So, this 16 year old girl found the little metal clip that held the wheel onto her family's hand cart during a youth pioneer trek. She said that it was an answer to prayer. It was at that moment that she knew the church was true.

Really? That's all it takes?

I didn't ask her, but apparently it did not occur to her to ask one of the leaders if they had a box of spares, because they did.

By her reasoning, what about all the poor guys who did not find their lost clip? Should they conclude that the church is not true?

What reasons have you heard people express for knowing?

The neighbors black lab puppy foolishly ran into the side of a moving car and was stunned for a bit. But little Megan said a prayer and soon the puppy was frolicking around like nothing ever happened.
The church is true!

I now sadly share a family tale of why Great great grandfather joined the church.

He was walking to Kirtland to meet Joseph when all of a sudden outside the city there was Joseph. Joseph called him byvname even though they never met. Further, Joseph told him how much money was in his pocket and that for that amount they could by one of ghe six pulpits for the Temple.

Since he'd never met Joseph there was no way Joseph could have known him or the exact amount of money he carried. So Joseph had to be a prophet, right?

(Not that Joseph knew and later married great great grandfather's wife. I mean Joseph could never have gotten a message from her saying for example My husband X and I are headed to Kirtland in three days with $57.48.)

NOPE not a possibility :)

So, Joseph knew the woman the man was with, and assumed it was her fiancee, whom he had heard about. Probably Joseph heard the jingle of money in the man's pocket. JS's holy ears were in tune to the sound of money! As the years went by, the story became more embellished and more amazing, even to the point that Holy Joe knew the exact amount in his pocket. Leave it to Joe to take every last penny in that man's pocket, for something stupid, when most the pioneers were in a state of poverty and starvation.

It would have been more faith-promoting, if Joseph had given the man food, or aid, and a kind word--that that was not in Joseph's character to do so.

True story, in testimony meeting:

A very wealthy, influential, famous Mormon neighbor hiked off the trail, which, in that area was against the law. The mountain is behind our neighborhood, and is very dangerous. During the hike, they couldn't find the trail to get home, and darkness was setting in. They knelt down in a clearing, and prayed. While they were praying, their dog ran off, and disappeared. When they scrambled back to the trail, it was too dark to look for the day, and they had to abandon him, and go home. The next morning, the wealthy man woke up at dawn, with the "impression" that he needed to go to the exact spot where they had prayed, to find the dog. He did, and there was the dog, in the same spot, waiting for him! The man even got back home in time to get to sacrament meeting on time!

I was in this testimony meeting, thinking how irresponsible he was to take his little kids and their dog along in such a dangerous area in the first place. I knew the area he was talking about, and it can be seen, at some distance, from the trail. It's the only clearing in an area of trees and cliffs. The man claimed that God had spoken to him that morning, telling him exactly where his dog would be.

Follow up--I couldn't make this up:

A few weeks later, there were helicopters flying around the mountain, all night long, shining lights onto the mountain, which we can see from our house. The next day, on the news, the same Mormon neighbor had gone on another hike to the same dangerous place, and had taken along the child of a friend, and his single mother. That child fell from a cliff and was killed!

Um, hey, if God spoke to this man, why didn't this man get the message?

Truth is stranger then fiction in this case.

Maybe he did get the message. God figured the kid was better off dead than Mormon.

Just vague "miracles." They don't want to cast pearls before swine, apparently I'm swine now, so they don't get more specific.

As a believer I still believed in coincidences, so I didn't listen to these random "miracles," that really were coincidences. But things such as a perfect job becoming available right when they needed it to pay for graduate school. Things like that, meaning God loved them.

"I could feel the spirit...."


Uh. OK. Casper pushed your warm fuzzy button somewhere.

Never mind there are multiple every day explanations you have not ruled out, like coincidence.

My absolute favorite was a guy who got up in F&T meeting in late 1977, and gushed about how he knew this was the lard's one and only true church because of the no-blacks-get-the-priesthood policy. See, while all the other churches of the world had caved into "equal rights" pressure, only elohim's one true church held fast to biblical principles keeping the less valiant from having god's power on earth -- even though we'd treat them like our brothers and sisters if ever there were any such people in our ward (and there never were).

And then in 1978...bam!

Funny, I don't remember him getting up in '78 and proclaiming the church was now false.

I heard JW Marriott Jr. testify that when his speed boat caught on fire, his legs were only burned up to the level where his garments started. Too bad he didn't have ankle length. Who's idea was that, not too smart.

The testimonies I detested were the ones in which an Elder would sanctimoniously claim that "God has a special purpose for me. He could have taken my life many times, but I just know he saved me for a special purpose..."

One Ward I was in, the new move-in family spoke in Sacrament and the dad kept saying that he knew the Lord has caused them to move to this Ward for a special purpose. Turned out the purpose was that his last bishop had cut the family off church welfare and he needed a new soft hearted bishop.

I thought they were all stupid. The divorced women got up there to flaunt their figures and try to attract some second husband for all their brats. The men got up there to have a captive audience. The old got up there to try to impress God and get into heaven.

As you can tell, I wasn't too moved by Testimonies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2018 12:16PM by mel.

hehehehee

They are all stupid test-a-monies.