My answers in blue. :)

Mekanamom: Did your parents adopt by any chance? Perhaps you were present for the Sealing of your parents to your new sibling, rather than the Sealing of your parents to eachother?

There is room for disagreement. However, the church tends to draw the line at you trying to "convert" others to your way of thinking about things, saying that you're more right than Church. For example, in the 90's there were a group of members who tried to say that we should pray to Heavenly Mother. That is not church doctrine, and it did not come from a Prophet, so it wasn't a correct teaching, and the church leadership tried to get those members to stop preaching to other members (many of them were trying to teach it from the pulpit and during Sunday School lessons), and when they refused they were excommunicated. I see it much the same way as say, a member of a Catholic parish trying to convince his fellow parishoners that Catholicism should embrace the six points of Calvanism. It's not Catholic teaching, and even goes against many of their current teachings. I wouldn't be surprised if that member were asked to either keep their opinion to themselves while at church, or remove themselves from the church. The Church -any church- has the right to decide what is considered Doctrine, and what is and isn't taught from it's pulpits as being "official church teachings". In the LDS church we believe in a living Prophet who speaks for the Lord and is entrusted with the running of His Church here on the earth. No one else has the right or authority to try and alter church Doctrine, no matter how convinced they might be that they're right. Many people who have felt their interpretation of church doctrine was more correct than what the church was currently teaching have usually left the church (or been excommunicated) and started their own churches. From my understanding this is what happens in other Chrisitan denominations as well. If your beliefs don't mesh with what an established church is preaching, then you either find another church or start another church and preach what you believe to be the Truth. It's mainly vocal disagreement with Doctrine (trying to convince others that you're view is right and the entire Church needs to change to meet your view) that is looked down upon. But I've heard members on several occasions in Sunday School classes offer up "different ways of looking" at scriptureal teachings or Doctrines. Comparing and contrasting and looking at things from a different life experience, etc. Especially for doctrines and teachings where there isn't a lot of information available,like what "eternal progression" will look like) where there's LOTS of speculation typically shared during a lesson when the subject comes up, and I've seen people get into pretty heated arguments over it, but the biggest consequence I've seen someone handed for speaking out in such a manner was a chastizement from the Bishop for being rather brash in their presentation of their opinion (a swear word was thrown in :tongue_smilie:). The church is indeed very centralized though. Lesson manuals and teaching aids are published by the Church and distributed to all congregations. Every six months the Prophet, his two councilors, the 12 Apostles, and selected members from the Quorums of the 70 address the entire church body, (via live broadcast or recording, depending on your location) and give talks (sermons) on various points of Doctrine. Any changes in church procedures, any new Temples that are going to be built, any new persons called to positions in general Church leadership, are announced at that time. All tithing is sent to Salt Lake, where it is distributed to each ward according to it's needs. If a ward needs a new building, the church sends representatives to scout out a site and start the building process. The congregation doesn't have to come up with the entire funds on their own. The Lord's House is a House of Order. There's no differering doctrines being preached in one chapel than their is in another. Certainly the Lord would want all of His sheep to be hearing the same message. :)

Something to keep in mind in regards to this doctrine, is that we do not become GOD (as in God the Father). The way I look at this doctrine is that I, as a child of God, have it inherently in me to "grow up", like all children do, to become LIKE my father. Just like I've grown up and become like my own mother. I have my own home, I raise children, I cook meals, etc. But I am not My Mother. She is, and always will be, My Mother. My becoming like her, and being able to do the things she is able to do, does not put me in any position of authority over her. At. All. I am only who I am because of her, and I will always and forever look UP to her as my Mother. The same is true of our relationship with our Father in Heaven. We will never, CAN NEVER, usurp Him or become greater than Him. But we are still His children. He has infinate love for us, and wants us to experience the same everlasting joy which He, as a Divine Being, experiences, and has provided a way for us to eventually experience it, if we're willing to follow Him.

If the name of the church has anything other than just "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" in the name, then it is an off-shoot of the church, and has nothing to do with mainstream Mormonism. (So Remnent, Fundamentalist, Temple Lot, Re-Organized, etc. are seperate entities from the mainstream LDS church)

A diagram that might be helpful here, laying out the Plan of Salvation, and the order we believe things go in, like how Paradise and the Spirit Prison (which are both included in the green "Spirit World" circle) are temporary states, where we live only until the Ressurection, and then we will be judged and be judged and placed in our final state of Glory.

When it comes to the Eternal Progression thing, I always think of the verse in the Bible (sorry I don't have time to look it up just now, but I know it's in the NT) about our being "joint heirs with Christ". What did Christ inherit from the Father? ETA: Romans 8:16-17 16The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Answers in blue.

They are just not accountable, because they are too young to really understand "right" versus "wrong". For example, a 9 month old doesn't know that biting someone is wrong and can cause them pain. It's something that it has to be taught. "The sin being upon the parents" is an onus on parents to be sure we DO teach our children right from wrong. That's not to say that our children's actions could potentially condemn us to Eternal torment, but we WILL have to answer to the Lord for our failure in teaching our children to know right from wrong.

They came here during the time of the prophet Jeremiah. A man named Lehi had a dream in which an angel told him Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, and to take his family into the wilderness to escape the descruction (they were a righteous family, obviously), so he took his sons and daughters, plus some other families, with him into the wilderness. Much like the Israelites in Moses' day did, they travelled then settled for a while, travelled again and then settled for a while, and eventually (about 11 years or so?) came to the coast, where Lehi's son Nephi also recieved a vision from the Lord and was commanded to build a ship to take his family across the ocean to the Promised Land. The boat was built, they made it to the Americas, settled and established a civilization there (but it's not ruled out in the Book of Mormon that there were already people there). Almost immediately they were divided in two, with those who still wanted to follow the Lord staying with Nephi's family, and those who did not want to follow the Lord going with Nephi's brothers Laman and Lemual (and so you have references to Nephites and Lamanites all through the Book of Mormon). Over the next several centuries the two factions went back and forth between righteousness and wickedness, with the wicked trying to destroy the righteous. A few centuries after Christ's death the wicked finally prevail, the righteous Nephites are wiped out, and the record ends, with the wicked Lamanites going on their merry way, and the gospel being lost from the land for the next many centuries.

Most deffinately! I think it's a common misconception that Eternal Families means a bunch of individual nuclear families living in some Celestialized neighborhood. :lol: We will be the family of Christ, all serving Him and learning from Him and growing to become more and more like Him throughout Eternity (because how could He not rub off on you after all that time :tongue_smilie:). The Sealing Ordinance is more than just husband to wife or parents to children. It's also husband and wife to God, and children to grandparents, and brothers to sisters, and aunts to nieces, etc. etc. Each Sealing is another stitch in a tapestry that will become a vast web of family connections, with Christ at it's very heart.

No, there isn't. If a decendent of yours some day joins the LDS church, they may do your Temple work for you after you are passed. They won't know whether or not you'll have accepted the gospel in the Spirit World, so they'll do the work "just in case". You'd still be under no obligation to accept it. :) We believe that eventually *everyone* will have the opportunity to recieve the Temple Ordinances prior to Judgement Day.

What we chose was to follow His plan. We would be born, take upon us a physical body, and face the temptations of the world. That wasn't the final choice for us to make though. We still had to choose, again, to follow Him HERE, where we have no memory of our first estate (Pre-existance). When faced with the happiness the Gospel promises, and the "happiness" the World promises, which will we choose? ETA: And no, we don't believe in "once saved always saved". One can always choose to deny the Holy Spirit. However, any sin less than the denial of the Holy Spirit won't ban you from Heaven. How faithful you are at enduring to the end, keeping your heart in the right place, leaning on Him, and repenting when you need to, will effect what Degree of Glory you recieve (Celestial, Terrestial, or Tellestial) but you won't be cast out into Hell.

LDS belief is that angels are the yet-to-be-born, or already-born-and-lived-righteous-lives children of God.

Deffinately wait outside if it's possible! You'll get to visit with the family, walk around the gorgeous Temple grounds (they're all gorgeous!), and everyone cheers for the Bride and Groom when they come out. Sometimes too the Sealer (the man who performs the ceremony) will come out and share with you how the ceremony went. And if you want to be involved in group pictures, that's the place to be. Pretty much every LDS wedding I've been to has taken a huge group picture in front of the Temple of everyone who came (whether they were there for the actual ceremony or just waiting outside).

You know, I don't know. I've never heard anything taught in church, or read in scripture, about Spirits not choosing to come to Earth. I would think it'd be one of those "We don't really need to know" or "The Lord hasn't chosen to reveal that information to us" things.

And this is where the whole "Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are BROTHERS!" bomb shell comes from. :lol: But we are ALL CHILDREN OF THE FATHER. In LDS culture we often refer to Jesus Christ as being our "Elder Brother", the first born of Heavenly Father's spirit children, and His Only Begotton Son in the flesh. All of us were with the Father prior to being born to this Earth (in what we call the Pre-Existance) where we learned of, and accepted His Plan to come to earth, be tempted, and either choose or reject Him, and He chose His Son to be our Savior to take on the punishment for our sins. Satan wanted there to be no choice. No free will. He would FORCE us to do only good, and then we would all be "safe". He would also take all the glory for that accomplishment upon himself, rather than giving it to the Lord. This was antethema to the Father's plan, where Free Will (or as we call it, Agency) was an absolutely necessary part. God will force no man (or woman) into Heaven. Satan and those spirits who wanted his plan to prevale where the "third part" that was cast out of Heaven (as mentioned in the book of Revelations). They will never gain physical bodies, and will never be allowed back into the presense of the Father.

Ya, those are the manuals for Sunday School and the like. I don't know of any LDS homeschooling curriculum. Sorry I misunderstood your question.:tongue_smilie:

I'm not sure what exactly you mean here? Do we believe he exists? Certainly.

You call the Bishop's secretary to make an appointment (he won't ask you what for ;) ) and you go in and tell him what it is you've done. Sometimes the Bishop will just help you figure out how it is you fell into that particular sin, and help you figure out ways to avoid doing it again, but if it was a particularly heavy sin (like fornication/adultury, breaking the law, or things of a similarly serious nature) it may require disfellowshipment, or for very serious sins, excommunication. Always he will pray with you, study scriptures with you, and help you in any way he can to turn away from your sin and back to the Lord. Confession to a Bishop is not required for all sins. The vast majority of it is left between us and the Lord, but members are counciled that if you ever feel like you've done something serious and need help, then the Bishop is always there. He does not take the place of the Holy Spirit in helping us forsake our sins. He's an assistant. And it's not only for sins that we can "confess" to him. I went to him when I had a crisis of faith a few years ago, and felt in over my head in figuring out what it was I believed. He prayed with me, gave me some starting points to help me get out of the muck I was in, and asked me for updates every so often until I felt like I had my footing under me again.

Another question I think got passed over was someone asking if there was a specific LDS curriculum that we all learn from? The answer to that one is Yes. All Sunday Schools, Relief Societies, Priesthood Quorums, Primary classes, etc. have a set manual that they teach from (usually several that they rotate through through the years). Sacrament meeting is about the only meeting in the 3 hour Sunday block where what is taught in one congregation will be different than what is taught in another, because for those meetings the Bishop decides what topics the chosen speakers will speak about. In Sunday School next year (so in two days :lol: ) all Gospel Doctrine students (adult Sunday School) will be learning from this manual: http://lds.org/manual/new-testament-gospel-doctrine-teachers-manual?lang=eng and all Priesthood and Relief Society students will be learning from this manual: http://lds.org/manual/gospel-principles?lang=eng Each Primary class also has a manual that is used by that same class in each ward across the world. If I were to drive down to California to attend my parents ward on Sunday my family and I would recieve the same Sunday School lesson, the same Primary lesson, etc. as we would recieve had we stayed home. Of course, the way the teacher presents it and the class discussion will be unique in each given ward, but the lesson topic will be the same.

The Word of Wisdom (the 89th section of the Doctrine and Covenants) talks about "hot drinks" not being for the belly. Later Prophets clarified that to mean coffee and tea. Other members have thrown caffeine in there, because it's a common componant of coffee and tea, but drinking a Diet Coke isn't going to require you to confess to the Bishop. :tongue_smilie:That revelation also discusses eating meat sparingly, and eating a diet rich in whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

The classes for the under 5 kids are really very very basic. They cover the "milk" of the gospel. A lesson topic might be "Heavenly Father Loves Me" or "I can pray to Heavenly Father" or "Jesus wants me to love my neighbor" or "I can think about Jesus when I take the Sacrament". Very basic, very simple, teaching children to know and love Jesus at the level they're capable of, and preparing them to recieve the "meatier" stuff when they're brains are ready to handle it. :)

Any child who dies before the age of 8 automatically goes to the Celestial Kingdom, per the 138th section of our Doctrine and Covenants. :)

Yes, they're not "official" members and they're not counted in the membership. They cannot serve in an official capaticy in the church (if they're old enough for a calling) or attend the Temple (again, if old enough) until such time as they are baptized. Of course they can still attend regular Sunday meetings and be a participant in the classes and activities of the congregation, but they're not members. ETA: and like a previous poster mentioned, they were never "official" members in the first place. Baptism is what makes you a member.