Douglas Bonham

I keep listening to this over and over again! It’s so beautiful put and can ring true to us saints. As we seek to align our lives to our revealed truths and callings on this earth. After his miraculous NDE a little more than 1 year ago. He came back from the edge of eternity and testified of the power of prayer and testifying of Christ. May we be more sincere in our prayers and more frequent in supplication. May our lips be used in sharing the light of the everlasting gospel because of his testament. We are so lucky to have his voice in our lives.

@markonhiatus @StrikeAnother1 @stackerco This response is indicative that you perpetuate this culture of perfectionism. If you didn’t then you would have asked clarifying questions instead of being so quick to judge.

@StrikeAnother1 @stackerco @dbonham I agree, and I am an active member. These types of comments about faith emerge from perfection culture which is extremely destructive.

Spoke with my friend whose best friend had listened to this same spirit of doubt and hopelessness. He “deconstructed his testimony” 10-12 years ago. Then, two weeks before he committed suicide, he said, “I have destroyed my ability to have faith or hope of any kind,” having not taught his children true principles of life that lead to happiness. Hopelessness got the best of him. You will reap the same fruits of the spirit that you sow. Faith, hope, and charity need to be sown intentionally. There will always be opposition to these truths, but that’s what refines your perspective and conviction.

@logicallyspeak7 @stackerco Actually, some people try to commit suicide and do not die. So we do know what goes through the victims' heads. There’s a good enough percentage of people that have survived their own attempts. Most of suicide prevention strategies are built off this data.

@stackerco @dbonham Suicide usually is the result of a complex mental condition contributed by depression and anxiety. No one knows what is going on in the victims head to conjure up a scenario in which they self destruct.

I am equating it to his situation being worse by leaving the church. That man died regretting that he followed a spirit of hopelessness and doubt. Members do commit suicide, but from my experience, I know that leaning into my faith and the hope God provides makes the suffering in this life easier to endure.

@dbonham An active guy in a bishopric near me just ended his life. No signs of doubt. Don’t be a dumb ass and equate this all to leaving the church

It doesn’t offend me that you thought keeping the commandments would come without depression or opposition. Satan is very aware of the followers of Gods church and righteous causes. He is well organized in his attempts to hurt us and slow us down. Surprising no one taught you this in or outside the church.

@dbonham I’m sorry that I was taught things like Mosiah 2:41, and I’m sorry that my experience in the church offends you.

I grew up with depression, but I was taught by the church that those feelings were merely unworthiness. So, I never treated the depression. I just kept turning to the church in an (apparently fruitless) effort to feel worthy. That, my friends, is an abusive relationship.

@BradEBonham @NormieUtah Brad, what are you laughing about. I barely notice the slight change in the skyline.

This guy busts me up 😂

So I just added new moulding onto my office and received an estimate to get it painted. Guy gave me a quote for $10,000.00. No joke. Said it would take 3 guys 3-4 days. Now 2 months later a tweet has gone viral for a whole 2,000 sq ft house to get repainted for $11k. I PAINTED MY OFFICE MYSELF IN 8 hours.

@LDS_Liberty DB is my initials and I am now offended 😂. I never counted my baptisms. Other than me getting the number tattooed on my chest.

Anyone that brags about the number of mission baptisms is a giant DB. Prove me wrong

@KalanisCalves @SpideYstow Way to represent. Challenge excepted.

115s

@MarinasHammer Is the market for puppies this bad?

Man throws SIX puppies onto a freeway in Utah, killing multiple. What should his punishment be? Memphis Lor, 25 pled guilty to four, third-degree felony counts but had three other felony charges dismissed. Sentencing is scheduled for May.

@BradWitbeck @BYUGuy87 Spot on Brad! This has been my findings as well. I love the respectful tone of your response as well.

I appreciate your genuine tone both here and in the other replies I've read. Here's how I understand it right now, as someone who's put a decent amount of study into it to try to understand it as well as I possibly can. 1 - It seems to me he was only sealed to Helen Mar Kimball in an "eternity alone" sealing, not a sexual relationship, and set up at the request of her father in a dynastic way, focused on uniting their families. 2 - Don Bradley has some interesting stuff to say about this, which seems to suggest that Joseph was sealed to these women so that he could help "raise up [their] seed unto the Lord," not so that he could have sexual relations with them (his research suggests that most, of these were pregnant when they were sealed to Joseph, and that sex during pregnancy was something people thought was unhealthy in that time period). It's a really interesting angle, and one that I think makes sense when considering the rest of the landscape of the history of polygamy in the Church. 3. This one makes sense to me in that revealing it to the public would have likely led to the death of him and the saints (it certainly played a role in his death), and as for lying to Emma about it, he seems to be chastised for that part of it in D&C 132. 4. The more that I have studied the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, the more I have actually come to believe the Joseph actually made the right call in destroying it. It was a public nuisance that was aiming to inflame public opinion against him and the saints and bring people out to attack them. Look at what it wrote, and the history of the men who put it together, and add in the writings of the Warsaw Signal and Thomas Sharp and the Anti-mormon sentiment in the area, and it makes sense to me. They may have even won their court case on it, and seemed to have put together a decently compelling case based on Blackstone's lawbooks. Remember, the saints had gone to Nauvoo because the United States Federal Government was not enforcing first amendments rights. Those needed to be administered on more local levels, and that's what Joseph and the Nauvoo city council were doing. At most they should have been fined, even if found guilty. Sorry that got long 😅 But the TL;DR is that I don't believe polygamy was driven by Joseph's libido. There were far simpler ways for Joseph to have affairs if he wanted to, rather than starting a church, then waiting 6+ years to try once, and then a bunch more before really going for it - It would look much more like John C. Bennett's spiritual wifery than what Joseph and his followers actually did. And people always miss that he was sealed to a few much older women too, but that's not as salacious so it flies under the radar. I believe Polygamy really was something God commanded for a time, and that Joseph had to figure out how to bring that commandment to the Saints, and that the process was difficult. Still, I think it likely saved the Saints when they were driven out to the wilderness of the west. The more I study the history, the more I also appreciate how much we DON'T know - as with the Nauvoo Expositor situation really getting flipped on its head for me, since I'd heard many talk about how it was a mistake and he was violating the sacred right to the freedom of the press, when looking into the real history of it, that didn't seem to be the case at all. Aaaand... the TL;DR got long too lol, sorry! Hopefully my answers are interesting and/or helfpul.

I have an honest question for my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint followers, intended with genuine respect. I've been studying early church history, including the church's own Gospel Topics Essays — and I'd love your perspective. How do you personally reconcile the following about Joseph Smith? And has it ever challenged your faith? 1. Married Helen Mar Kimball at 14 (he was 37) 2. Sealed himself to 11 women already married to living husbands 3. Concealed polygamy from Emma and the public (asked plural wives to keep it secret) 4. Ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, the press about to expose it all These aren't anti-Mormon talking points — the church itself acknowledges them. I'm genuinely curious and appreciate all sincere responses. 🙏

@HonestYPTweets If you are an honest youth pastor maybe you shouldn’t speak on something you know very little about.

Mormonism is a cult that uses Jesus language but defines it theologically much differently than orthodox Christianity would. This matters.

@LDS_Liberty 8:05 for my family and I.

Taking my boys to see Hail Mary in IMAX tonight. Should I be excited? A lot of hype and Interstellar is a top 5 all time for me. Anyone seen it?

@ToddLlewellyn Whenever someone shows me this kind of stuff. I secretly hate it inside. They have no idea because I will ask them questions about how they did it and how crazy cool it is. Btw. I don’t think it’s cool. 😂

I could have done this in about 10 minutes with some bacon grease on each finger

@ItsTravisGreen He has bronco mendenhall vibes.

Asked Morgan Scalley what his first day as the head coach at Utah for a spring practice was like: "Boring" 😂 "I don't get to teach as much.. It's more, not what we're doing, but how we're doing it. Making sure that the efforts there."

@Manhattva @nikitabier You have impressed me atleast 100 times.

I’m pretty sure I’m under some type of shadowban. My reach is crazy throttled. I went from averaging about 3.5 million impressions a week to 1.8 million. I do not like it. @nikitabier any secret way to look behind the curtain so I can try to fix it?

@FiredUpCoug Your crazy!

Call me crazy, but BYU boosters spending $3–4 million on AJ Dybantsa looks like a far better ROI than Utah dropping $8 million on Kyle Whittingham just to watch him take Utah staff and players to Michigan.