Holly

[Peacemaking Saint @PeacemakingSt]

If you missed it, the Deseret News (@Deseret) published an essay from President Dallin H. Oaks (@OaksDallinH) on religious freedom in America on the Fourth of July!

Here are a few key quotes from the Prophet:

America's Guarantee of Religious Freedom:
"The guarantee of religious freedom is one of the supremely important founding principles in the United States Constitution, and it is reflected in the constitutions of all 50 of our states."

Religious Freedom and the First Amendment:
"I maintain, that in our nation’s founding and in our constitutional order, religious freedom and its associated First Amendment freedoms of speech and press are the motivating and dominating civil liberties and civil rights. Religious teachings and religious organizations are valuable and important to our free society and therefore deserving of special legal protection."

Faith Motivates Service and Aid:
"Our nation’s incredible generosity in many forms of aid to other nations and their peoples are manifestations of our common religious faith that all peoples are children of God. Religious beliefs instill patterns of altruistic behavior."

On What Motivates Morality:
"Many of the great moral advances in Western society have been motivated by religious principles and moved through the public square by pulpit-preaching."

Honesty and Technology:
"Religion also strengthens our nation in the matter of honesty and integrity. Modern science and technology have given us remarkable devices, but we are frequently reminded that their operation in our economic system and the resulting prosperity of our nation rest on the honesty of the men and women who use them."

Public Servants' Responsibility:
"Americans’ honesty is also reflected in our public servants’ remarkable resistance to official corruption. These standards and practices of honesty and integrity rest, ultimately, on our ideas of right and wrong, which, for most of us, are grounded in principles of religion and the teachings of religious leaders."

The Founding of the Constitution:
"[The Constitution's] formation over 200 years ago was made possible by religious principles of human worth and dignity, and only those principles in the hearts of a majority of our diverse population can sustain that Constitution today. I submit that religious values and political realities are so interlinked in the origin and perpetuation of this nation that we cannot lose the influence of religion in our public life without seriously jeopardizing our freedoms."

Religion Determines Morality:
"The preservation of religious freedom in our nation depends on the value we attach to the teachings of right and wrong in our churches, synagogues and mosques. It is faith in God that translates these religious teachings into the moral behavior that benefits the nation."

[Holly @chatlin_lake]

Inspiring!

[Nick shirley @nickshirleyy]

🚨 Today the California Senate Committee held a hearing on the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” known as AB 2624. This bill will criminalize and punish anyone from looking into fraud inside immigrant communities in California.

This bill was created only after I exposed billions of dollars in fraud throughout immigrant communities in the US. “Immigration support services” have become a billion dollar industry in California, and now that the fraud has been exposed, they are trying to criminalize those who look into the fraud.

The bill has passed through the California Assembly and is set to pass through the Senate and then to Governor Newsom’s desk. This bill was created by the Attorney Generals WIFE and will allow him to go after citizens if they film nonprofits and “immigration support services providers”.

Welcome to Califraudia.

[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints @Ch_JesusChrist]

Following the earthquakes that struck various locations in Venezuela, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched a humanitarian response that includes the distribution of approximately 5,000 assistance kits, which are expected to benefit more than 23,500 people in the affected communities.

The response, coordinated by the Church in conjunction with humanitarian organizations and government authorities, aims to assess the most urgent needs and ensure that aid reaches those who need it most quickly.

The kits include food, drinking water, hygiene items, and other essential supplies. As part of this first phase of assistance, mattresses, blankets and pillows are also being distributed to families temporarily in shelters. This assistance is for anyone in need.

At the same time, the Church is preparing other projects to support families who have lost their belongings. The Church is committed to helping communities throughout their recovery.

Learn more on Church Newsroom.

https://t.co/LqLbqG5u4S

[Adam | Faithful Messenger @Adam_FaithfulM]

God gave Moses 50 chapters of instructions for a tent.

Fifty.

More space in the Bible is devoted to the design of the Tabernacle than to the creation of the universe.

That's not an accident.

Every measurement, material, and color was pointing to something, and once you see it, you can't unsee it.

A thread. 🧵

[Mike Stanger ۞ 🇺🇸🇩🇪🇮🇱🌻🇺🇦✝️🎶📚 @MichaelStanger1]

Solomon’s temple was known for its grandeur, the gold-covered walls, the cedar from Lebanon, the cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat, and the glory of the Lord filling the house. But after the construction was complete, Solomon’s dedicatory prayer spoke surprisingly little about the building itself.

Instead, he spoke about sinners, offering a prayer in 1 Kings 8 where virtually every petition assumes that God's covenant people will eventually fail. Again and again, Solomon describes situations in which Israel sins, suffers the consequences, and then turns back to God.

"If they sin against thee..."

"When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy..."

"When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain..."

"If there be famine... pestilence... blasting... mildew... locust..."

"If they be carried away captive..."

Each scenario follows the same pattern: God's people stray, they repent, they pray toward the temple, and Solomon pleads, "Hear thou in heaven... and forgive."

That refrain appears over and over throughout the prayer. The temple, then, was never intended merely as a destination for the righteous. It was built for people who needed forgiveness.

In many ways, Solomon's prayer anticipates one of the central truths of the gospel: the covenant relationship between God and His people depends not on flawless obedience but on His willingness to forgive those who return to Him.

The temple pointed Israel to that hope. Of course, the temple itself could not forgive sins. The stones, cedar beams, and golden furnishings possessed no saving power. Even the sacrifices offered there looked beyond themselves to something greater. Like every ordinance and every symbol in the temple, they pointed to Jesus Christ. He is the true meeting place between God and man. He is the great High Priest. He is the sacrifice to which every temple altar is pointed. He is the One who hears our prayers in heaven because He first descended below all things on earth.

When we understand this, Solomon's repeated plea, "Hear thou in heaven... and forgive," becomes a testimony of the Savior. Forgiveness has always come from God through His Anointed One. The temple taught Israel where to look long before Christ came into the world.

That same principle continues today. Sometimes we mistakenly think temples are primarily for spiritually perfect people. In reality, temples remind us that none of us is perfect. They invite covenant disciples to come closer to Jesus Christ, to remember His sacrifice, and to receive the blessings made possible through His Atonement.

The temple is not a reward for flawless living. It is a place where imperfect people make and renew sacred covenants with a perfect Savior. Perhaps that is why Solomon's prayer feels so timeless. He understood something about the human condition. Even as he dedicated the most magnificent house ever built for the Lord, he knew that Israel would stumble. He knew they would need mercy far more often than they would need marble, gold, or cedar. And he knew exactly where to point them. "Hear thou in heaven... and forgive." That simple plea is the heart of the temple. It is also the heart of the gospel.

Every temple ultimately points beyond itself to Jesus Christ, whose infinite Atonement makes forgiveness possible. The temple is sacred not because of the beauty of its architecture, but because it bears witness of the One who opens heaven to every repentant soul.

Art: James Tissot, Solomon Dedicates the Temple at Jerusalem, 1896

#ComeFollowMe
#SundaySchool

[Church of Jesus Christ | Come Unto Christ @ComeUntoChrist]

A few years ago, Patrick Kearon referenced these scriptures in a message to the world, noting the comfort they brought his family.(Patrick Kearon, general conference, Apr. 2014).

You too can find comfort in the words of Jesus Christ found in the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

[Fox News @FoxNews]

"Soccer, it brings us together, but Jesus satisfies us all."

Former pro soccer player and Seattle Sounders chaplain Jesse Bradley says the U.S. Men's National Team's historic World Cup run is capturing attention not just because of the results, but because of the players' willingness to publicly share their faith.

The Americans have won their first two World Cup group-stage matches for the first time since 1930, sparking excitement across the country.

Bradley says the team's Bible studies, prayer gatherings, and message of unity are helping bring people together through a sport that's rapidly growing in the United States.

[Dallin H. Oaks @OaksDallinH]

Missionary work is soaring to new heights. We are days away from the opening of 55 new missions. This brings the total number of missions to 506. There is a total of over 87,000 full-time missionaries. And we are currently being reinforced by the first wave of 18-year-old sisters beginning their service. 

In coming weeks, we will have the largest number of full-time missionaries in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

These missionaries’ first responsibility is to testify of Jesus Christ to a world that suffers without knowledge of His divine mission. They invite people across the globe to become part of His true and living Church.

I affirm my testimony of Jesus Christ and the truth of His gospel. The Holy Ghost has given me a witness of its truthfulness, and I rejoice that I can spend my life in proclaiming it.

[Tironianae 🍊🍊 Z. - Ultra Verbum Vincet @Tironianae]

🚨#ALERT: Everyone needs to be aware of this

Journalist Avery Daye exposes the history of Minnesota Rep Ilhan Omar

“Ilhan Omar — I figured not enough people know about her family’s history, so let’s recap:

Her dad and her grandfather were both high-ranking military officials in the Barre regime, which killed over 200,000 people. They’re most famous for the Isaaq genocide — it was the worst of the worst: aerial bombings, executions, man-made famine.

People massively suffered under this regime, with the help of people like Ilhan Omar’s family who supported the regime and carried out this, this horror.

— They have family ties to this guy known as the Butcher of Hargeisa, and his whole shtick was “kill all but the crows.””

“So the suffering of the people of Somalia was so bad that there was a civil war and the regime was overthrown. Her family fled first to Kenya and then Minnesota, claiming they’re like these asylum seekers.

These poor, poor people. No, no, no, no. They were fleeing to escape being held accountable for what they did. She was not oppressed. Her family, they were the oppressors.”

“So for the Democratic Party to have her as a representative is insane to me — and the way that they’ve like rebranded her as all this poor refugee? No, no. She wasn’t a refugee of war. Her family created the war.”

[Teddy - PolyBackTest.com @Bitcoin_Teddy]

Elon Musk: “The reason I felt that it was important to acquire Twitter was because I could feel the walls closing in. It was outrageous that they suspended the account of a sitting president

And I think it was only a matter of time before they suspended my account.

Twitter and, well, pretty much all the social media companies, and Google and everyone, are controlled by far-left activists. That’s the truth of it.
How do you know what’s real when it’s all filtered through a far-left San Francisco Berkeley lens?

They just manipulate the truth constantly."

[Latter Day Boomstick @LDSBoomstick]

What is the detonator to breaking the Ten Commandments? Selfishness. Neal A Maxwell taught us about this and I was fortunate to read his talk after studying Samuel 15 today. This talk is perfect for our time. I feel we are in the last days. The talk is called Put Off the Natural Man, and Come Off Conqueror.

So how do we fight our natural inclination to be selfish? Stay strong in the gospel. Study your Bible. Study your Book of Mormon. Fight to be humble. Fight to be a Peacemaker.

"...the Lord has urged us to so live that we would come off conqueror."

https://t.co/9T1m30YmAK

[Kirk Rollins @nicoraytruth]

This is my last post on X, and I wanted the last word to be one that matters.

The very first commandment God gave in Eden was to multiply and replenish the earth, and the Restoration placed the family at the burning center of the whole plan: the unit of the celestial kingdom, the reason for the temple, the very shape of God's own life.

So when a covenant people quietly stop bearing the next generation, they have not merely made the reasonable lifestyle choice the world applauds. They have begun to set down the first and oldest commandment ever given, and a people who set down the foundation should not wonder why the house begins to sink beneath them.

The Book of Mormon shows you how it happens, and it shows you in slow motion, over and over, until no honest reader can miss it. A people are delivered and made prosperous.

Prosperity breeds comfort. Comfort breeds forgetting. And the forgetting always wears the same face: they come to love the world and its ease more than the covenant and its cost.

They set their hearts on riches and on the praise of men, they grow quietly ashamed of the strict and demanding ways of their fathers, and they trade the weight of the covenant for the lightness of the age.

The empty cradle belongs to that same trade.

Children are heavy, and faith is heavy, and sacrifice is heavy, and everything the covenant has ever asked is heavy, and a people who have fallen in love with their own comfort will not carry what is heavy for long.

So do not mistake what the numbers are telling you. The collapsing birthrate of the Saints is not a sociological curiosity to be smoothed over with better messaging. It is the scriptural pattern arriving on schedule, the visible fever of a covenant people grown too comfortable to bear the weight of their own future.

A people who will not have numerous children have, at the deepest level, stopped believing the future is worth filling with their faith, and a people who no longer believe in their own future are already in the early stages of not having one.

This is the warning the scriptures have been shouting across the centuries, and we have been too soothed to hear it.

And yet the warning has always carried its mercy folded inside it. Every cycle in the Book of Mormon that ended in destruction could have ended in repentance instead, and some did, and the difference was never circumstance. It was never the size of the threat or the strength of the enemy or the hardness of the times.

The difference was always one thing only: whether a people, warned, would humble themselves before the comfort finished its work.

We have been warned.

Your prophets at general conference warned you time and time again. Do not forget their words.

The cradle is the warning made visible. The only question left is the one the scriptures have put to every people who ever stood where we now stand. Will we turn, and take up the weight again, and build a future worth being born into.

Or will we stay comfortable, and go the way of every comfortable people the record has ever buried.

That is my last word.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

The reason ID is banned in California (and New York) elections is to enable large-scale fraud.

When you combine no ID and mail-in voting, fraud is de facto legalized.

[Nick shirley @nickshirleyy]

🚨 California just voted to pass AB 2624 aka “The Stop Nick Shirley Act”:
This bill puts journalists at civil risk for investigating fraud and makes it harder to expose fraud in “immigration support services,” including NGOs, nonprofits and health care facilities that receive hundreds of millions from the state of California each year.

This bill would have made it criminal to expose fake hospices in LA or the Somali “learing center” in Minnesota if they then claim “reasonable fear” and the business owner gives a written demand not to post the video.

Plain and simple, California is trying to make it harder to expose fraud and scare individuals from investigating fraud in their communities, as they could be sued for an injunction to remove the video + forced to pay their attorney fees + minimum $4,000 in damages.

The Attorney General's wife, Mia Bonta, created this bill and is now trying to make it law. How is this not a conflict of interest?

California is full of FRAUDSTERS!

[Carrie McIntyre | The Relevant Questions @RelevantQuest]

“Attacks against the Church, its doctrine, and our way of life are going to increase. Because of this, we need women who have a bedrock understanding of the doctrine of Christ and who will use that understanding to teach and help raise a sin-resistant generation.

“We need women who can detect deception in all of its forms. We need women who know how to access the power that God makes available to covenant keepers and who express their beliefs with confidence and charity. We need women who have the courage and vision of our Mother Eve.” —Russell M. Nelson, 2015

[Nick Sortor @nicksortor]

🚨 Stephen Miller says the scale of welfare fraud is SO MASSIVE that eliminating it alone could balance the ENTIRE federal budget

"The amount that has been fleeced from us is in the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars."

"We could balance the federal budget if the only dollars that went out of the treasury went to individuals who were properly, lawfully, correctly eligible to receive them."

This should infuriate EVERY taxpayer.