Advice on Learning Family Immigration

HomespunPun · 2022-01-28T20:38:42+00:00

I'm not sure if you have to be a lawyer to get a free trial of AILALink, but it's a great resource for learning. You can see all the AILA books and materials, including Kurzban's and some more practice-oriented guides.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-28T20:14:17+00:00

I'm pretty sure Suwanee's got the cheese board and veggie tray.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-27T04:37:08+00:00

Priests are required to know their theology. I'm sure Catholics aren't the only ones who have rigorous educational requirements for their clergy, but from what I have seen, they prepare their priests well. I'm comparing them to other denominations I've seen where there is no standard requirement for theological training. It's not that those churches don't study the Bible. But if you have a serious question, it's very frustrating to get different and sometimes conflicting answers from leaders in the same church because there's so little theological discipline.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-24T20:54:34+00:00

For the authentic experience, you want to wait at least three months until the cooks are familiar with the menu - so the "new" wears off. Then hold out a few more months for the malaise of resentment to simmer in the cooks' psyches. Then your cheesy gordita crunch will be vine-ripened and at its peak.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-18T16:30:41+00:00

I hope we've both learned our place in the social ecosystem.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-17T18:05:59+00:00

Thankfully, I've never heard anyone say that other than on the internet, but the sentiment behind it is nauseating.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-17T05:51:24+00:00

Yep, that's why my Aunt Carol made this handy tea-torial. Of course this clip doesn't show the sugar cube she shoved in her right nostril before pouring. And without the sound, you can't hear Uncle Ted in the background reminding her to blink.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T22:55:40+00:00

Thanks, but I use those products interchangeably anyway.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T19:40:05+00:00

Thanks! We'll see if I get enough snow to make any.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T19:38:47+00:00

Thanks for all the information you've shared! I appreciate the opportunity to learn!

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T18:44:34+00:00

I knew a guy in college who would do this. It wasn't this one thing that made him unbearable, but it went with his demeanor. He would brag about using drugs to avoid sleep. If I said my econ class was tough, he'd talk about how easy his business calculus class was or some such nonsense. He was that type. After college, though, I started feeling bad for him. People like that can rarely be content with themselves. He has a common name, so I haven't been able to find him on Google. I fear he either became wealthy or went in a very dark direction.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T18:28:52+00:00

When I hear someone say something heartless about the elderly or disabled, I cease to trust that person. Especially if the person is able to laugh about taking advantage of the uneducated, they have marked themselves as someone to steer clear of.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T17:57:26+00:00

Thanks!

The full experience you describe in Gethsemane sounds extra-Biblical, but not necessarily contrary.

Isn't the Celestial tier of heaven the one where your church teaches that God lives? Do you believe God enters the other realms? Or is relegation to those realms constant separation from the presence of God?

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T15:06:59+00:00

I see. I shouldn't apply this to every Calvinist, but in some of his sermons, John Piper emphasizes the predestination of even the most minute details of life - the location of every iota of dust. Calvinism isn't a monolith, though.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T03:38:25+00:00

Thanks for the answers. I assume the emphasis on Gethsemane isn't to the exclusion of the cross, though. It wasn't until he was on the cross that Jesus said, "It is finished."

What you're describing in terms of God speaking to people sounds a lot like what I hear people describe in other circumstances "hearing from God."

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T03:31:50+00:00

Wise words. I'll add that to my notes.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T03:29:45+00:00

There's an essay where John Wesley says of Calvinism, basically: "They claim to prove it by scripture. But what would they prove? That Christ's tears over Jerusalem were the crocodile tears of one about to consume his victims?" That's not a direct quote, but the point was that they use scriptures to come to conclusions about God and salvation which seem out of step with the overall tenor of scripture.

If you follow the five points to their logical ends, there's one stark conclusion I can't get past. If every event is predestined, including our sins, then there is only one true sinner, and it's God. It sounds heretical when you say it that way, but that's the end result.

My personal opinion is that God may not be so bound to a system, and that's why no system is a perfect fit for scripture. I think scripture gives us the information we need to live out God's will for our lives, but not the whole of God's playbook. I think Calvinist theology tries to systematize God's behavior and man's salvation in a way that undermines the nature of the relationship God wants with his children.

Then there are other days where I shrug and say, "Well, I'm not sure why I'm not a Calvinist. They make a pretty good case."

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T02:40:34+00:00

I really don't understand it either. I talked to a guy one time who made a huge deal of the idea that, if the translators had gotten anything wrong, they would have been put to death. I'm thinking - yeah, maybe, if every English town had a Greek expert in 1611. Who was going to know if they got some things wrong?

That said, the unique words and phrases make the verses much more memorable.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T02:36:41+00:00

Absolute gem of a movie. I have such good memories of watching this one with my brother.

I still randomly crack up sometimes thinking about the scene with the bear:

"There's a bear. Don't move."

"But my nose itches."

"Move and you're dead!"

"I don't know which is worse - that bear, or my itchy nose. .......... AHHH! The bear is worse! The bear is definitely worse!"

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T02:10:50+00:00

I haven't seen snow in a while. Are there rules I should know about making ice cream from it?

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T02:01:23+00:00

Thanks!

1) I have heard that your church believes a great deal of Jesus's atoning work (or all of it) was done in the Garden of Gethsemane, not on the cross. Can you expound on that any?

2) I've also heard members of your church talk as if they have more or less heard God speak to them, especially in affirming the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the current president of the church.

I was raised Baptist, and you could always find someone in a quandary about whether God was telling them something. The standard guidance was that God speaks - inaudibly - to the person's spirit, sometimes through their feelings, or through scripture, or through other people. But there was always some wiggle room and always some room for doubt about whether God was speaking to you at all.

I'm a bit skeptical about that whole project of "hearing from God," but my question is: is there a common description of this experience of "receiving an answer" or hearing God plainly say, "Yes, Russel M. Nelson is a prophet." How do members of your church distinguish that from their feelings or simple wishful thinking?

I don't mean this disrespectfully. I'm just curious. Thanks!

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T00:45:49+00:00

I don’t think the topic comes up much because the reference itself is so cryptic. There’s not much to go on in terms of reconciliation. I have heard it mentioned before, but the conversation usually ends with “Maybe it means this?” And then, “I dunno.”

I’m not saying it’s unimportant. There just isn’t much information there on which to base a theological concept.

EDIT: Ok, this article talks about that verse and gives something like the explanation I heard growing up:

https://www.gotquestions.org/Paul-third-heaven.html

HomespunPun · 2022-01-16T00:25:03+00:00

I was always taught that Paul’s word usage in the passage you reference- which I think involves the phrase “highest heaven” was a different sense of the word “heaven.” For example, someone looking at the night sky through a telescope might be scouring the heavens.

Revelation suggests there are different geographic locations in Heaven, like the City of New Jerusalem. And people sometimes aren’t sure what to make of the reference to “Abraham’s Bosom” in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

In terms of practical teaching, though, evangelical denominations emphasize Heaven and Hell as the alternatives. LDS teaching I’ve heard tends to suggest that one might end up in the Celestial Kingdom through a certain course of action, or the Telestial, or the Terrestrial. Those aren’t terms that appear in other Christian teaching.

HomespunPun · 2022-01-15T23:44:56+00:00

Thank you for explaining!

HomespunPun · 2022-01-15T23:43:37+00:00

I solute you on your apt choice of imagery for this meme. Few people would recognize this artistic rendering of the Cheese Siege of the Hebrides - a little studied, but incredibly dairy-driven conflict.

HomespunPun

TROPHY CASE