Well I won't try to fool anyone, this is my first blog, so please bear with me. One big influence I have for starting a blog is to shed some light on an ever growing, controversial subject of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I say controversial because it seems more and more (especially on this great 'internet highway' we travel on) misinformation, false information, and simply ignorant and bigoted information are being spread around by "anti-Mormons" (for lack of a better term).
I myself am no stranger to the--at times hostile--attacks on the Church. I was introduced to the Gospel in my senior year of high school, by long time friends who were LDS (life-long members). One of them gave me the Book of Mormon, upon my request. I was curious to see just what the deal was with this church. What I had learned of the church was mostly hearsay and from such great outlets like South Park (which does not exactly accurately represent the faith...). Once I picked up the Book of Mormon I immediately felt the Spirit. I learned so much from my reading. I took the challenge posed by Moroni, and was answered back a resounding "Yes", the Book of Mormon is in fact true and was divinely translated by Joseph Smith Jun. I was ready to join the Church, be baptized, but apparently my parents were not (and still are not) ready for me to do so. They became worried about my interest in the Church and started looking at the all too readily available anti-Mormon rhetoric out there. So now I am somewhat "forbidden" from going to Church; I have thus far respected my parents wishes and plan on continuing to do so.
Enough background history on myself. Another driving force I have for starting a blog is from a speech by Elder Russel M. Ballard. In which he stated, "The Lord over the centuries has had a hand in inspiring people to invent tools that facilitate the spreading of the gospel. The Church has adopted and embraced those tools, including print, broadcast media, and now the Internet... Now, to you... and all other faithful members of the Church, as you graduate from this wonderful university, may I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet...".
Well that's about it for my 'introduction'. Hopefully I'll be able to clear up some misconceptions of the Church, as well as talk a bit about myself.
Lastly I just wanted to make it clear that I am NOT affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the views I share are my own.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
The Beginning of the Blog
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4 comments:
I came across your blog through www.asoftanswer.com. I'm amazed by your story and hope all will be resolved soon. We need more members like you.
I really appreciate that a lot. I can't wait to be a member... think and pray about it everyday.
Thanks for linking to my blog. I gave you a link back on my "blogs that link here" page.
I had a lot of tension with my non-religious father when I joined another church at age 14. That church didn't bother to get parental permission before baptizing minors, but they also didn't formalize their membership as LDS do.
But they did send my "baptismal certificate" to my home, and my father opened it, and that caused some real problems and lots of verbal and emotional abuse.
I didn't investigate and join the LDS church until I was 24.
As long as your parents pay your tuition, then you're wise to abide by their rules.
One of their worries is probably tithing. They don't want any of their money to go to the LDS church in the form of tithes or donations.
So you might want to check with your bishop (he's still your bishop even though you're not a member, he's "the bishop" to everyone in the ward boundaries, member and non-member) and see if he would consider you a "full tithe payer" if you did not pay tithing on the value of tuition and room/board that you received.
If he says you would not have to pay tithing on the value of tuition/room/board (and I don't think you would have to, I don't think BYU students pay tithing on such), then you might want to mention that fact to your parents, and that might soften them some more.
Another thing you might want to do is to start gathering vital information (birth, death, places, marriage dates, children, etc) about your ancestors, especially if you still have living grandparents and great-grandparents. Because as older generations die off, that can become harder to get, so time is of the essence in that.
Thanks again for the link.
Thanks a lot for the advice, it's always nice to recieve some help about how I should go about things.
I'm a big fan of your blog and how you spread the Gospel.
I do plan on following my parents wishes for the time being, but I do plan on getting baptized soon. I'll definately check with the bishop about that, perhaps that will help my parents to soften their hearts.
As for geneology, I'm already a huge fan my dad and I have been doing family tree work for years now (actually obtaining a great deal of information from Church sources).
Thanks again for the advice, and the link back.
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