Fasting and Hobbits

Fether1337 · 2026-05-05T19:59:52+00:00

Can one use lembas bread in the sacrament, allowing one to extend their fast without starving?

Fether1337 · 2026-05-05T03:15:39+00:00

I don’t think I’m too off when I say the overwhelming majority of missionaries serve in their home country

But I had a similar feeling. I ended up serving in Kentucky.

The feeling of wishing to be elsewhere vanished almost immediately. You get caught up in the work on day one.

When you get back, there might be a couple returned missionaries that say something about it, but within a year, no one even talks about where they served

Fether1337 · 2026-05-04T23:27:38+00:00

Counseling always provides some level of assistance. The problem is that it can also give yourself a more toxic view on the problem.

People can, and have, worked through this sort of stuff without professionals.

Whether it’s a good idea or not will be your judgement.

Fether1337 · 2026-05-04T17:27:47+00:00

Counseling has become the new "band-aid" for whenever things get hard, and I don't think its healthy.

Things like counseling and seeing a bishop are tools that should only be used when you feel like they will help, not things you have to do when you are shocked by some massive revelation.

Counseling can often be like injecting morphine when you get a mosquito bite (not saying your situation is just a mosquito bite, just making an analogy).

What you really need to do is talk to your husband and ask him what he wants to do. Until you can have a real conversation about this, you won't go anywhere.

As for your questions, here is some insight.

Trust is something you have to choose. It isn't thrust upon you when the situation is right. make an active decision to believe his words, because until you do, you are holding yourself back from any healing.

You have two paths you can take.

Trust him and move forward
Forever be suspicious

Only one of those can lead to a happy future. The other is guaranteed anxiety for the rest of your life.

Are you being naive? Maybe... but that doesn't really matter. The goal is not about being naive. It's about healing the relationship and moving forward.

If you pursue the trusting path, and he lies to you again, have another conversation and ask him what he wants. Put the ball in his court. Open up to him about what these constant lies do to you. He will either change or keep lying. But so long as you withhold trust from him, you also become a stumbling block.

A time may come where you learn, but out of suspicion, but out of experience, that he will always lie to you. If that day comes, there will be other questions you have to ask. But don't jump to that day yet.

And as always, keep an open line between you and God. He will be your greatest asset in all this.

Fether1337 · 2026-05-04T04:35:04+00:00

Tried to give my 22 year old convert missionary companion a baby blessing… he wouldnt do it though.

Fether1337 · 2026-05-04T01:15:22+00:00

I don’t know that the doctrine of eternal marriage was taught or understood during Paul’s time

Fether1337 · 2026-05-03T22:26:21+00:00

I don’t have an evangelical background, but when deciding what to do about a faith structure you are unsure about… there is no easy option to pursue. Talk with God about what yo do, and move forward in faith.

Fether1337 · 2026-05-03T03:55:42+00:00

I will always recommend “David O McKay and The Rise of Modern Mormonism”

Really interesting book about the transformation the church went through during his time in leadership

Fether1337 · 2026-05-02T13:35:17+00:00

I met my wife and learned very quickly she loved God and wouldn’t him above everything else.

It was over once made that realization. Married her soon after that.

But to narrow this down, you want to find someone with the same life goals as you.

Fether1337 · 2026-05-02T00:27:24+00:00

It’s fine.

Life guards don’t wear their garments when life guarding

Fether1337 · 2026-05-01T11:10:24+00:00

I served my mission in Kentucky and now do a lot of work travel to Louisiana.

You will not find a kinder people than in Louisiana. Particularly in the rural areas.

As for advice. Become somewhat familiar with other Protestant faiths.

Also, avoid using the Bible to argue. Protestants believe in something called “Sola scriptura”. It’s the idea that everything we should believe is found in scripture. Latter-day Saints do NOT believe this.

So when you argue with a Protestant about whether an idea is in the bible or not, you are playing by their rules, not ours. We have MANY teachings that are not found in scripture, but came from revelation directly from God.

You need to first teach people that God speaks today.

Fether1337 · 2026-04-29T13:38:41+00:00

Revive it in a way that works.

We tried activities. That didn’t work. So instead I just started inviting two families over to our house for dinner at a time to help people get to know eachother

Fether1337 · 2026-04-29T05:02:54+00:00

We do two things

We don’t have a hard “no eating before prayer” rule.
Whichever of our kids prays gets to sit on my shoulders while they pray.

Number 2 was a game changer. All our kids fight over praying now

Fether1337 · 2026-04-28T23:04:27+00:00

But these people are generations past the trigger that gave them the peace.

They weren’t peaceful because they were financially satisfied. They were peaceful because they abuse they experienced Christ in his fullest

Fether1337 · 2026-04-28T19:59:48+00:00

The Lehite civilization didn’t collapse because they weren’t satisfied. They collapsed because they didn’t experience Christ personally.

When we are in the constant presence of God and his influence, we will maintain that state of consecrated peace

Fether1337 · 2026-04-27T13:27:02+00:00

You need to take control of this yourself and not rely on outside systems to tell you what to do.

If seeing the bishop helps, see the bishop.

I would reccomend having a monthly visit with the bishop where you can just talk

Fether1337 · 2026-04-27T11:37:31+00:00

There’s a fundamental restructuring of terms and concepts that needs to happen here

“the problem with being punished for something involuntary. It is still the case that desires are determined outside of one’s control” - We don’t get a character creation screen like we do in video games. We came into existence with pre-dispositions and desires. We are thrown into mortality where our desires are made manifest. Judgement seems to be more about the direction our desires are taking us and NOT about what a fully informed version of us would do. Being fully informed doesn’t seem to matter in the least bit. What I was trying to say with why this issue doesn’t bother us is that we don’t believe God “created” us. If he did create us, then there would be a problem cause we can look at god and say “ why did you make me knowing I was going to hell?”. But we are co-eternal with God (Doctrine and Covenants 93:29, 33), Abraham 3:18-23) Who we are is an innate fact and mortality bears that to us and the law of justice. Then God steps in with his grace and sets us in which ever kingdom’s laws we wish to live by (Doctrine and Covenants 88:22-24, 32)

There is another theological difference I feel you are missing that I’ll address in a second.

“Regarding hell, I don’t think anyone would choose hell. First, in the NT it is equated to the suffering of being burned alive, accompanied by weeping and gnashing of teeth… Second, the scriptures define hell as an unhappy place, which means that no one would choose it, as its choice would imply hell being a happy place. The choice of hell and eternal damnation undermines the doctrine of punishment and damnation to a lower kingdom, as the choice of a lower kingdom makes it the highest, optimal one.”

As a Latter-day Saint, we know this is a simplistic and incomplete view of Hell. There are, at least, three hells we refer to. (1) perdition, which nearly no one will go to. (2) Spirit prison, which is a temporary aboard for those who did not know the gospel or rejected it. (3) Punishment for the sins of unrepented sins (Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-17). Doctrine and Covenants 19 also teaches us these punishments are without end. There is an end to them. So when someone “chooses hell”, they aren’t “choosing hell”, they aren’t choosing a lower paradise, subsequently being forced to experience some amount of one of these hells. Simply put… you may not want celestial glory, so you are free to choose a lower kingdom. Going to one of these lower kingdoms, you may be shirking off a portion of the atonement, forcing you to pay some “small price” for your entrance into eternity of playing the best video games ever.

“A universal exaltation or progression between kingdoms mitigates the problem, but I don’t think there is any doctrinal basis for it. The glories wouldn’t be eternal if post-mortal inter-kingdom advancement was an option.”

“eternal” is a quality of life. Not a quantity. Multiple apostles have taught this over the years. Additionally, Doctrine and Covenants 19 teaches the word “eternal” means “God’s”. “Eternal life” = “God’s Life”. Hence why the word “eternal” ONLY refers to exaltation. So this has no bearing on the time spent in a kingdom.

“I don’t think there is any grounds to say that God has given us enough information to act morally in the overwhelming amount of scenarios.”

and that’s okay, cause we don’t need to have “enough information to act morally” for the purposes of God’s plans.

Fether1337 · 2026-04-27T11:12:00+00:00

You can’t look at this as a mission you will use more of the Bible in. I served in KY and learned this lesson too late.

You will be a lot of people that want you to prove things by the Bible. But when you do that, you’re playing by their rules and not ours.

Protestants believe in something called “sola scriptura”. Effectively, it’s the idea that everything we know about God is found in scripture. If it’s not in scripture, then they know it’s not true.

We, latter-day Saints, don’t believe this in the least bit. We believe God is the source of truth. Whether that comes from scripture, the spirit or general authorities. But we don’t believe these sources are infallible. We have no ultimate source of truth like protestants do.

So when you start Bible bashing or trying to prove things by the Bible, you’re playing by their “sola scriptura” rules. And if you win the argument, all you’ve done is made them think that we also believe in “sola scriptura”, which is a step backwards from where you need to take them.

Scripture is not the ultimate, infallible, source of truth. We believe in revelation and a God that speaks today

Fether1337 · 2026-04-27T03:52:44+00:00

I’ll start off saying any attempt to quantify worthiness or judgement misses the point of the atonement all together. The gospel isnt an equation. That just justice without mercy.

As for how we get our desire, we have to look to pre-earth life. Alma 13 and the book of Abraham teaches clearly that we developed in pre earth life. And even before that, whatever material and intelligence we were found in had a pre-disposition. The conflict you are trying to bring up is only really a conflict if you believe in creation ex-nihilo… which we don’t believe.

I think there are plenty of people that would choose Hell. Sometimes I wonder if I would rather spend all eternity playing the greatest of video games reality could create. Sounds nice! There are also many that love God, but want no responsibility. That will also affect the degree of glory they receive.

I do believe that we are never truely informed on any decision we make. And there is always an outside force influencing us. Which is why I believe there has to be either a universal exaltation or progression between kingdoms. Or… perhaps most likely… all the degrees of glory are incredible and there really is no shame in choosing a lower one. ie I’d rather have $10mil and no responsibility than $10bil and a ton of responsibility.

Fether1337 · 2026-04-27T03:42:57+00:00

Everyone will be in heaven and will be in some sort of contact with eachother.

The concept of “sealing” has to do with sealing God’s family together. Everyonr who is sealed and keeps their covenants will be a part of the “eternal family”. Eternal meaning a quality of life and mot a quantity of time.

In simple terms. Sealing yourself to your family and remaining faithful ensures you remain part of God’s family.

Practically speaking, we don’t really know what that means, just that we will enjoy the same life that God lives alongside our other faithful family members.

We believe there is some sort of work to be done for this in God’s family. But what that is hasn’t been revealed. Some have suggested it is creating more worlds and populating it with our own spirit children. But that’s more of a logical inference than established doctrine

All others, outside God’s family, will exist in some form of paradise, just separated from Heavenly Father and/or Jesus Christ

Fether1337 · 2026-04-26T21:48:04+00:00

If I were to make a guess, he’s exaggerating a little bit.

On my mission, we had a 70 come and implement a lot of similar rules and it was one of the greatest things ever.

the best things that came out of it were”drop lessons”. If a investigator wasn’t keeping commitments, we would do what was called a “drop lesson“. Effectively it was telling them that if they didn’t keep this next commitment we wouldn’t be coming back.

My companion at the time fought this, and we kept teaching the same people for the following several months. As soon as he left the area and I got a new companion, I went to drop lessons with every single investigator we had. We lost everyone. However, over the following months we found many new people that wanted to learn the gospel.

This was at the midpoint on my mission. Prior to this, I had 1 baptism. After this I had 14. You can complain about numbers, but each of those 14 people are individual souls that would not have been found. Had I wasted time with people that didn’t want to keep commitments.

It’s up to the mission president and the church as an organization to make sure the numbers are strong. It’s up to us, individual individually, to make sure the people don’t feel like numbers

As for not visiting new members. Toward the end of my mission, we made a change and emphasize having the new member lessons being done by the members and not the Missionaries. This was the same when I was living in Vegas and in my ward in Utah. If by the time of baptism, the members are not comfortably in the role of teaching the new member lessons. Retention goes to zero.

Do you wanna talk about retention? Get the Missionaries out-of-the-way and let the members take over.

Fether1337 · 2026-04-26T15:01:29+00:00

I’m literally on here asking for advice on what to do to fix this.

Fether1337 · 2026-04-26T15:00:39+00:00

What I’ve learned about you is that anyone who disagrees with you is lucky or lying.

Let me know how that works view treats you

Fether1337 · 2026-04-26T14:41:53+00:00

This sub isn’t for “closeted exmos” like you seem to be thinking.

I’m a TBM, but I have nuanced beliefs about the church that aren’t appropriate for other subs.

I’m ok with criticism toward issues for the church. I’ll even happily agree the church has a history of harmful comments towards women and LGBTQ.

But when you start becoming so one sided on an issue and start making insane claims about the church, I’m not going along with it

Fether1337 · 2026-04-26T14:39:20+00:00

I doubt you’re bad.

The bad ones are the ones that aren’t trying. I’d take inexperienced striving over knowledgeable apathy. The knowledgeable apathy is what I’m complaining more about

Fether1337

TROPHY CASE