In a past thread, someone mentioned that it would be interesting to post our Patriarchial Blessings and see if they were "too similar" or if they varied depending on which Patriarch gave the blessing. I found that an interesting thought. It took some time for me to find mine and then to type it up. Except for my name and the names of my parents, this is word for word my PB.

THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

Memphis Tennessee Stake No. 906

19 September 1976 Memphis Tennessee
Date City State

A BLESSING given by Lawrence B. Spencer Patriarch, upon the head of

Xxxxxxxx xxx xxxxx daughter of
WRITE NAME IN FULL


Xxxxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxxx and Xxxxx Xxx Xxxxxx
FATHER’S NAME IN FULL MOTHER’S NAME IN FULL

Born X Xxxxxxxx XXXX at Xxxxxxxxx, Tennessee
DATE CITY STATE

Sister Xxxxxxxx Xxx Xxxxx: By authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood I hold as a Patriarch I lay my hands on thy head and pronounce upon thee thy Patriarchal Blessing, to be a guide and comfort to thee during the years which lie before thee in this mortal probation. Our Heavenly Father has blessed thee here in mortality for thou wast faithful in thy first estate and he has made it possible for thee to be born when the gospel is here in its fulness that thou might prepare thyself for exaltation and return to His presence.
I declare thee to be of the House of Israel. Thy lineage comes through Ephraim, the chosen son of Joseph. Therefore thou art numbered in the household of Abraham and entitled to choice blessings which were promised his posterity. Thou shall have and enjoy the blessings as you consistently serve the Lord and keep His commandments.
I bless thee with sufficient physical strength for thee to complete thy mortal mission, even the mission thou did come here in mortality to fulfill. Thy mission is very important for by thy example thou shall be as a light unto others and lead them to know the Lord and to learn of His Restored Gospel. Thou shall, through thy righteousness influence others to read and obey the Holy Scriptures. As thou shall study them and prepare thyself thou shall be able to give hope and encouragement to those whoa are disappointed with their circumstances. Thou shall have the gift of bringing peace where there is hatred and discord, love also where there is hatred and distrust and you shall help those who are discouraged by showing them the Lords true way. Their lives shall be happy as they follow thy example and live obedient to the gospel.
I bless thee with blessings temporal. As thou shall continue to faithfully serve the Lord in righteous, encouraging and supporting thy choice companion in his righteous endeavors and as you both live faithful and true to the gospel of Jesus Christ, Our Heavenly Father will open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings upon thee. Thy home shall be blessed through righteous living and the Lord will send His Spirit to guide and direct in the rearing of thy family. I bless thee that thou may prepare thyself and family for exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom, even that thou shall in due time be blessed to go with thy choice companion to the Lords Holy Temple and be sealed as husband and wife for time and all eternity. As thou shall prove faithful in all things, Our Heavenly Father will help thee to receive these blessings. As thou and thy companion work unitedly together to learn of the Lords will, thou and he shall see the need for these blessings which Our Heavenly Father makes available to us His children. By proper planning thou can prepare to have thy family together in eternity.
I bless thee as a faithful mother in Israel. Thou shall love things of righteousness and thou shall teach thy own family and others around thee to appreciate the finer things of life. Thou shall teach principles which are true by precept and by example each day. I bless thee with the strength thou shall need to resist the evils of the world around thee. Satan shall not have the power to turn thee from thy way of life. Thy life shall be protected and thou shall walk in the light of the gospel and go in peace and safety. The Holy Ghost shall prompt and guide thee and shall warn thee of the dangers around thee. Thou shall heed these warnings and be blessed for thy obedience. Thou hast been blessed greatly for thou hast been born of good parents and thy grandparents were special and loved and obeyed the Lord and I urge thee Sister Xxxxx to carry on in the same manner, living obedient in all things which the Lord expects of thee. Thy blessing shall be great and thy example shall bear much fruit as thou shall go forward supporting and sustaining those who lead I the church as they labor to build the Lords Kingdom. Thou shall have opportunities to give of thy time and efforts to help in the Lords work and shall be blessed with the gifts necessary to perform the work in a satisfactory manner, pleasing the Lord and meriting His blessings on thee and thy family.
I bless thee with a fruitful and rewarding mission, one filled with many faith prompting experiences. As thou shall grow old I years thou shall, if faithful, look back and reflect upon the life thou hast live and the preparation thou hast made for eternity. Thou shall know in thy heart and in thy mind that thou hast accomplished the purpose of thy creation and that great blessings will be given thee in eternity for thy faithfulness. I bless thee then with all blessings thou shall need to complete thy mortal mission, promising thee that if thou shall do thy part Our Heavenly Father will bless thee with exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom which he has Prepared for those who prove faithful in all things.
And now, I deal thee up to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection, according to thy faithfulness, there to rejoice in being reunited with thy loved ones who have lived the lives of true and faithful Latter-Day Saints. Thou shall progress and be rewarded with an exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom. I seal these blessings upon thee and they shall be thine inasmuch as thou shall live faithful and worthy to receive them for I seal them upon thee with this promise by the authority I hold as a Patriarch and in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Lawrence B. Spencer Patriarch



I would be interested in seeing others given by Lawrence B. Spencer as well as other Patriarchs.

Because it really depressed me and I saw no reason to keep it around. All in all, it said:

I am a very special spirit that will accomplish many a great thing in my lifetime. My greatest gift to be given to me is Agency. My most important decision will be who I mary, and very heavily suggested I had to make the absolute right choice or He would be displeased. I would bring special spirits into the world, and that would be one of the most important things I would do. I will understand others and be the one to calm storms of discord between those I hold dear. I will be a loving, faithful mother who kept a good household and a righteous family. Blah blah blah...

I never agreed with my blessing. It always put me at unease. For one, though I have a good build to bear and birth children, I have no intentions of having children. Not until I am 100% more healthy and well off in life...which may not happen. My body has become a downhill slope even at my younger age.

Second, the pressure to choose the absolutely correct husband. I had a boyfriend about a year ago that got interested in the church because of me. He was certain we were destined to be together. The pressure from not only my blessing, but many of my peers, made me skitish about furthering our relationship.I had to be veeeeery careful who I choose, after all. Or else have God be displeased with me.

When my boyfriend got his p blessing, it said something about how God had especially pre ordained a mate for him. Talk about pressure. He thought this mate was me. Long story short, these expectations and me, at the time, prone to buckling under so much pressure, led us to breaking up before he went on his mission. He called me just a week after our breakup to tell me he had fallen in love with another.

Yeah. Thanks for taking the time to call me up to say that, Romeo.

Though some people may disagree about choosing to get rid of their high and mighty blessings, I felt so GOOD to see that sucker go.

I would love to burn mine. I would post it, but it would take forever to copy. Mine was painfully boring. I lived with my aunt and uncle. They knew the patriarch for years and years. In my blessing it talked about them and how they came into my path to help me. It mentioned them a couple of times and that sort of bothered me. although, I still am grateful for them. The "blessing" mapped out my life and I felt very heavy after I got it. I felt like ohh..no..here comes a life of servitude.

The church jargon is so thick it pushed all the oxygen out of my office. It's interesting that with just a little space between me and Mormonism, just that little shift in perspective, makes so much difference. As a TBM that blessing would have seemed nice. Now it totally creeps me out. It just screams CULT.

I tossed mine too but in essence it said:

I am from the loins of Ephraim. That because of that heritage I was to receive all the promises made to Abraham. That I was born of goodly parents. I was blessed with love both in giving and receiving.

I would go on a mission and while there receive the "gift of tongues". (I did go on a foreign mish and while there did learn to speak the language so well that most people from that country thought I was from there also, but I don't think that was so much the gift of tongues as it was my natural competency for foreign languages and the fact that I had grown up listening to my grandma and great grandma talk Italian my whole life.)

And that's about it. I was so pissed off because the one thing I wanted to hear was that I would find love and live happily ever after and it said nothing about love or marriage at all. I worried for a long time that I would not ever get married, and I even rushed into a wrong marriage because I was so worried about it. That marriage ended badly after way too many years because both she and I were in such a hurry to get married to begin with.

As a TBM I often thought that my entire PB was completely fulfilled by the time I was 21 and that there was nothing for me to do for the rest of my life. Sure glad to be out of that supernatural thinking mind numbing contradicting lying cult.

Or could be that the church sent you on a foreign misson BECAUSE your PB said that... lol

This is easy.

Need your own blessing?

Go here:

http://www.patriarchalblessing.net/index.php/blessing/read

I went to a lot of trouble and spent a lot of time in posting my PB.

As I stated, it was to compare it with other real PB's, not recollections of parts or with whatever is one you get over the internet.

The date the PB was given and by whom is very important in that comparison as well as the full content.

So please, unless that is what you have to share, I would appreciate it if you would not respond on this post. Thank-you.

rowan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I went to a lot of trouble and spent a lot of time
> in posting my PB.
>
> As I stated, it was to compare it with other real
> PB's, not recollections of parts or with whatever
> is one you get over the internet.
>
> The date the PB was given and by whom is very
> important in that comparison as well as the full
> content.
>
> So please, unless that is what you have to share,
> I would appreciate it if you would not respond on
> this post. Thank-you.

I don't know where mine is.....read it after it was given...then filed it....would feed it to the shredder if I run across it...

Forgot to mention...I was adopted so if I was from the same tribe as my Dad...well, that ain't gonna work....

All I remember from mine was I was fromt he tribe of Ephraim.. I didn't bother to keep mine either..

So, my oldest dd gets her PB from a very intelligent,gift of the gab patriarch...2 pages long and really beautiful.

my next 3 dd's get their PB's from a different patriarch who was the polar opposite from the 1st guy...the blessings were 1 pg long, and were almost word for word identical with each other. WTF?

I cannot tell you how sad and disappointed they were and how not special they felt.

I wondered about that. My patriarch was known for giving really long blessings, and in fact he told me, "I don't give short blessings." Well, if the thing comes from God through the Holy Spirit, how can one patriarch have a bias toward long blessings, and another only short ones? I smelled a fish at the time, but I filed it away deep into my mind because I did not want to explore that line of thought back then.

I can't help but wonder if in these new, latter, latter-days, patriarchal blessings haven't be 'correlated' like everything else in the One True Church. After all, when Sunday school teachers aren't allowed to get off the reservation of the manual, I can't believe that old semi-senile patriarchs would be given free range to wander about the space-time continuum of polygamy, blood atonement, the oath of vengeance, skinny jeans and ear rings. I wouldn't at all be surprised to find that they log onto a patriarchal blessing generator maintained on a secure server in one of the One True Church's granite mountain vaults behind the curtain of Oz.

No, but they do receive extensive training in how to give a blessing, which is probably close to the same thing in results.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2011 07:57AM by forbiddencokedrinker.

The Patriarchs of today have computer software that generates the template for each blessing. You will find that the more modern the blessing, the closer they will match others.

Blessings contain the contents of the two interviews required - one with the Bishop, one with the Patriarch; regurgitated into old English speak. Thrown in are some guesses which have the potential to come true based on the information already provided.

E.G. In the interview a young woman talks about getting married to a Mormon. In the blessing it is prophesied that 'The Lord will provide her a worthy husband in His own good time'

It is worth noting that you need to be a worthy tithe payer to be eligible for a Patriarchal blessing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2011 08:45AM by Stumbling.

Well of course! The Lord will not be sold short. He only sells his blessings for cash.

I appreciate your effort and time involved to post your PB.
But if I were you I'd be happy to have the responses.........If anyone has a PB to post relating to your date/Patriarch that would be great...........if not at least you are not being ignored.

I didn't get a PB. AND my Dad was the Patriarch. I guess I wasn't worthy enough.

I am looking for DH PB.........from the early 60s. If I find it do you want me to post it here? Rowan..... Or not?
It doesn't relate to your Patriarch or date.

K

I have mine, will post later but it was given later and in a different state.

I found it quicker than I though I would, here you go--

July 1990 (I’m not listing the location or patriarch don’t want to give too much info out, otherwise it’s word for word)

Sister XXX: With the authority of the Holy Melchizidek Priesthood and Office of the Patriarch of the XX Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I place my hands upon your head and I give unto you your Patriarchal Blessing to be a guide, comfort, blessing and help unto you whenever you may need it on the Earth and throughout Eternity. You receive your inheritance blessings through the lineage of Ephraim the son of Joseph who was sold into Egypt by his brothers. These are choice blessings and they should be treasured by you. These are some of the same blessings that were given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob which you will need and which will give you guidance and encouragement on your journey through life. You have been blessed to have been born in this land of opportunity and plenty. You live in a marvelous age and you will witness many wonderful and exciting things and events that have been prophesied about in days of old. You will see great growth in the Church. You will serve as a missionary for the Church through your life. You will influence others to join the Church. Take advantage of the teaching moments. Your example will be helpful to others.

You have been blessed to be born in a family of brothers and sisters and with parents who love and appreciate you. They will always encourage and support you if you will call upon them for guidance, and remember also to call upon the Lord in addition in making your decisions in life. You home life will be cheerful and happy if you will look at the needs and desires of others and be encouraging and helpful to others.

I bless you to have the desire to remember and to follow the teachings of the Church leaders regarding marriage, which is to have your desires and your goals be compatible and temple oriented so that you will marry in the Temple of the Lord for Time and for Eternity. In due time you will meet a suitable mate with the same desires and goals and outlook on life that you will have and you will be blessed with a family who will be helpful to you and who will love and who will appreciate you. Your life will be long and happy especially as you honor your parents. The Lord has promised that your days will be long as you honor your parents.

Look for opportunities to help your friends and neighbors. Be charitable to others and you will come to find joy in helping others and sharing with others. Help those who are in need and help those who have not had your opportunities in life.

You will be warned of problems and obstacles that may arise in your path. You will be warned of temptations of the Adversary. Live a pure and righteous life and thus you will be strengthened to avoid temptations. Seek the righteous for your close friends, this also will help you avoid temptation and danger. Seek for those who have higher goals in life. Be kind to all, however. Let your life be a shining light to others thoughout the world. Thus you will bring happiness and joy in to the lives of all who see your light.

The Lord expects you to accomplish great things in your life. Take advantage of all your opportunities to learn and develop your skills, your mind and your talents. Get a good education and apply yourself to your studies. Take advantage of the religion classes that are offered as this will also help you prepare for your life.

Avoid waste. Learn to be frugal. Learn to save money and time for thus you will be able to accomplish may goals in life. You will be blessed with many material gifts through your honesty with the Lord and with your fellow man. Your payment of your tithes and offerings will bring the blessings of Heaven upon your head.

I bless you that you will find it easy to obey the Word of Wisdom and that you will be an example to others in this respect.

You will have many friends and you will have many who will love you and who will be happy to serve with you in the Church. You will have many positions and Church callings.

You have learned many lessons in life from your brothers and from your sisters. Use these experiences and lessons to enrich your own family life and to teach your children. Your children will rise and call you blessed for your righteous teachings to them.

In time you will be a Savior upon Mt. Zion and you will have the blessing of gathering information about your ancestors and doing and having done for them that which they cannot do for themselves. Go to the Temple often. Thus you will help others as well as enriching your own life.

You have talents you have not discovered and it is your obligation to search out these talents and to enrich your life and also to make more happy and joyous the lives of others. The Lord will help you in this, turn to Him and ask for guidance.

I bless you that you will find many opportunities to use your talents and to improve in life. Live the Gospel and keep the commandments. Help others both physically in kind deeds and helpful ways and also in spiritual ways. Remember to be cheerful, always. Look for the best in all situations. Do not criticize or find fault with others, but give honest praise and encouragement to others. Never be jealous of others nor of their accomplishments. Obey these principles and you will have a full and happy life. Remember that Charity never faileth.

You will be crowned with a crown of glory in the Celestial Kingdom. Live the commandments with a willing heart. I seal all these blessings upon your head and I also seal upon your head those that the Lord wished to bestow upon you in addition to these. I seal you to come forth in the First Resurrection. This I do with the authority that I hold and in the name of JESUS CHRIST, AMEN.

When I pointed out the similarity of the contents of various Patriarchal Blessings to an *UBER ACTIVE TBM* here is the reply I received. (and I quote)

""Its like people all go to the same NFL FootballGame-- They all get some of the spectacular plays memorized and they can all get it pretty much remembered the same. Then most people remember the score at half time and go on to remember the final score .Then there are the individual plays and experiences that each fan notices during the game that are pecular to them.

That is why Patriarchal Blessings are somewhat similar in their overall content, but have some unique attachments to the individual "".

That is how they justify the similarities--

JB

My sister (same biological parents) was told that she was from a different tribe than the rest of the family. That always prompted some awkward rationalizations whenever she brought it up.

My friend told me she knew someone who's tribe was different from the rest of their family. My friend said, "I don't know that works" and just shrugged it off. This is a woman with advanced science degrees. She is very smart, but this didn't seem to bother her.

To AnonyMs

Maybe you missed the last line on my post, I have copied and pasted it below.

>I would be interested in seeing others given by Lawrence B. Spencer as well as other Patriarchs.<

I appreciate your advice ...to lighten up. I can only state that I take the "debunking" of Mormonism with a serious mind.

I (and my children) suffered many atrocities because of Mormon-think. I find it difficult to "lighten-up" because of that.

Still, I will keep your advice in mind, as I hope that you will understand that what I came through there was a lot of mental and physical pain involved. Wounds heal, but scars remain---physical and mental.

You wrote, >But if I were you I'd be happy to have the responses.........If anyone has a PB to post relating to your date/Patriarch that would be great...........if not at least you are not being ignored.<

You are not me, and what makes you happy does not necessarily do so for me. I am not worried about being ignored, only having my time, which is valuable to me, wasted.

you ended with this:>I am looking for DH PB.........from the early 60s. If I find it do you want me to post it here? Rowan..... Or not?
It doesn't relate to your Patriarch or date.<

My answer is, "Yes, of course I would be interested. That was the whole reason for the post, to see if all the PBs seemed similar or if by reading one you could tell which Patricarch did the blessing.

If PBs come from God, then they should be pretty much the same except for that difference of the person being blessed, their lineage, gifts, trials, rewards, ect.

If for example Spencer's blessings all pretty much sound alike, but vary from the way other Patriarchs blessings sound then that would be actual physical evidence that they are not God inspired.

Spencer knew several generations of my family as well as my family's long history in the church. My first ancestor to become Mormon did not do so lightly. When preached to by missionaries, he left his home in Tennessee and traveled seeking out Joseph Smith, Jr. to hear it from his own lips. Once convinced, he was baptised and he returned to his family in Tennessee where he convinced all the family to join the LDS Church.

As I said in the beginning of my post, I had seen it mentioned in someone else's thread that it would be interesting to compare PB's. This I did in response because I also thought it would be interesting. An experiment of sorts, but as with any experiment to get correct results, it has to be done under "controlled" circumstances. That was the reason for my injecting into the thread that this post was about comparing full blessings with the name of the Patriarch and the date. As you can see, I left out my personal information, as it was not revelant to the experiment.

My second "remarks" were not meant as a criticism, only to try to get the thread back on topic.

now it will not come true.

I literally LOL'd at this. Nicely done.

My father had the patriarch totally buffaloed - he put across this image of a spiritual giant that our family was soooooo gifted to be in the presence of, yet he was (and continues to be) evil beyond words. Truly evil. He hated my mother, controlled and demeaned her, and drove her to literal madness. The patriarch said in my blessing that I'd do a lot of music (uh, duh - I was VERY well-known in that area for the music I did - VERY) and that I had been raised in a home with "great love, parents for parents, parents for children, and children for parents". Nope. Not even close. Not even in the ballpark. Not even in the neighborhood where the ballpark is. As soon as I heard that I knew it was totally bogus. I once asked a later bishop if I could get another one because the situation bothered me so much and I was flat-out rejected. Some "blessing".

I have read many patriarchal blessings over the years (families and members when I was a Bishop)--most are boring with common language and promises. However, once in a while, there are some interesting and wild ones--promises of serving in the highest positions in the church, promises that someone will see the second coming in their lifetime, promises of special gifts and talents, promises of bringing many into the church (and then they go to Europe and baptize no one), and so forth. What I noticed so many times was how wrong some of the statements were for members--made no sense.

I also notice that some blessings are quite flowery and impressive in the language and some have next to nothing in them and really say very little. A couple of the most impressive blessings were given to members that left the church shortly after.

Someone on this board had a family member whose patriarchal blessing said he would be called home from his mission to serve in World War 3. They were talking about all the mental gymnastics required when that did not happen.

DH said he would be tempted to join the illegal drug trade. Um... really?

There's more thee's, thou's and thy's in that blessing than there are in a Holy Grail fan conference!

I noticed that too. It was so distracting I could hardly read it.
I am one of those rare people who have 2 blessings, given by 2 different patriarchs. Of course the second p. wanted to read my first blessing before he gave me another one. I requested another one because my first one was all about my parents who were so abusive I couldn't bring myself to read it. Surprisingly they gave me another one.

I just moved, so not sure where they are. If I find them I will post them.

I thought I typed my whole one in on my blog so I was going to link to it, but no... I did want to put it on there so people could compare. Type it in and not scan it.

Maybe I will. But not right now, that sucker is 3 1/2 pages long and by halfway through, those meaty hands resting on my crown were making my neck hurt so bad...

It is just saying a lot of the same thing in different ways and using info he gleaned in my little chat beforehand to make it seem personal.

Mine says something along the lines of, "There will be times you will question the teachings of the church. I bless you that you will have the power to overcome these doubts, that you will be able to tell Stan to 'get thee behind me.'"

Shit. He was right. I need to go back.