I don’t want my friends and relatives to have to wait on me. I don’t know, it’s been so long I really don’t remember how it all works. I do have a testimony that Our Father in Heaven listens to prayers and sometimes He answers them on the spot, I enjoy conversing with Him for days on end at sea. The Church of Jesus Christ LDS must truly be the work of Christ or else why would the Holy Spirit call me back? I have to believe the ordinances performed in the Temple must be bound in heaven.
Rod
I guess I’m leading a sheltered life now, I’ve never even heard of the show until last week on MADB. One more thing, by being “taken down to perdition” to me means to be cut off from the light of Christ, to have no conscious, to not care one wit about doing evil things, to be cut off from the Holy Spirit for all eternity. I’m not a very good communicator so I’d like to add a little more. I definitely got the feeling that the angel of darkness wanted to take me down to perdition but the Angel of the Lord wouldn’t let him because our Heavenly Father still saw some good in me, still saw a chance for me to come back to the fold no matter how long the road. I don’t necessarily mean back to the Church but back to having a one on one relationship with our Heavenly Father, if that’s where it leads then that’s fine with me. Before we were ever in the church we were taught that one of the reasons for the old testament and the story of ancient Israel was to get to know God. How will he act in certain situations, what is He like, will he keep his promises. How He treated the Israelites is how we can expect Him to treat us. It’s one way to get to know Him. It’s why I love sailing, I get plenty of one on one time with Him.
Curt, I was trying to lay the groundwork for the situation as you don’t really know me. But the vision was simply a vision of two angels fighting over me, it was short and concise. Looking back all these years it would be hard to describe the beings, I guess human beings of light fighting with swords, I don’t recall any “wings” but they may have been on horses.
I was asleep in bed and woke up freaked out and relived at the same time. I knew something terrible, wonderful and important had happened.
I know you’re probably thinking I was on drugs but I wasn’t and my drugs of choice weren’t like that. I told only my wife for years because I knew that’s what my friends would say.
I hope I didn’t give the impression I was blaming Satan for my problems but rather that he is there waiting to take advantage of those who have given up hope or given up the battle between good and evil or those that choose the dark side for temporal personal gain. Rod
Thank you all for the welcome. We are definetly a sailboat, it has a 30 hp engine but we use it to charge our batteries. We also have a solar panel and a wind generator which supplies most of our power needs. We do have a motoring range of about 500 miles but we prefer to sail, it’s much more quiet, the ride is better and we save our fuel for emergencies. We also have a watermaker the makes fresh water from saltwater, it only makes a gallon per hour but it will run off the wind generator in the tradewinds. Rod
I certainly believe he exists. I had a dream/vision one night that an Angel of the Lord fought an angel of Satan over my soul. I believe the Angel of the Lord prevailed as I’m still here. This was 17 years ago, we lived in front of the Temple in Las Vegas, about a block away, we have never been in a Temple but we used to study on the lawn in front, just to be near the presence of the Lord. We were active in the Church but we were struggling mightily with serious Word of Wisdom problems, drugs, meth, cocaine, pot, alcohol, cigarettes. We loved our jobs in the Church library, we had a testimony of a blessing larger than we could contain for tithing, we believed in the Church and we had a Bishop in the ward who befriended us but we could not break the bonds of drug addiction/use. We had been running from ourselves for 10 years at this point and then we moved again and it got worse. Then one day I got a job offer far away to go to work for my adopted brother (who is not a member, we are the only members in our family) and the one rule was no white stuff but I really wanted the job so I took it. We’ve been clean from the devil’s white powder since then, about 13 years. The ironic thing is my brother is an atheist and he hates Mormons, he grew up in Idaho outside the Church and was shunned by 99% of the members, the enire population of his town, which is one of the reasons he is an atheist. I don’t hold it against him, I love him for doing the Lord’s work and getting me cleaned up. We still have Word of Wisdom problems but they are managable. “The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist”, from the movie “Exit Wounds”
We still haven’t been inside a Temple but I hear the Spirit calling me to get sealed to my wife of 35 years, but that’s another thread,
Main Entry: cult Pronunciation: ˈkəlt
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: French & Latin; French culte, from Latin cultus care, adoration, from colere to cultivate — more at wheel
Date: 1617
1: formal religious veneration : worship
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual ; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious ; also : its body of adherents
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator
5 a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book) ; especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b: the object of such devotion c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
I suppose #2 could fit. I don’t have a problem with it anymore than I do with labeling anything. We are listed under cults at the Mormon shooting gallery CARM.
I always assumed that polygamy was a means to grow the young Church from within. I don’t have a problem with it in the Historical LDS Church. It’s already been pointed out that polygamy was acceptable to many of the patriarchs in the OT. I’ve been inactive so long I didn’t realize it was a stumbling block for some members. I also don’t understand the current fascination with polygamy along with the “who was the real Joseph Smith”, it all didn’t seem to be much of an issue when we were active. No matter what is dug up on JS I will always except the Book of Mormon as scripture, as I find the same Jesus Christ in the BoM that I find in the New Testament. I don’t have the same testimony of the D&C because I have not read it in a long time.
Thank you Ray. We actually prefer the islands to being at sea too. Sailing 2600 miles with no land in sight was certainly an experience, we were so happy to be in the Marquesas Islands we didn’t want to leave. Having only a 90 day visa keeps you moving but the distance between islands got shorter and shorter until the run from Bora Bora to American Samoa, which was 1100 miles. FYI we average about 100 miles per day. We spent 5 months in Pago Pago before leaving.
Rod
