Now this really confused me growing up. If you claim to have seen jesus himself and chill with the guy you should have healing abilities as jesus would train his apostles in how to heal people. Like healing cancer and things like this. Is there any account of them healing one person? No, not one. Although i have not paid attention to the operation in quite some time.

Not heard to figure out.

They have no powers. PERIOD!

Well said. Growing up i thought they had to have at least one ability or something. I was pretty naive i guess.

>> "If you claim to have seen jesus himself and chill with the guy you should have healing abilities as jesus would train his apostles in how to heal people."

That's quite an assumption. First thought is, I don't know of any apostle that openly claimed to have "seen jesus himself and chilled with the guy".

Second thought is, how do you "train" someone to heal people? The power is supposed to come from god like some sort of electricity and all you need is belief and faith....according to jesus himself.

I heard an apostle say they were a special witness of christ which implied they have seen the guy. At least thats how i thought it was implied when they said it.

I think that "witness," as used in "special witness of Christ" is like being a witness in court: telling your side of the story.

getting face time with Jesus in the temple. They never expressly said that they did, but they went right up to the point of lying, but not crossing the line (in a legalistic, hair-splitting kind of way), leaving just enough wiggle room to make it possible for them to have some plausible deniability if someone accused them of lying.

"Well, I never said that I SAW Jesus. I just mentioned that upon being called as an Apostle I had a very sublime, sacred experience WITH the Savior in the temple. Feelings and promptings that are deeply personal and too sacred to talk about in detail. But we should all strive to have such experiences...yadda, yadda, blah, blah, caca, poopoo on you and you...and did I mention how SACRED my experience with the savior was? I felt that the veil was very thin at that moment."

Nowadays, it seems like someone set a policy a while back (a few decades ago?) such that they no longer claim to be a "special witness of Christ", but rather claim to be a "special witness of the NAME of Christ."

It's a weird distinction, but one that they seem to feel compelled to make. Nobody really knows what a "witness of a name" actually witnesses or bears witness of. Why is it important to be a witness of the name? Sounds silly if you think about it for any length of time.

The Special Witness of the Name of Christ takes the witness stand:

"Yep. Yep. I saw the name of Christ right there. It wasn't glowing. It was more like it was painted on. Yep. Yep. Kind of stenciled in. That's right. I'm talking about the signboard outside the Church. I also saw the name on the building. Nope. Nope. It wasn't painted on. It was higher quality materials, if I recall correctly. I believe they were actual letters formed out of metal and when I got close, it looked like they were bolted on some kind of plate that was itself bolted into the brickwork of the building. Yep. Yep. Do I consider myself to be a special witness of the name of Christ? Of course I do. I was there dammit! I saw the name with my own two eyes! Not only that, but I also saw the name of Jesus on the same sign. And just this morning, I was eating Alpha Bits--you know--that really delicious cereal that comes in the shape of letters...and I sh*t you not, the name Jezux was spelled out all by itself in the milk. So, yeah, I am a special witness, dammit!"

Anyone can be a special witness to the name of Jesus Christ. All you have to do is to acknowledge that the name exists vs that the name doesn't exist and you're a special witness to that name. In mormonism, everything is 'special', so that makes you a special witness. You don't even need to believe in god or christ to be such a witness. All you have to do is to acknowledge what actually does exist, the name. How stupid does it get? These guys need to get a real job and give up the fraud.

A good example is when my late wife was dying from lung cancer she asked for a blessing. The current bishop gave her a blessing which he later told was a blessing to tell her that it was OK to die. SO MUCH FOR THE HEALING POWER OF THE PRIESTHOOD!!!

"And Jesus laid his hands upon the cripple and said unto him, 'it is okay for you to be crippled after this manner'. And everywhere that Jesus went he laid his hands upon the sick and afflicted and told them it was okay to be sick and afflicted. And behold all who saw this marveled, saying: 'surely, he has the true priesthood and power of God.' And Jesus would turn to them and say, 'It's okay for you to believe that I am God."

Apostles: Are you the Son of God?
Jesus: I am sustained as such.

Peter, whispering to James: "Why was Judas rolling his eyes and snickering when Jesus said that?"