Two great quotes about Prophets

[1] “We find ourselves often quoting the words of prophets, and, lest there be some doubt as to what a prophet is, we submit that it is one who, under the appointment and inspiration of the Lord God, speaks truth as the spirit moves him, regardless of what the world is thinking and regardless of what men would like to hear. “And, therefore, a prophet is seldom popular, and the cost of being a prophet is always great, for he may be called upon to say those things which are not pleasing, even unto himself, and he may find himself fighting against a tide of mass-misconception, and, as history records, be stoned, crucified, banished, ridiculed, shunned, or rejected. For the truth is not pleasing unto all men, and time has proved that majorities are not always right. … “It is not important that a prophet should say those things with which you and I are in full accord. But it is important that you and I should bring ourselves into full accord with those things which a prophet speaks by virtue of his office and calling.” (Richard L. Evans, 1939, E-42:672) [2] Prophets have always offended people. And no prophet was as offensive as Jesus. To the world, a prophet is a good fellow as long as he is dead or minds his own business. If he is dead we can play with his words and make them say anything we want them to say. But if he is living, he doesn’t always mind his own business. At election time we want him to keep still even though we acknowledge from time to time that elections are crucial events. But we do not want to believe God unless he tells us what we want to hear. We especially get upset if the prophets tell us what is true or false in the academic areas. We think they are not qualified to speak — at least not in our field. The experts on political science want the prophets to keep still on politics. The experts on evolution want them to keep still on Bible interpretation. So it goes: “‘Aren’t there enough things for the prophets to do without sticking their noses into our business? Let them see to their welfare programs and to the problem of sin. We will take care of the rest.’” So say the present day schoolmen.” (Glenn L. Pearson & Reid E. Bankhead, A Doctrinal Approach to the Book of Mormon, pp. 79-80)

The Lord protected Zion's Camp

Here is another story from church history that I love: It is from “Church History in the Fulness of Times”, Religion 341-343 Institute manual, copyright 1989,1993, page 148-149. Quote: Events at Fishing River This happened during the march of Zion’s camp. Four hundred men had gathered to destroy the Mormons.... “but the Prophet promised that the Lord would protect (the saints). He declared, “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” “...a small black cloud appeared in the clear western sky....As the first ferry load of mobbers crossed the Missouri River to the south, a sudden squall made it nearly impossible for the boat to return to pick up another load. The storm was so intense that Zion’s Camp abandoned their tents and found shelter in an old Baptist meetinghouse nearby....” “...the beleaguered mobbers sought any refuge they could. The furious storm broke branches from trees and destroyed crops. It soaked and made the mobbers’ ammunition useless, frightened and scattered their horses, and raised the level of the Fishing River, preventing them from attacking Zion’s Camp. The Prophet recalled, “It seemed as if the mandate of vengeance had gone forth from the God of battles, to protect His servants from the destruction of their enemies.” “Two days later, Colonel John Sconce and (two members of the non-LDS militia) rode into Zion’s Camp... “I see that there is an Almighty power that protects this people” Sconce admitted.”

Care for some moonshine?

In "The Civil War" documentary, by Ken Burns, it says that during the Civil War, the homemade liquor made by the troops was called, "Nockum Stiff", "Bust-Head", "Pop Skull", and "Oh Be Joyful".

On the "Beverly Hillbillies", they sometimes called it "White Lightning."

I think nowadays it is commonly called "moonshine."

 Here are some photos of the moonshine still the guys found in the backwoods of the Smokies.  I had never seen what one looked like before.  Wayne assumed this one was operating back in the 1930's, during prohibition.

My high school English teacher, Mr. Chessmore, taught us a little poem:

I had a little girl,

She lived on a hill,

She's a moonshiner's daughter,

but I love her still.

I wonder

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. –Mark Twain


And,


I HATE DIRECTV!!!!!
I won't go into my long diatribe here, but that company is run by the biggest jerks in the world.  They completely lied to me, and then stole my money.  I have never been treated as badly by a company as by that company.  Don't EVER sign up with DirecTV for satellite.  Never, never, never.  Run the other way, quick.


And,


here is a good explanation of why I always throw my AARP membership solicitations in the trash.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/the_many_faces_of_aarp.html  (My first clue was when they lobbied for Obamacare.)

How do you know if you have the Holy Spirit?

Here is a list by Elder John H. Groberg, April 1986 Ensign.

http://www.lds.org/ensign/1986/04/investing-for-eternity?lang=eng

When You Have the Spirit  When You Do Not Have the Spirit  1. You generally feel happy and calm. You may feel unhappy, depressed, confused, frustrated most of the time. 2. You feel full of light. You may feel heavy, full of darkness. 3. Your mind is clear. Your mind may be muddled. 4. You feel love for the Lord and others. You may feel empty, hollow, cold inside. 5. You feel generous. You may feel selfish, possessive, self-centered. 6. Nobody can offend you. You may be offended easily. 7. You are very forgiving and kind. You may usually be on the defensive. 8. You feel confident in what you do. You may become discouraged easily. 9. You don’t mind others seeing what you are doing. You may become secretive, evasive. 10. You want to be with those who love you—especially family members. You may want to be alone most of the time. You avoid others—especially family members. 11. You are glad when others succeed. You may be envious almost constantly of what others do and what they have. 12. You want to help others be happy, even those opposed to you. You may want to get even and show others up. 13. You willingly perform Church work. You may feel hesitant, unworthy, and unwilling to perform Church ordinances. 14. You feel like praying and reading the scriptures. You may not want to pray or read scriptures. 15. You wish you could keep all the Lord’s commandments. You may find the commandments of God and rules of the family bothersome, restricting, or senseless. 16. You usually control your appetites and emotions. You are calm and control your speech; you feel no anger. You may be a slave to your appetites. You give way to strong anger and outspokenness. 17. You generally feel a deep desire to help others—usually in a way no one else will know about. When you help others, your main desire may be to have your actions noticed. 18. You speak and think good about others. You are critical of others, especially family members and those in authority. 19. You feel sorrow when others have problems and sincerely desire to help them. You may often question others’ motives and secretly delight in others’ problems. 20. You realize that your thoughts and your actions are open to God. You may feel that what you do and think is only your business and no one else knows or cares.

Ezra Taft Benson, 1977, on the welfare state

"A Vision and Hope for the Youth of Zion"  EZRA TAFT BENSON Ezra Taft Benson was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this devotional address was given at�Brigham Young University on 12 April 1977. © Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. Complete volumes of Speeches are available wherever LDS books are sold. For further information contact: Speeches, 218 University Press Building, Provo, Utah 84602. (801) 422-2299 / E-mail: speeches@byu.edu / Speeches Home Page Socialism Disguised under Welfare State Measures As citizens of this noble land, we have marched a long way down the soul-destroying road of socialism. If you question that statement, consider the recent testimonial from the Nobel prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman. He indicated that government spending in the United States at all levels amounts to over forty percent of today's total national income. If we continue to follow the trend in which we are heading today, two things will inevitably result: first, a loss of our personal freedom, and second, financial bankruptcy. This is the price we pay when we turn away from God and the principles which he has taught and turn to government to do everything for us. It is the formula by which nations become enslaved. This nation was established by the God of heaven as a citadel of liberty. A constitution guaranteeing those liberties was designed under the superintending influence of heaven. I have recounted here before what took place in the St. George Temple when the Founding Fathers of this nation visited President Wilford Woodruff, who was then a member of the Twelve and not president of the Church. The republic which was established was the most nearly perfect system which could have been devised to lead men toward celestial principles. We may liken our system to the law of Moses which leads men to the higher law of Christ. Today, two hundred years later, we must sadly observe that we have significantly departed from the principles established by the founders of our country. James Madison opposed the proposal to put Congress in the role of promoting the general welfare according to its whims in these words: If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasure; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor. . . . Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for [and it was an issue then], it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America. [quoted in Donald L. Newquist, Prophets, Principles, and National Survival, p. 342] That statement, given as a warning, has proved prophetic. Today Congress is doing what Madison warned about. Many are now advocating that which has become a general practice since the early 1930s: a redistribution of wealth through the federal tax system. That, by definition, is socialism!  Americans have always been committed to taking care of the poor, aged, and unemployed. We have done this on the basis of Judaic-Christian beliefs and humanitarian principles. It has been fundamental to our way of life that charity must be voluntary if it is to be charity. Compulsory benevolence is not charity. Today's socialists--who call themselves egalitarians--are using the federal government to redistribute wealth in our society, not as a matter of voluntary charity, but as a so-called matter of right. One HEW official said recently, "In this country, welfare is no longer charity, it is a right. More and more Americans feel that their government owes them something" (U.S. News and World Report, April 21, 1975, p. 49). President Grover Cleveland said--and we believe as a people--that though the people support the government the government should not support the people. The chief weapon used by the federal government to achieve this "equality" is the system of transfer payments. This means that the federal governments collects from one income group and transfer payments to another by the tax system. These payments are made in the form of social security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, and food stamps, to name a few. Today the cost of such programs has been going in the hole at the rate of 12 billion dollars a year; and, with increased benefits and greater numbers of recipients, even though the tax base has been increased we will have larger deficits in the future. Today the party now in power is advocating and has support, apparently in both major parties, for a comprehensive national health insurance program--a euphemism for socialized medicine. Our major danger is that we are currently (and have been for forty years) transferring responsibility from the individual, local, and state governments to the federal government--precisely the same course that led to the economic collapse in Great Britain and New York City. We cannot long pursue the present trend without its bringing us to national insolvency.

Interesting statement by Harold B. Lee

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=b73c945bd384b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

"The Iron Rod" by President Harold B. Lee, First Counselor in the First Presidency

Ensign 1971 June

There are many who profess to be religious and speak of themselves as Christians, and, according to one such, “as accepting the scriptures only as sources of inspiration and moral truth,” and then ask in their smugness: “Do the revelations of God give us a handrail to the kingdom of God, as the Lord’s messenger told Lehi, or merely a compass?”

Unfortunately, some are among us who claim to be Church members but are somewhat like the scoffers in Lehi’s vision—standing aloof and seemingly inclined to hold in derision the faithful who choose to accept Church authorities as God’s special witnesses of the gospel and his agents in directing the affairs of the Church.

There are those in the Church who speak of themselves as liberals who, as one of our former presidents has said, “read by the lamp of their own conceit.” (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine [Deseret Book Co., 1939], p. 373.) One time I asked one of our Church educational leaders how he would define a liberal in the Church. He answered in one sentence: “A liberal in the Church is merely one who does not have a testimony.”

Dr. John A. Widtsoe, former member of the Quorum of the Twelve and an eminent educator, made a statement relative to this word liberal as it applied to those in the Church. This is what he said:

“The self-called liberal [in the Church] is usually one who has broken with the fundamental principles or guiding philosophy of the group to which he belongs. … He claims membership in an organization but does not believe in its basic concepts; and sets out to reform it by changing its foundations. …  

“It is folly to speak of a liberal religion, if that religion claims that it rests upon unchanging truth.”

And then Dr. Widtsoe concludes his statement with this: “It is well to beware of people who go about proclaiming that they are or their churches are liberal. The probabilities are that the structure of their faith is built on sand and will not withstand the storms of truth.” (“Evidences and Reconciliations,” Improvement Era, vol. 44 [1941], p. 609.)

Here again, to use the figure of speech in Lehi’s vision, they are those who are blinded by the mists of darkness and as yet have not a firm grasp on the “iron rod.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, when there are questions which are unanswered because the Lord hasn’t seen fit to reveal the answers as yet, all such could say, as Abraham Lincoln is alleged to have said, “I accept all I read in the Bible that I can understand, and accept the rest on faith.”

How comforting it would be to those who are the restless in the intellectual world, when such questions arise as to how the earth was formed and how man came to be, if they could answer as did an eminent scientist and devoted Church member. A sister had asked: “Why didn’t the Lord tell us plainly about these things?” The scientist answered: “It is likely we would not understand if he did. It might be like trying to explain the theory of atomic energy to an eight-year-old child.”

Wouldn’t it be a great thing if all who are well schooled in secular learning could hold fast to the “iron rod,” or the word of God, which could lead them, through faith, to an understanding, rather than to have them stray away into strange paths of man-made theories and be plunged into the murky waters of disbelief and apostasy?

I heard one of our own eminent scientists say something to the effect that he believed more professors have taken themselves out of the Church by their trying to philosophize or intellectualize the fall of Adam and the subsequent atonement of the Savior. This was because they would rather accept the philosophies of men than what the Lord has revealed until they, and we, are able to understand the “mysteries of godliness” as explained to the prophets of the Lord and more fully revealed in sacred places.

Sounds like today

“The record of the Nephite history just prior to the Savior’s visit reveals many parallels to our own day as we anticipate the Savior’s second coming. The Nephite civilization had reached great heights. They were prosperous and industrious…….

“But, as so often happens, the people rejected the Lord. Pride became commonplace. Dishonesty and immorality were widespread. Secret combinations flourished because, as Helaman tells us, the Gadianton robbers “had seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in their works and partake of their spoils” (Hel. 6:38 )…even as today.” 

(April 1987 General Conference, President Ezra Taft Benson]

For my three daughter-in-laws, with the little babies

Janette, with Tessa, 5 days old.

Here is a talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, that I hope will encourage you through the hard times.

https://lds.org/ensign/1997/05/because-she-is-a-mother?lang=eng

"In speaking of mothers generally, I especially wish to praise and encourage young mothers. The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. The young years are often those when either husband or wife—or both—may still be in school or in those earliest and leanest stages of developing the husband’s breadwinning capacities. Finances fluctuate daily between low and nonexistent. 


....But with night feedings and night teethings, often the greatest challenge of all for a young mother is simply fatigue. Through these years, mothers go longer on less sleep and give more to others with less personal renewal for themselves than any other group I know at any other time in life. It is not surprising when the shadows under their eyes sometimes vaguely resemble the state of Rhode Island."

Rachel, with Hannah, one month old.

"When you have come to the Lord in meekness and lowliness of heart and, as one mother said, “pounded on the doors of heaven to ask for, to plead for, to demand guidance and wisdom and help for this wondrous task,”that door is thrown open to provide you the influence and the help of all eternity. Claim the promises of the Savior of the world. Ask for the healing balm of the Atonement for whatever may be troubling you or yourchildren. Know that in faith things will be made right in spite of you, or more correctly, because of you.

You can’t possibly do this alone, but you do have help. The Master of Heaven and Earth is there to bless you—He who resolutely goes after thelost sheep, sweeps thoroughly to find the lost coin, waits everlastingly forthe return of the prodigal son. Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are and better than you have ever been as you try to make honest effort, however feeble you may sometimes feel that to be.

Remember, remember all the days of your motherhood: “Ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.” ¹⁰ 

Adam and Tiffany, with Anson, 12 hours old.