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One thing that has always bothered my with the Patriarchal Blessing was the little talk the Patriarch has with the person before the blessing. He will chat with them, ask them about their family (if he does not already know the family), ask about schooling and their plans on the future. Then he incorporates this into their blessings. If they say they like math in school, he’ll bless them to “make great technological advancements for the benefit of the Lord” Now, it could be said that the Patriarch is just doing his homework, and thinking it out in his mind before going to the Lord for the blessing as they are instructed to do. But then others read the blessing, not knowing about the little chat beforehand, and say what a miracle it is that the Lord knew about his/her ambitions to be an engineer/writer/teacher etc.
And about the phraseology, my daughter had a phrase in hers that seemed very unique. But then she was dating a boy in our stake, and they shared patriarchal blessings (from the same patriarch) and he had the exact same phrase. Some say we are not to share our blessings. I wonder if it is so people do not find out that a lot them are almost the same from the same patriarch?
Not to scare you, but in my experience while bishop, I NEVER turned in somebodies name to be made a HP unless it was for a calling that required them to be a HP. And then it was done together. FYI, callings that you must be a HP for are HPGL, his two assistants, Bishop, and the two councilors. Everything else can be an Elder. Watch your back! My SP would not read RSR. He said he started to, and then didn’t like the negative things it said about JS, so he stopped reading it. He was then called as a mission president. So not everybody is ready for RSR. Remember the “Know Your Religion” series. You would pay at the door of a church building to hear a CES employee who was getting paid to talk about religion. This always smacked of Priestcraft, and I like to believe that some of the 12 thought so too, and abandoned it some 15 years ago. All money goes to a central account in SLC. But each ward and each stake has precise accounting on what goes in and what goes out. Each ward is expected to “live within its means”, i.e. take in more than they pay out. While bishop, as long as I paid out less than I took in for the ward, my SP never questioned me. But as soon as I went over, he wanted to review every expenditure, and wanted to know what I was doing to get people off welfare.
This is repeated at the stake level. The stake is expected to spend less than they pay out. Wealthier wards will subsidize the poorer wards. If they don’t, the SP then needs to answer to his Area Authority.
And Ray is exactly right about Third World countries subsidizing the United States. We were told by a visiting 70 in a Bishop’s training session that Mexico has a net surplus of fast offerings, while the USA is a net user of fast offerings.
While Bishop, I would ask new members of the ward what calling they would like to do, and then try to accommodate them. People do a better job if it is a calling they like and want! But of course nobody is going to say “I want to be the RS Pres” (or Primary, Elders or HPGL) . Those I just looked for somebody with organizational skills and that got along with others. I never felt any “burning of the bosom” when deciding who to call, I just picked somebody, and called them if it felt right. I made mistakes, and some people told me “no”, but it wasn’t a big deal, I just found somebody else. Old-Timer wrote:It should be noted that we didn’t practice “infant baptism” in the classic sense of that term. Baptisms for health and baptisms for the remission of sins were seen as two very distinct practices, and we never baptized small children or infants for a remission of sins. When they were baptized, it always was for healing / health.
Ray, you are absolutely correct. See below from Journal of Mormon History
Quote:That baptism for health was viewed as separate and distinct
from other baptismal rituals in Nauvoo is illustrated by the scattered
references to administering the ritual to children under the age of
eight, a practice not extant in later periods. Abraham Hunsaker had
his three-year-old son baptized in the temple font in the spring of
1842, and Seymour B. Young told a 1921 general conference that his
father had baptized him for his health before he turned eight.
Bathsheba Smith wrote to her missionary husband about their
three-month-old son: “George Albert was sick last saterday and
sunday.He had quite a feavor. I was vary uneaseey about
him . . . I took him to the fount and had him baptised and sinse
then he has not hadany feavor. He is about well now.”
Furthermore, while baptism for health had become a formalized
rite for Church members, healings associated with convert
baptisms also continued, although records ofthem became less
frequent with the passage of time.
What I found fascinating was that baptisms for health for a time was the number one “ordnance” performed in the endowment house, beating out endowments and baptisms for the dead. For the record, I too think the change was for the better. I think these changes have always happened, but now with the internet we all know about them. BKPs talks get toned down, TSM’s talks get cleaned up, and we get a more polished Ensign version. Too bad they couldn’t have done this with BY and the JoD. Maybe we wouldn’t have this Blood Atonement stuff still hanging around! raygun wrote:I don’t think it means anything and using the word “censorship” is hyperbole, big time.
Ok, you are correct and I was wrong to use the word censorship. A better title would have been “Correlation of GC talks begin” or something like that. But I don’t for a minute believe that TSM decided to change the talk all on his own. I believe somebody in the church that is monitoring social media saw chatter about his use of words, and told him about it.
Roy wrote:What kind of blowback?
There is a lot of talk on other less friendly internet discussion boards about how Pres Monson said God will love us even if we don’t deserve it. This implies that some people don’t deserve God’s love. No other way to interpret it.
So Ray, or anybody else, give us an explanation of how Pres Monson could have misread his talk, or made a typo, and then Holland misread his also, or made the same typo?
Heber13 wrote:So to me, how does one find out if it is true?
Here is how you know it is true:
Quote:Moroni 10:4
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true;…….
So, I pray, and I do exactly as the book says:“God, are these things not true”?
He can answer one of two ways:
1. I hear a voice say “Yes, these things are not true”
2. I hear a voice say” No, these things are not true”
Short of pulling out a book on Boolean logic , I’m not sure either answer tells me anything about the book!
Why didn’t the “spirit” prompt the son to pull over and rest? Why didn’t the “spirit” prompt the father to call the son and tell him to pull over? It seems the “spirit” is playing games. It knows what is going to happen, and can stop the whole thing, which it does in other faith promoting stories in the Ensign, GC talks, etc. In other cases it does not stop the accident, but keeps people from getting hurt. And in some cases people die. In every case it is a “faith promoting lesson”. How is this any different than there being no “spirit”, and things just happen?
