A Scripture a Day keeps the Gay Away

Tags

Boyd K. Packer, Divine, gay, gay marriage, LDS, Religion

As many of you know, the moral framework of this country is disintegrating faster than you can say, “follow the Prophet” and the people have chosen iniquity over righteousness once again. In this election three states legalized “Gay Marriage.” It is clearly a sign of the times that people of this country are so deluded in sin and taken in by the lure of the adversary that they would mistake the unfortunate personal choice of same-sex attraction for a normal state of being, one that cannot be changed by prayer and faith, nor even that should be changed. I mean someone even blogged this blasphemous image on the pretense that “if God created Man in his own image then”:

We all know that Heavenly Father looks like this:

What is worse, is that this sort of confusion and division is happening within our own Church. Boyd K. Packer said,

There are three areas where members of the Church, influenced by social and political unrest, are being caught up and led away. I chose these three because they have made major invasions into the membership of the Church. In each, the temptation is for us to turn about and face the wrong way, and it is hard to resist, for doing it seems so reasonable and right.

Yes, it seems so reasonable and right that homosexuals and women should be treated with the same dignity and rights that heterosexual men have, but our Heavenly Father is neither reasonable nor right (at least by our mere human definitions!) If anyone else told you that you had to kill your first-born son in order to prove how much you loved him, you’d think, “Heck No! What kind of sadistic psychopath are you?” But God is not like any other man, he’s God and we know that no matter what he asks, it is right. It is good. It is true. We know this because the scriptures tell us so. Brother Packer continued:

The dangers I speak of come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals. Our local leaders must deal with all three of them with ever-increasing frequency. In each case, the members who are hurting have the conviction that the Church somehow is doing something wrong to members or that the Church is not doing enough for them.

Members have the conviction that somehow, in some way, the Church and its leaders (who are infallible because they are speaking directly with God on a daily basis) are wrong in their assessment of the same-sex attraction issue (and also the female and intellectual issues, which will be another post at another time). According to the proclamation on the family, the family is eternal and necessary for Heavenly Father’s plan to continue the cycle of creation.

God created this world so that he could, through the trials of this life, test to see if we really are worthy of becoming gods of our own worlds. When we are born, we pass through the veil which causes us to forget everything about our pre-existent life with our Heavenly Father. He has set it up this way so that as we live and grow and navigate this battle ground where Satan and his minions lie in wait around every corner, he can guide us with very subtle and sometimes confusing signals. Even though we have the power of revelation, sometimes we don’t even know if a revelation is from God or Satan! God has to make it hard so that only the very best, most obedient, and righteous make it through.

Those of us who valiantly chose to be born to Mormon families, who pick up on these signals, who choose wisely to listen to and live by the Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who obey his will, we will prove that we are truly worthy of the responsibility that comes with being God. Imagine if God let just anyone become a god? Imagine those poor spirit children being led through their worldly existence by a god who thought drinking coffee was okay! Or that his children did not have to believe in him in order to be saved! Imagine, the idea that everyone will be saved no matter what! What kind of crazy worlds without end would we end up with then?

Beyond all that, we know that infinite creation just doesn’t work with two men. Satan knows this. He’s mad that his plan that he proposed in the pre-existence wasn’t good enough for God to choose and he’s jealous that he will never get married and have infinite spirit children. Because he doesn’t have a body and as we all know he’s miserable and wants everyone else to be miserable too. He’s also, most likely, homosexual and this furthers his anger that infinite creation requires heterosexuality. Because of this anger and jealousy, he creates same sex desires in those who are weak in their testimonies. He knows that God’s one true church is unchangingly devoted to God’s will and that it’s inspired leadership will not be persuaded by its weak members to face the wrong way, no matter how many members leave or present rational arguments as to why the leaders should advocate for the disenfranchised.

This is how Satan lures people out of the church. I urge you to keep your testimony strong or you might get homosexual and want to leave the church.

If you are suffering from same sex attraction, talk to your bishop. He can set up the most effective way to help you strengthen your testimony and ward off the adversary. Read your scriptures, get married to a faithful LDS woman, start having children, go to the temple. These will help bring you closer to the light of Christ, which will make you happy. It will strengthen your testimony, and keep you on the path back to our Heavenly Father. The Church is more important than any fleeting feelings you have towards your fellow men (in a sexual way) or towards yourself. God has dictated how we should be, let’s not get in the way of his plans for us.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Jesus is coming, YAY!

I’m sorry everyone for not keeping up my usual pace of posting at least once a day, in the wake of the election I have to say that I was stunned. Just stunned. I thought, “How could Heavenly Father do this to us?” Then I realized that this is just his way of telling us that the second coming is near, yay! So I spent the last day upping my food storage to 3 years worth, organizing everything by sodium content, and picking out some snazzy (but modest!) new outfits for the end of days. Don’t want to get before Jesus and look like a slob!

Also I want to note that frankly I’m upset by the sort of comments I’m getting on here. Of course I’m a real person, I’m a faithful member of the LDS Church and I have a snazzy membership card to prove it (do you?) This blog has been accused of existing solely to be disparaging to Mormons on the eve of the election.  What is disparaging about my blog? I use only lds.org sources for my quotes and inspiration and I make sure to have my husband read my posts before I publish, just to make sure they are in line with the priesthood. If you find my posts offensive, you must not be walking up to the covenants you made in the Temple nor taking the Gospel as seriously as you need to. Are you reading the scriptures twice daily? Are you praying? Are you fasting? Are you doing your genealogy? I ask you to truly humble yourself and ask in sincere prayer whether or not my posts are true. Then come back and read my blog and see if you don’t feel the spirit.

Vote the Right!

Tags

Boyd K. Packer, choose the right, Church and state, election 2012, God, Government, LDS, Mitt Romney, Obama, Prayer, Religion, vote

Sisters, I can’t tell you how happy I will be this evening when all this election stuff is over. I know it’s been a frustrating time for everyone, especially on Facebook where brothers and sisters are de-friending each other left and right, calling names, and generally acting without the spirit.

I know it’s a confusing time for all of us. Making sure that we are voting the right is HARD, especially when there is more than one candidate. If only the US government was as forward-thinking as our inspired Church leadership. I had a revelation that by the end of the day we will have elected to the office of the President someone who can change that. Someone who will realign in this last dispensation the Church and the State, the way God intended. I feel so blessed that soon we will have a government run the way it should: from the top down with our Heavenly Father dictating the way.

Everywhere you go you hear the champions of Democracy tooting their horns about civil responsibility and giving the government to its people. They speak impassioned about having leaders who can advocate for the needs of the disenfranchised members of society, who can ensure equality for the homosexuals, the women, the poor, those with the mark of Cain on their skin…the list goes on. They try to convince us that allowing everyone’s voice to be heard and changing the government rules to make life more fair and easy for these groups is the right thing to do. One of our most inspired leaders, Boyd K. Packer once warned:

When members are hurting, it is so easy to convince ourselves that we are justified, even duty bound, to use the influence of our appointment or our calling to somehow represent them. We then become their advocates — sympathize with their complaints against the Church, and perhaps even soften the commandments to comfort them. Unwittingly we may turn about and face the wrong way. Then the channels of revelation are reversed. Let me say that again. Then the channels of revelation are reversed.

He was speaking about the Church and the US Government could take a note or two from our divinely inspired leadership. The rules are the rules. They have come from God and we can’t just make exceptions because a few people don’t fit into the box. God has made these rules for a reason, who are we to go about changing them? I fear the latter-days really are upon us when the possibility of marriage equality for all is looming so heavily.

Because of the dire consequences of this election, I sincerely hope you will choose your candidate carefully. If you still are unsure who to vote for, be assured that prayer is the best way to find out which candidate God wants us to elect. Don’t waste your time looking at plans, policies, track records, or other useless information. The right candidate will be

revealed through the Spirit to prophets, not through the intellect to scholars.

Pray. Get down on your knees and pray as hard as you can. God will answer you. Once you have your answer, just to make sure, it is always prudent to check your choice of candidate with your husband, father, brother, or local priesthood holder (even if he is younger and less politically inclined than you!). The line of revelation goes from God -> President Monson -> The Priesthood. If you find yourself at odds with the priesthood, most likely you misunderstood what God was telling you. Priesthood aside, we sisters have only had the right to vote since 1920 and thus have much less experience in these matters, so it’s just not a good idea to vote without guidance.

Vote the Right!

I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Shelf Improvement

Tags

Joseph Smith, LDS, Mormon, Religion, Women

Sisters,

Some of you have been distraught lately over questions such as: Why don’t women have the priesthood? How come they teach us different things in Young Women’s than they do Young Men’s? Why is it considered perfectly responsible and necessary to leave 12 year old girls alone in a room with a middle-aged man for him to ask them if/how/how often they touch themselves? Garments over or under the bra?

These may seem like troubling questions but I will refer you to the inspired words of our beloved Prophet Joseph Smith as he wrote them to Nancy Rigdon:

That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. . . . Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason therof til long after the events transpire.

He had approached 19 year-old Nancy to be his 34th (or so, who can count?) plural wife. Yes, in Western society it is considered uncouth and even illegal to marry more than one person. And just as we have grown up desiring husbands of our very own, just for us for time and eternity, it is clear that Nancy held dear the same values. I’m sure that she was put in quite a bind when faced with what seemed to be an absurd proposition from Joseph. What did Nancy choose? Did she choose the right?

Unfortunately, the foolish, headstrong girl that she was, she grabbed her bonnet and told our sinless Prophet that she would marry a single man or none at all. How little faith did she have? How terrible that she would put societal norms and  earthly wants and needs above those of our Heavenly Father. I hope that all of us sisters are stronger in our testimonies of this One True Church than poor Nancy. I think we all know a little bit more about the character of Joseph than she did.

How do we avoid young Nancy’s mistake? Five little words: put it on the shelf. That’s right. Put it up there and don’t worry. Don’t think any more about it, believe the words of the scriptures and of the prophets and and trust that they know Heavenly Father’s will more than we do. His ways are not our ways!

Some people  talk of their shelves getting too heavy and cluttered and finally collapsing. I have prevented this by preparing my shelf properly. I went down to Home Depot and picked up one of these heavy duty shelving units:

Those cute ones from Ikea maybe pretty and all, but you get what you pay for. That particle board just doesn’t hold up as well as steel. These heavy duty floor units do the job just right, and I have no need to worry that someday my precariously constructed worldview will come crashing down around me revealing that I’ve been living a life of illusion and wasting my time in endless useless meetings listening to endless useless people. I’m even thinking about getting some pretty curtains or cabinet doors, so I can hide away all that ugly stuff on that shelf. Out of sight, out of mind!

I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Neanderthals and Heavenly Father’s Plan

Tags

Atheism, Bible, Book of Mormon, Creationism, evolution, God, Homo, Intelligent Design, LDS, Mormon, neanderthals, Religion, Science

Someone pointed out to me a particularly unsettling post on a particular anti-Mormon website. I want to point out that I myself have never once looked at this website for myself lest I be taken in by Satan and lose my testimony. However, one of the sisters in my ward did explain the gist of the post and after encouraging her to prayerfully repent her visit to that unholy website, I took to writing this blog entry so that others will not have to resort to their own thinking to solve such unsettling questions.

The question was, “Why aren’t Neanderthals mentioned in the Bible?” Sister Wilson happens to be currently enrolled in a Physical Anthropology class, in which she has been learning all kinds of upsetting information on Human origins. For example: DNA evidence points to Africa as the birth place of the human race and not Independence, Missouri, where we know that the garden of Eden was because it was revealed by God himself to our Prophet Joseph Smith. Her teacher has told her that scientists have tested the DNA of African people and found that they had far greater genetic variation between them than Europeans or Asians indicating that those groups of people existed for a longer period of time in that area.

Archeologists have also dug up numerous skeletons of what they call “hominids” in Africa, some as old as 4 million years, that they claim show the beginnings of human traits such as bipedalism. They say they know this because of the shape of the pelvis and the lack of an opposable big toe such as Chimpanzees have, they have even found foot prints of a female and male hominid walking side by side!

Not only that, but they have found numerous Neanderthal skeletons, a species of human like creatures that not only walked upright but also used tools, buried their dead, created clothing, could speak language, and probably had complicated social systems just like us, but who were an entirely different species! They have physical evidence and DNA evidence as they just finished decoding the entire Neanderthal genome and it turns out, scientists say, that they were a heck of a lot like us. They even lived side by side  modern Homo sapiens for thousands of years in Europe before they died out mysteriously 30,000 years ago.

And not only that, but apparently there are all kinds of other species of Humans that were wandering the earth: Homo erectus, Homo floriensis, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis…all following what seems to be the normal pattern of evolution of any species like horses or cats, not the divine creation of Man set apart from the animals.

Sister Wilson cried, if this is true, if scientists are right, not only is the earth billions of years old and the human race as we know it can’t possibly have descended in the last 6000 from two people in Missouri, but Heavenly Father didn’t set us apart at all. There were all kinds of other people on the earth too. Who were the Neanderthals in the pre-existence? Most importantly: they’ve died out completely before any ability to know Christ or record their genealogy so that we can baptize them and allow them to accept the Gospel in the spirit world. How will they become Gods in the celestial Kingdom?!?

When faced with all this evidence and all these questions it surely can make one’s head spin. Sister Wilson was clearly distraught, so I did what any responsible sister and Relief Society President would do. We consulted the Scriptures.

First to D&C…nothing in there. Then Book of Mormon…nothing there. Hmm Old Testament? Ha! Genesis 6:4:

There were ^agiants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

So we know that there were also the “sons of God” on the earth in the early days also known as the Nephilim (Any relation to the Nephites? That will have to wait for another blog post). And that they came unto the daughters of Men and created mighty men…They were already sons of God so there is no need for them to accept the Gospel on this earth or in the after life because they were already gods. The Bible wins!

Sister Wilson was still not completely convinced. Neanderthals were shorter than modern humans…certainly no giants. And scientists aren’t sure if they could interbreed with Homo Sapiens because they were a completely different species (evidence could be interpreted either way.) She continued to logically reason out that what we think sets us apart from the animal kingdom is the fact that we talk and use tools and can love and feel the spirit of Christ. This indicates to us that we have souls when all the other animals don’t. But if Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers does that not indicate that they understood death? That they loved their deceased? That they had what we would call a soul? If this is just a normal step in human evolution that comes with the development of the cerebral cortex and thus self-awareness…then there is no need for a savior…no need for God. We are all a natural biproduct of evolution and we are not alone. We are not special.

I can tell you that when she uttered those last words the spirit who had been halfway out the door, hurried up and vamoosed. I could feel the adversary creeping up on us, surrounding us, waiting for his chance to steal our testimonies and turn us from the path back to our Heavenly Father.

So I bore my testimony as hard as could and encouraged Sister Wilson to do the same. She said that she couldn’t until she had an answer.

I was a little stumped. Of course, I could speculate and come up with the “Doctrine of Sister Bobister” but that would take time and would be beyond blasphemous, so we got down on our knees and together we prayed to Heavenly Father to give us an answer.

After about 30 minutes of honest praying, my foot fell asleep. I got up to walk around but as it was in pins and needles I faltered and knocked over a bible dictionary. It opened to the page that held Heavenly Father’s answer:

Mystery. Denotes in the N.T. a spiritual truth that was once hidden but now is revealed, and that, without special revelation, would have remained unknown. It is generally used along with words denoting revelation or publication (e.g., Rom. 16:25–26; Eph. 1:9; 3:3–10; Col. 1:26; 4:3; 1 Tim. 3:16). The modern meaning of something incomprehensible forms no part of the significance of the word as it occurs in the N.T. See also Alma 12:9–11;40:3; D&C 19:10; 42:61–65; 76:5–10. On the other hand, there is no spiritual gain in idle speculation about things the Lord has not revealed. See Deut. 29:29; Alma 37:11

Of course! Mystery. There are just some things in this life that we will never know. And we have to be content to wait until we are on the other side of the veil to understand all of Heavenly Father’s mysterious ways. Sister Wilson and I could have sat in that room reading over all the evidence that Anthropologists, Archeologists, and Geneticists have found and compared their findings to the scriptures and then weighed the evidence in both directions and seen which hypothesis best fit the facts, but we both know that the Gospel is true, so in the end we would have chosen the eternal words of our Lord Jesus Christ over anything scientists whose theories keep changing have to say.

Now Sister Wilson and I can spend our time more productively loving God, being happy, and studying the scriptures. I suggested that Sister Wilson take a different class, one that would not cause so much strife and create such an easy path for the adversary, like Home Economics or something on The Book of Mormon.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

.

Women of God

Tags

abortion, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, daily show, election 2012, feminism, housewives, Jesus Christ, jezebel, LDS, mission, Mormon, motherhood, neal a. maxwell, Romney, women's rights

I am so blessed to live in a dispensation where we have such inspired leadership. I have to say that I love Neal A. Maxwell, everything that comes out of his mouth is like the light of Christ itself to me. I read his talk Women of God almost every day. I want to name my 1st son after him. We’ll call him A.

I want to talk to you ladies about something that has come up a lot recently with the whole brouhaha over women’s rights in the political race right now. Sometimes I turn on the TV and see a young, intelligent, beautiful woman (around my age) out on her own supporting herself. She went to college and got a great job and lives in her own apartment with her own little dog and is financially independent. She does what she wants, when she wants. She loves who she wants in whatever way she wants with complete sexual and intellectual freedom. She doesn’t need religion in her life to tell her what to do. She is completely and utterly free. And I just shudder as I feel the spirit leave the room.

Nothing makes the spirit high tail it out quicker than stumbling upon an article on Jezebel (like this one “Lowered Age Requirement Allows Mormon Girls to Dump Boyfriends and Peace Out on Missions“) Or this PSA on how Brother Romney is trying to “turn back the clock on women”/take away women’s rights/ keep women from having basic control over their own bodies. Nothing. Except maybe RuPaul.

Neal A. Maxwell said it so eloquently:

I thank the Father that His Only Begotten Son did not say in defiant protest at Calvary, “My body is my own!” I stand in admiration of women today who resist the fashion of abortion, by refusing to make the sacred womb a tomb!

This abortion thing is just a passing fashion! Like those ugly drop-bottom pants or stretchy sweater-shirts. The women who advocate for this want you to think that being independent socially, economically, and intellectually is what will bring you true happiness. My sisters: this is not what Heavenly Father wants for us! His inspired male leaders have told us time and time again that this is not his plan. This will not lead us to TRUE HAPPINESS. We must not place “self” in front of words like “fulfillment” with such reckless abandon!

This is the real reason that women do not have the priesthood: we don’t know what is good for us. I know I don’t. How many times have I bought that cute top/dress/shoes only to realize later that Brother Bobister didn’t like it on me? That moment when his face turns down, I can just feel the spirit jetting out of the room. And nothing destroys happiness like the loss of the spirit. Sisters, I know sometimes we think we know what we want, but really we need men to tell us what makes us happy. Specifically geriatric, conservative, close-minded men who have been hand-picked by the Lord, Jesus, and Joseph Smith himself. Brother Maxwell says it best:

We are accustomed to focusing on the men of God because theirs is the priesthood and leadership line. But paralleling that authority line is a stream of righteous influence reflecting the remarkable women of God…We men know the women of God as wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, associates, and friends. You seem to tame us and to gentle us, and, yes, to teach us and to inspire us…The charity of good women is such that their “love makes no parade”; they are not glad “when others go wrong”; they are too busy serving to sit statusfully about, waiting to be offended…

We are too busy serving the men in our life just as President Monson is busy serving his boss Jesus. We know that he meets with him regularly in the temple to gain advice on how to lead us in this dispensation. There is a reason he appointed a CEO! If he can run a multi-billion dollar corporation, he can lead his flock to righteousness.

He knows what he is talking about, and he would not lead us astray; however, our feelings, our wants, and our desire do lead us astray. We can’t possibly know what we really want because Satan is always there whispering to us trying to get us away from the path back to our Heavenly Father. Again dear Brother Neal (Can I call you Neal?) informs us:

In our modern kingdom, it is no accident that women were, through the Relief Society, assigned compassionate service. So often the service of women seems instinctive, while that of some men seems more labored. It is precisely because the daughters of Zion are so uncommon that the adversary will not leave them alone.

Because we are so righteous, Satan just can’t help but try to corrupt us. Any thoughts that we have that do not line up with what the Church tells us, we know are Satan’s doing because the Church tells us so. M. Russel Ballard, of the Quorum of the Twelve, has told us in his talk “O That Cunning Plan of the Evil One” that:

Satan knows how to exploit and ensnare us with artificial substances and behaviors of temporary pleasure.

Coffee is the gateway drug to Satan. What are career women obsessed with? Starbucks and their oh-so-addicting Frappucinos! We  must be careful sisters of partaking of anything that gives us pleasure outside of reading our scriptures, praying, attending church, raising children within a temple marriage, because one false sip and bam! You could be on a one-way ticket to  this is the lure of Satan. It’s much safer to stay within the confines of what we know is safe. And besides, a career may be fun, be we both know that you can’t possible raise kids and have a career at the same time. That’s why men have the careers and women raise the kids. Heavenly Father has told us that we are separate but equal. And besides, will a career ultimately fulfill you? I think not because it is temporary. It will end with this life, but Gospel Principles are eternal.

When the surf of the centuries has made the great pyramids so much sand, the everlastingfamily will still be standing, because it is a celestial institution, formed outside telestial time. The women of God know this.

Neal! I want to have your eternal spirit children! Alas, I’m already sealed to my dear eternal companion Brother Bobister. I take comfort in knowing that all of us sisters who are perfect LDS women will be eternally progressing through our divine roles cooking, cleaning, and nagging our husbands and bearing, birthing, and raising spirit children for eternity along with our other divine sister wives. What could be more fulfilling than that? We’ll be too busy to worry about temporary pleasures such as the excitement a life-long dream coming to fruition of becoming a Daily Show correspondant with the power to make millions of people laugh and enjoying tasty craft services backstage while we get pampered by hair and make-up people.

No, what will make us truly happy is what my dear Nealy Neal Snuggly Wuggly Bear said:

We salute you, sisters, for the joy that is yours as you rejoice in a baby’s first smile and as you listen with eager ear to a child’s first day at school which bespeaks a special selflessness. Women, more quickly than others, will understand the possible dangers when the word self is militantly placed before other words like fulfillment. You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today’s world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms.

Let’s seal the deal Neal! I know today wouldn’t be passing me by if you were holding me tightly in your arms. Anyway, Sisters: God wants us to be wives and mothers in Zion. Listen to his call! Come home from your typewriters (why would you even be using one of those old fashion things anyway?) and get yourself a man and some babies. Stop wasting your life pursuing your dreams, you’re not too old. If you start right now, you could have at least seven kids in the next ten years. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Cult is a Four Letter Word

Tags

Church, Cult, God, Gordon B. Hinckley, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, Latter-Day Saints, LDS, Religion, Steven Hassan, Testimony, Thomas S. Monson

Today I want to address something that really boils my beans. I am so sick and tired of hearing that my Church, The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints, the only true Church on earth today, is a CULT. How dare you insinuate that I am some sort of brainwashed cultist and that I can’t think for myself. I’m so mad that I’m going to refer you to what the Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley had to say on the subject:

Next question: “There are those who say that Mormonism began as a cult. You don’t like to hear that.”

Response: “I don’t know what that means, really. But if it has negative connotations, I don’t accept it as applying to this Church.

See? The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints is NOT A CULT. GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED! President Monson is a Prophet of God, he would not run a cult. Does this look like the face of a man who would run a cult?

Yes. Mormons live a life very different from the rest of the world. We wear sacred garments day and night, avoid alcohol, coffee, tea and tobacco, obey the law of chastity until we get married, give 10% of our income + fast and testimony Sunday tithes, pay roughly $12,000/child to send our children on a two year mission for the Church, spend three hours on Sunday at the meeting house and several ours during the week at various meetings to fulfill our callings, marry only other temple worthy members, do our genealogy so that we can baptize dead people, read our scriptures and pray morning, noon, and night, avoid anti-mormon material and stick to only PG media, because we want to be able to go to the temple and we want to be closer to God. And if you are going to call us a cult, then I’m here to tell you that you are an arrogant snob who doesn’t know the true meaning of happiness because you’ve never lived the Gospel like I have and you’ve never experienced the true light of Christ. Maybe if you would just try to live the way God wants you to, you would see things differently.

I know that this is God’s one true church and that from 1820-1830 God revealed the fulness of his Gospel to his chosen prophet Joseph Smith. And God told Joseph that he needs 10% of our income and all of our time and our talents to build up his Kingdom on Earth! God doesn’t lie. And to anyone who questions Joseph Smith’s character, to you I say that I know he was a Prophet. He was not a Confidence Man. Don’t let those evil anti-Mormons out there shake your testimony! Satan has ahold of them and he is trying to get ahold of you too!

Steve Hassan, a so-called “cult expert” claims that cults control their members by phobia indoctrination. That they instill in you an irrational fear of an imaginary being called Satan. He claims that they teach you that if you don’t do everything the leaders tell you to or if you leave, you will be in this Satan’s power. Well first of all, the Mormon church teaches us that only if we don’t live up to every covenant we made in the temple, then we will be in Satan’s power. He says so himself in God’s revealed temple video that is so sacred I can’t say anything more about it. Second of all, Satan is real! President Monson says so and he tells us:

Satan will tempt you and will do his utmost to entice you from the path which will lead you back to that heavenly home from which you came and back to your loved ones there and back to your Heavenly Father.

He also revealed that it is Satan who is to blame for doubt in God’s one true Church. He said that he will try with all his might to destroy our testimonies. The only way to keep Satan from pulling you down the path of destruction is to Believe, Obey, and Endure.

My young friends, believe in the words you say each week as you recite the Young Women theme… Obey the laws of God. They are given to us by a loving Heavenly Father. When they are obeyed, our lives will be more fulfilling, less complicated…Finally, may you endure. What does it mean to endure? I love this definition: to withstand with courage. Courage may be necessary for you to believe; it will at times be necessary as you obey. It will most certainly be required as you endure until that day when you will leave this mortal existence.

Believe the words you are told to say, obey the laws that our leaders tell us are the laws of God, and no matter what happens or how you feel, endure to the end. Does that sound like a cult to you?

My First Post!

I’ve never done a blog before and I’m a little nervous!

Some of you may know me as Liahonna Larsen, Relief Society President and now that Brother Bobister and I are married, you can officially call me Sister Bobister! I’m so proud to have found such an amazing eternal companion to lead me righteously by the power of the priesthood. We are so happy and truly blessed, it pains me to think back to my single days. I used to pray every night, “Dear Heavenly Father, I’m 20 years old and I’m not married. Do you want me to be single forever? Please let me meet my eternal companion soon!” Those days seem so far away…It’s amazing how much your life can change in just three weeks!

I knew that Thursday afternoon when he accidentally spilled his sprite on me at the Jazz game that it was a sign from Heavenly Father. Yes ladies, his first words to me, “hey! watch it” may not have been the most romantic, but he returned with honor from his Mission to Kentucky and that’s what counts! So don’t worry sisters, I testify that if you pray hard enough and are sincere enough in your faith, anything is possible! The past three weeks have been a whirlwind and I’m ready to settle down to be a mother in Zion.

I opened up WordPress today and felt prompted by the spirit to share the Gospel with the world and to help other women who might be having testimony problems, so to you I testify:

I know that our Savior, Jesus Christ, lives. I know that Joseph Smith was God’s chosen prophet for the restoration and that the Book of Mormon is another testament to Jesus Christ. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet and chosen by God to lead us in this dispensation. Above all, I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is God’s One True Church, the only true church on earth today. 

And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and^acleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be ^bdestroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law. D&C 132:54