Prop 8 and a talk with Elder Bedar

Elder Bednar makes some excellent points about Prop. 8 and what is taking place in the country.  Please watch the video.

Elder Bednar Video with Youth

Celestial Marriage

I read Elder Nelson's latest talk in the October 2008 General Conference about Celestial Marriage.  I found some good one liners:

- "While salvation is an individual matter, exaltation is a family matter."

- "All Church activities, advancements, quorums, and classes are means to the end of an exalted family."

- "The earth was created and this Church was restored so that families could be formed, sealed, and exalted eternally."
- "each marriage starts with two built-in handicaps. It involves two imperfect people."
- President Monson said, "To find real happiness, we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty—the fulfillment of which brings true joy.”

Our Reaction to: Are Mormons Christians?

Often time our reaction to this question can speak volumes over the substance of our answer.  Elder Hales in the last General Conference put it this way: 

"More regrettable than the Church being accused of not being Christian is when Church members react to such accusations in an un-Christlike way! May our conversations with others always be marked by the fruits of the Spirit—”love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, [and] temperance” (Galatians 5:22–23)."

Weeping and Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

From the Joseph Smith manual yesterday we heard about the life to come.  I found an interesting quote by Joseph Smith that explains what causes the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth after this life.  I linked these scriptures to Alma 30:14.

Joseph Smith said: ““The great misery of departed spirits in the world of spirits, where they go after death, is to know that they come short of the glory that others enjoy and that they might have enjoyed themselves, and they are their own accusers.” (History of the Church, 5:425; from a discourse given by Joseph Smith on June 11, 1843, in Nauvoo, Illinois; reported by Wilford Woodruff and Willard Richards; see also appendix, page 562, item 3.)

Joseph Smith said: ““There is no pain so awful as that of suspense. This is the punishment of the wicked; their doubt, anxiety and suspense cause weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.” (History of the Church, 5:340; from a discourse given by Joseph Smith on Apr. 8, 1843, in Nauvoo, Illinois; reported by Willard Richards and William Clayton.) 

What does Gnashing mean?

Gnash - To grind or strike (the teeth, for example) together, to bite something) by grinding the teeth.