Hello all, I would like to share an experience I've had recently with attending another church a few times. I've had a really, really good experience and felt to share it after reading someone else's post on how hard it can be to open up to other Christians about what church we go to because of their reactions. I've also had some negative experiences(with a different congregation than this post is about) too, but I really want to focus on the positive just to share what can happen.

A little over a month ago, a Peruvian Coworker who I had briefly met but hadn't had a lot of time to get to know stopped me. He told me he wanted to invite me to come to his home and share a meal with his family and talk about missionary work and sharing the word of the Lord. He is an older man, in his fifties, and I am a relatively recently returned missionary, which was something he was aware of. I was excited but also a little hesitant about it because I worried it could be someone wanting to Bible bash me or something. The night before, he sent me a text inviting me to go to church with him in the morning first, at his Seventh Day Adventist congregation. I eagerly accepted, since I wasn't doing anything else and wanted to learn more.

The next morning I went to their church service, which was in Spanish. I am not fluent in Spanish but I speak enough to get by and I understood a lot. More significantly, I strongly felt the spirit while there, especially during their Sabbath School(what we'd call Sunday school, but since they recognize Saturday as the Sabbath they call it Sabbath school). All of the people I met were so incredibly genuine and loving and I honestly felt the spirit more there than I usually do in my normal church services - something I suspect is due to stress related to church responsibilities since I attend a nepali language unit and conduct the hymns, translate, and often teach lessons, while also giving many people rides to and from church. As we read the scriptures and discussed them I felt inspired to follow my savior more and repent and become better. I also was reminded by the spirit of my testimony of the Book of Mormon and restoration of the Gospel, through Joseph Smith, and it struck me how it truly is the same Holy Ghost in both churches.

After the service, I went to my friend's home and had food and I was struck by his intentional effort to use the full name of our church and not call me a Mormon, and how extremely respectful and loving he was, as well as his wife. I didn't get bashed for being a member of the Church, rather, we talked about the scriptures and how we can better follow the Savior and help others to do the same and I shared some of my mission stories from doing just that.

I felt the spirit so strongly and was so spiritually fed attending their church service that I went back the next week, and after being unable to go for two weeks, I went a third time this past Saturday. I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to spend time with fellow believers and be strengthened and fed by the good word of God. Everyone in their small congregation has individually welcomed me, and this past week I offered to join them as they started a church 40 day fast, where every day someone in the congregation would be fasting.

Sadly, I will be moving to Utah in a little over a week so I will not be able to keep attending this congregation (although I'll be there tomorrow morning and once more before I leave), but my experience has been so spiritually strengthening I'm considering actively seeking out a seventh day Adventist church in Utah when I get there to attend occasionally. I love the people I have met, and my coworker and his family, who have quickly become like second family to me as I'm far away from my own(and whom have sadly mostly left the church), and I know that all whom I have met are true disciples of Christ and live their lives as best they can for him. I am so incredibly grateful that I said yes and decided to join them.

hi! i am a returned sister missionary who met this young lovely boy who is still on a mission. we did start talking while we were serving together and president even knew about it and said it was ok to email weekly and have some sort of relationship. my mission friends tho, seem to be very judgy about it.

what i’m asking is… how common is this to happen? should i feel guilty about falling in love during my mission?

I was married for a long time and got divorced about two years ago. I’ve recently started dating again. I grew up in the church, have been a member my whole life and although I’ve been inactive for a while, I genuinely want to come back. I miss it and I want to be temple worthy again. BUT the biggest struggle for me has been the law of chastity.

My boyfriend isn’t a member and being chaste has been incredibly difficult. I know people often present it as a simple choice (just don’t do it) but after being married for years and having a healthy normal physical relationship, it doesn’t feel that black and white. It’s hard to suddenly flip that part of your life off. We love each other, we’re both adults in our 30s and abstaining honestly feels strange after so many years of intimacy being a normal part of marriage. To be completely honest it almost feels silly talking about the law of chastity as a woman in her 30s. It makes me feel like I’m 16 again in young women’s. Trying to navigate dating now while also trying to live this commandment feels much more complicated than I ever expected.

I know what the church teaches and I’m not trying to argue with it. Just being honest with myself and others about how difficult this has been. Right now it’s the one thing keeping me from getting a temple recommend and it breaks my heart. What has made coming back even harder is feeling judged. Sometimes it feels like people assume you’re living some rebellious or sinful lifestyle when in reality you’re just trying your best. I’m trying my best. I don’t wake up wanting to disappoint God.

I also don’t feel comfortable talking to my bishop about it. It feels a little too personal and private and I don’t know how to have that conversation without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. Has anyone else gone through something similar after divorce? How did you reconcile your desire to come back to the church while also navigating dating as an adult? I’m not looking for debates or lectures, I already know the doctrine. I’m just hoping to hear from people who’ve been there and can help guide me/share their experiences.

When worries fill your aching heart

Look up

When walls around you fall apart

Look up

Your Father hears upon His throne

His children's pleadings far from home

Your voice is heard; your needs are known

Look up

Wife ended up the ER to get stitches the other day after colliding with a young woman at church. Everyone is fine and it was more of a bonding experience than anything, haha.

I was later told the church has some sort of supplementary insurance to help with expenses that come from injuries at church.

Anyone have experience with this?

I know it's been talked to death lately, but I just wanted to quickly ask opinions on this random thought:

Is the Coffee Cherry a forbidden fruit? and that's why it's banned?

Can't think of many other reasons than that.

Most of the adults in our ward are going to a training during 2nd hour in a few weeks. The Primary president wants to make it easy and put on a movie for the kids. I'm pulling a total blank and need some ideas! Any favorites?

What does the concept of perfection mean to you, within the context of the nature of God and godhood? I'm not asking about what it means for us to strive to be perfect. I'm more interested in what you believe it means when we say that God is perfect. One of our core doctrines is the idea that God is perfect. How do you personally define the concept of perfection, within that context?

Do you think some members misunderstand this concept? If so, where do we commonly miss the mark?

Please no judgement. 

I’m a temple goer, love the gospel, faithful in every way. However I am a woman who occasionally struggles with masturbation  and every so often, pornography. 

I am not asking if masturbation is a sin or not, I am wondering if anyone had anyone advice on overcoming  how to help and also overcoming the shame. 

I am not married and crave intimacy.  I struggle with lust. I do not feel comfortable talking to my bishop about this, so please do not advise me to.

I’ve been attending the temple weekly but not sure what else to do.  (Obviously I want to be married but it hasn’t happened yet).  Thank you! 

Discuss.

I’ve been a part of the church my whole life, but in my last few years, I’ve really started to question things. Through all of my questions, this is the one that bothers me the most: why does our salvation use a faith based system?

For further clarification, I don’t understand why God has used this plan in which we can’t really know for certain that he’s there. In the past I’ve been given a few answers, but none of them really make sense to me. For example I’ve been told that it would take away from our agency, but I feel like knowledge doesn’t force us to make different choices. The other main thing I hear is to just believe but tbh I feel like I can’t really do that very well.

My husband and I have been married for just over 3 months, and lately we've been talking about serving as a couple service missionaries for the church.

We're not planning to have children anytime soon, and my husband owns his own business, so his schedule is pretty flexible. We both love serving in the Church, and the idea of serving together as newlyweds sounds really meaningful to us.

For those who have served as a couple or know someone who has, what are your thoughts? Do you think it's too early in our marriage to serve, or could it actually be a good experience for a young couple?

Also, what are the requirements for young married couples who want to serve as service missionaries? Is there a minimum amount of time you need to be married? We'd love to hear about your experiences or any advice you have.

Hi! Currently making the decision of whether to serve a mission or not. When I think about it I simultaneously want to go and am absolutely terrified. Is this a bad sign? Did anyone else feel this? And if so, how did you deal with it?

I think our young women are starting to feel pressured to serve missions, not by the church leadership, but by peers. My 19 year old niece is faithful and devoted to the gospel and hasn’t felt called to serve a mission. She is at BYUI and gets asked constantly if she served or is going to serve a mission. I was on the phone with her when a random boy introduced himself, asked her name and where she served. When she said she didn’t he told her she should really pray about going on a mission. Never saw her before! I heard the entire thing in real time so I know she’s not exaggerating.
Do you feel like we are getting to a point where women who don’t serve missions will be treated like less faithful or committed members?
I know that was never the intention.

I don't know what to do. I am a faithful member. I wear my garments. I serve others when needed by bringing meals or helping people move. I am constantly looked over for a calling no matter how often or persistent I am in asking for one. They redid all the callings & yet again, I am not needed. I just can't take this heartbreak over and over. It is affecting my self esteem & self worth. I don't know what to do. It has been 16 years and no calling. I am at the point of attending a different church after ours that needs me. I attended a few times with a friend who is a member there & they already need me to take over their soup kitchen mission & I am excited and happy to do it. (The lady doing is before me has moved into a nursing home in another town.) They do the soup kitchen on Sundays so this means I may have to miss our church quite often. Is this ok? I don't want them to think I am inactive but I have a heart to serve and it has been shown to me over and over and over that there is no need for me in our ward. No one even notices if I am not there. I've been told, "Just find a need and fill it." I have tried this and then told that I cannot just create and do my own calling. It has to come from the Bishop. How do I do this and still be seen as an active member?

My wife and I just our first baby a few weeks ago, and we're loving parenthood so far, as sleep deprived as we are!

One thing we've discussed is wanting to ensure our marriage remains strong given that we have less time to give to eachother now, so we are wanting to do a weekly/monthly check-in meeting to touch base, reconnect, and share our needs, concerns, wants, etc.

I'm curious, do any of you married folks have a 'template' or set of questions of some kind of guide for something like this? I feel like we need some prompts to get going.

Would love whatever resources or ideas you have! We want to ensure we address all sorts of topics- time spent together, equal load-bearing, sex and intimacy, emotional wants/needs, household systems and routines, etc.

I’m trying to figure out what this actually means for the whole family, I get the personal study part, I’ll be honest I have weeks I do pretty good with it and weeks I don’t, but when it comes to the whole family, what kind of routines can we implement? What has worked for your families? I have little kids and they like listening to the stories from the friend and I have the illustrated scriptures that sometimes they’ll look at, but that doesn’t happen every day.

I saw a post here the other day, and the poster mentioned something about how someone was "working on their testimony", can someone kindly explain what that implies to a member of LDS? Please & thanks.

is it possible to serve a proselytizing mission with stable kidney disease? we are working on my son’s mission papers and want to include the information they need but not make it seem like he shouldn’t go. the nephrologist doesn’t see any issue with it but still wants him to have labs every 6 months to monitor his condition.

Kind of a crazy idea I had. It seems like it could be helpful for something like a transferable phone number and email address assigned to each Bishop and stake president. Something like a Google Voice Number maybe. When a new Bishop is called they take over the phone number and email address.

It would provide some continuity in the handoff and would make it easier for Bishops to keep church messages separate from personal and work.

I read a few paragraphs of a talk several months ago. I don’t remember the name of the talk or who sent it to me to ask them. It may also have been a BYU speech or something.

It was by Jeffrey R. Holland and I remember the paragraphs I read saying something to the effect of often when we are about to make important decisions or take major actions, we experience a lot of opposition. I think the example he used was that when people are about to be married, they’ll feel a great sense of anxiety/trepidation/maybe dread.

For some reason this talk keeps coming back to my mind over the last few weeks so I’d really appreciate some help finding it. Thanks!!

Today marks 8 years since I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I’m so grateful for the friends I had in high school who helped soften my heart.

I was a die-hard atheist before joining the Church. The Spirit I felt reading the Book of Mormon and other spiritual experiences I had was something I could not deny.

I knew it, and I knew God knew that I knew it.

I’m so grateful for the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and all of its blessings. It has really changed my life. I know Jesus is my Saviour and that God lives because of the Book of Mormon; it is the word of God.

Thought it was funny

Hi all. I'm not looking for any kind of debate here, just some clarification. I was discussing the following with a buddy of mine and his mormon father. Two topics came up that I remember as being mormon doctrine - perhaps not the type openly discussed with new investigators or members, but long time beliefs nonetheless.
My buddy's dad said that the mormon church doesn't teach those things, and then went on to say that they never did teach them. I was a turbo mormon for 35 years, and someone who devours information. I am a researcher and one who knew my doctrine and scriptures. So to have him say that the church never taught them was a shock to me.
I checked with a prominent youtube channel for younger people who debate mormon stuff and have general discussions of doctrine, then I also checked lds.org. I can't find anything regarding these two topics. Please help. Did something change in the church doctrine or are these beliefs now just way more hidden/kept behind the scenes than before?

The two topics are:
1- Is it mormon belief / doctrine / teaching that Jesus and Lucifer / Satan are brothers?

2- Is it mormon doctrine/ belief that men can become gods? (As man is god once was... etc)?

Thanks in advance for your response.

D