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Mormonism increasingly draws Spanish-speakers as converts
Arizona Daily Star ^ | March 8, 2008 | Stephanie Innes

Posted on 03/08/2008 5:14:33 PM PST by Zakeet

Spanish-speakers are fueling growth in the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which recently opened new worship space on Tucson's predominantly Hispanic South Side.

Many local Mormon worshippers, like 47-year-old Juan Arroyo, converted to the faith from Catholicism while living in their native countries. Arroyo, a roofer who has four children, joined the church when he lived in Guadalajara, Mexico. He's been in the United States for seven years.

"I was missing something, and my life changed greatly after meeting the missionaries," he said in Spanish.

Nationally, the number of Spanish-speaking congregations in the Mormon church grew by 64 percent between 2000 and 2006. There are 639 such congregations in the United States.

[Snip]

The church is growing quickly in Mexico.

Church officials say its presence there began in 1875 when Brigham Young, then denomination president, called on six missionaries from Salt Lake City to bring Spanish-language materials about the church to Mexico. In 1885, a group of nearly 400 colonists from Utah arrived at northern Mexico's Casas Grandes River. Mexico's first stake was created in Colonia Juárez in 1895. By 1912, more than 4,000 members had settled in Chihuahua and Sonora.

More than 1 million members now live in Mexico, a predominantly Catholic country with a population of about 108 million.

(Excerpt) Read more at azstarnet.com ...


TOPICS: Current Events; History; Other Christian; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: aliens; catholic; hispanic; immigration; lds; mormon; mormonism
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To: P-Marlowe; Tennessee Nana; All
Thanks, I needed a chuckle this Sunday. Non of these say anything about Mary not being a Virgin. Sex as we understand it does not apply. Assigning a corrupt, mortal and disgusting definition to God as the "Father" of Jesus is just wrong.

Christ is literally the son of God. We don't know how that happened, other than that Mary was overshadowed with the Holy Ghost.

As a father of 4 children, all of which were conceived by artificial means, I would take great offense if you were to tell me that I was not their father in the sense that all men become fathers.

If man can figure out how to overcome simple obstacles like infertility, the God of us all can certainly figure out how to bring His only begotten Son into the world to take upon flesh and blood.

In fact, the very Book of Mormon that you scoff at says plainly that Mary was a virgin, in several places.

1 Nephi 11:15
And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.

Alma 7:10
And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God.

2 Nephi 17:14
Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign—Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

1 Nephi 11:20
And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.

1 Nephi 11:18
And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.

1 Nephi 11:13
And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white. That's all the time I have to play tonight. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday all...

81 posted on 03/09/2008 8:51:32 PM PDT by sevenbak (Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. - 2 Timothy 2:16)
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To: Tennessee Nana
When I see Mary slurred, I am incensed because the virgin birth is one of the tenets of Christianity...

++

Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary.
We believe this. We have believed this.

Remember all the posts about the God head and how we are said to be wrong because we do not believe in the Three being only one being.

Christ, the Son, was created in Mary like any other human child, yet she was a virgin.

If He was a part of God the one being as the Father, like others are teach, there would be no why the birth could be natural.

God, by way of the Holey Spirit, would have had to put part of himself into Mary. This would not be natural.

82 posted on 03/09/2008 8:52:19 PM PDT by fproy2222 ( Jesus is the Christ)
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To: Tennessee Nana

Yes, the birth was natural, it happened in a manger, and Mary went through the normal pains labor, most natural. He was begotten by God, because God is His Father, and He is the Son, just as you have a father.


83 posted on 03/09/2008 8:54:30 PM PDT by sevenbak (Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. - 2 Timothy 2:16)
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To: fproy2222

.......................


84 posted on 03/09/2008 8:56:34 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: sevenbak

So you are willing to contradict your own founders and agree that God The Father Almighty and The Holy Spirit are the Same! ... You see how easily you get gordian knotted up with the false doctrines of Mormonism, Seven? Your religion states that God The Father is a body of flesh and bone, that The Holy Spirit is a separate being without a body of flesh and bone, yet you just tried to claim that The Holy Spirit conceived Jesus yet He is the only begotten of The Father. Come out and be born again, Seven.


85 posted on 03/09/2008 8:57:13 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: MHGinTN
By your beliefs, what does it mean that Jesus was “begotten” by God, given all the “begetting” in Matthew where men and woman had children?
86 posted on 03/09/2008 8:58:30 PM PDT by fproy2222 ( Jesus is the Christ)
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To: P-Marlowe

LOL. Yes, we’ve all seen this many times. Even Brigham Young here calls Mary a virgin. Try as you may, you can’t get him, or the Book of Mormon to not call her a virgin, for she was.


87 posted on 03/09/2008 8:58:59 PM PDT by sevenbak (Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. - 2 Timothy 2:16)
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To: sevenbak

Jesus left the shroud wrappings without unwrapping them and left the stone tomb without rolling away the stone sealing the entry. He could just as easily be born without passing through the birth canal, Seven. THEN He was laid in a manger.


88 posted on 03/09/2008 8:59:46 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: P-Marlowe

How do you keep missing the part that says SHE WAS A VIRGIN?


89 posted on 03/09/2008 9:01:09 PM PDT by fproy2222 ( Jesus is the Christ)
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To: MHGinTN
See, you are trying so hard to twist our doctrines that you don't take the time to understand them. Let me help you, and then I'm out for tonight.

This is from Ezra Taft Benson:

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=85fc8c6a47e0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

The First Mark of His Divinity Is His Divine Birth

The most fundamental doctrine of true Christianity is the divine birth of the child Jesus. It is a doctrine not comprehended by the world, misinterpreted by [many] Christian churches, and even misunderstood by some members of the true Church.

The paternity of Jesus Christ is one of the mysteries of godliness. It may only be comprehended by the spiritually minded. The Apostle Matthew recorded, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1:18). Luke renders a more plain meaning to the divine conception. He quotes the angel Gabriel saying to Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing [being] which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35; emphasis added). Alma’s testimony, given fourscore years before the Savior’s birth, beautifully reconciles the testimonies of Matthew and Luke: “He shall be born of Mary, … she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God” (Alma 7:10; emphasis added).

Some 600 years before Jesus was born, Nephi had a vision. He saw Mary and described her as “a virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.” He then saw her “carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time.” When she returned, she was “bearing a child in her arms, … even the Son of the Eternal Father” (1 Ne. 11:15, 19–21).

Thus the testimonies of appointed witnesses leave no question as to the paternity of Jesus Christ. God was the Father of His fleshly tabernacle, and Mary, a mortal woman, was His mother. He is therefore the only person born who rightfully deserves the title “the Only Begotten Son of God.”

We must keep in mind who Jesus was before He was born. He was the Creator of all things, the great Jehovah, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was and is the Holy One of Israel.

An angel of the Lord who appeared to Nephi used a word to describe the willingness of the Holy One of Israel to step down from His throne divine and make flesh His tabernacle. That word is condescension. It means to descend or come down from an exalted position to a place of inferior station. This our Savior did. In fact, He Himself has testified, “The Son of Man hath descended below [all things]” (D&C 122:8; see also D&C 88:6; emphasis added). [Here is] the testimony of King Benjamin concerning our Lord’s condescension: “The Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay” (Mosiah 3:5; emphasis added).

When the Great God of the Universe condescended to be born of mortal woman, He submitted Himself to the infirmities of mortality, to “suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death” (Mosiah 3:7). These infirmities He inherited from His mortal mother. But because His father was God, Jesus Christ had powers which no human had before or since. He was God in the flesh—even the Son of God. These powers enabled Him to accomplish miracles, signs, wonders, the great Atonement, and the Resurrection—all of which are additional marks of His divinity.

From the time of His heaven-heralded birth there have crept into the Church heresies which are intended to dilute or undermine the pure doctrines of the gospel. These heresies are, by and large, sponsored by the philosophies of man and in many instances are advocated by so-called Christian scholars. The attempt is to make Christianity more palatable, more reasonable, and so they attempt to humanize Jesus and give natural explanations to those things which are divine. An example is Jesus’ birth. There are those who would seek to convince us that the divine birth of Christ as proclaimed in the New Testament was not a divine birth at all—nor was Mary, the virgin girl, a virgin at the time of Jesus’ conception. They would have you believe that Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, was His physical father, and that Jesus was therefore human in all His attributes and characteristics. They appear generous in their praise of Him when they say that He was a great moral philosopher, perhaps even the greatest. But the intent of their effort is to repudiate the divine sonship of Jesus, for on that doctrine rest all other claims of Christianity.

I am bold to say to you, … Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that same Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. He was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost. He is the Son of the Eternal Father!

90 posted on 03/09/2008 9:04:19 PM PDT by sevenbak (Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. - 2 Timothy 2:16)
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To: sevenbak; fproy2222; Tennessee Nana; Zakeet
Even Brigham Young here calls Mary a virgin.

Are you saying Mary was a perpetual virgin?

It is pretty obvious that Brigham Young meant that she was a virgin at the time of her conception by the flesh and bone God that you believe is God the Father. It is pretty clear in all these quotes that these guys believe that the Father came down in his flesh and bone body and had sex with Mary and that is how she conceived.

You can do all your singing and dancing around it, but the words are pretty clear to everyone except OJ Jurors and intentionally deceived Mormons.

91 posted on 03/09/2008 9:04:36 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: MHGinTN

Woah, you are saying Jesus was born without passing through the birth canal, by cesarian section or otherwise? She was obviously pregnant, John leapt in the womb when Mary and Elizabeth were nearby. Joseph was desperate to find a room so she could give birth, she was “great with child”

Do you have any information, apocrypha or otherwise that says it was not a normal birth?


92 posted on 03/09/2008 9:07:45 PM PDT by sevenbak (Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. - 2 Timothy 2:16)
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Comment #93 Removed by Moderator

To: P-Marlowe
No, that is not clear at all. Let me repeat what Ezra Taft Benson, said just a few years ago. I would suggest reading the whole thing.

The paternity of Jesus Christ is one of the mysteries of godliness. It may only be comprehended by the spiritually minded. The Apostle Matthew recorded, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1:18). Luke renders a more plain meaning to the divine conception. He quotes the angel Gabriel saying to Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing [being] which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35; emphasis added). Alma’s testimony, given fourscore years before the Savior’s birth, beautifully reconciles the testimonies of Matthew and Luke: “He shall be born of Mary, … she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God” (Alma 7:10; emphasis added).

Some 600 years before Jesus was born, Nephi had a vision. He saw Mary and described her as “a virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.” He then saw her “carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time.” When she returned, she was “bearing a child in her arms, … even the Son of the Eternal Father” (1 Ne. 11:15, 19–21).

Thus the testimonies of appointed witnesses leave no question as to the paternity of Jesus Christ. God was the Father of His fleshly tabernacle, and Mary, a mortal woman, was His mother. He is therefore the only person born who rightfully deserves the title “the Only Begotten Son of God.”

94 posted on 03/09/2008 9:10:03 PM PDT by sevenbak (Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. - 2 Timothy 2:16)
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To: P-Marlowe

Oh, and to your “perpetual virgin” claim, no that is not what we believe. Jesus had brothers, so obviously Joseph was their father... later. On this we differ with Catholicism.


95 posted on 03/09/2008 9:12:25 PM PDT by sevenbak (Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. - 2 Timothy 2:16)
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To: P-Marlowe

I actually believe they are unable to see the contradictions in their heresies ... assigning that God The Father Almighty has a body of flesh and bones and that Jesus Christ has a body of flesh and bones ... they are trapped by a most clever demon. If they reject that God’s Spirit conceived Jesus and hold to their heresy that God has a body of flesh and bone they contradict the Bible where it says Jesus was conceived by the Holy SPirit. If they accept that God The Father Almighty conceived Jesus, and not the Holy SPirit ... oh never mind. I’m too tired to even point out their contradictions and falsehoods at this point.


96 posted on 03/09/2008 9:12:38 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: MHGinTN
One more time, for those who refuse to listen...

“The paternity of Jesus Christ is one of the mysteries of godliness. It may only be comprehended by the spiritually minded.”

Yes, this means that the gutturally minded will never understand it.

G’night all.

97 posted on 03/09/2008 9:15:51 PM PDT by sevenbak (Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. - 2 Timothy 2:16)
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To: narses

I’m going to leave this one to you, as a Catholic. I don’t think it will penetrate the darkness of Mormonism to explain it further, but you can have at it if you wish.


98 posted on 03/09/2008 9:16:26 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: sevenbak

Some 600 years before Jesus was born, Nephi had a vision. He saw Mary and described her as “a virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.” He then saw her “carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time.” When she returned, she was “bearing a child in her arms, … even the Son of the Eternal Father” (1 Ne. 11:15, 19–21).
________________________________________________

And even 150 years earlier than that Isaiah said ...

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel Isaiah 7:14

I dont know who that “Nephi” was...He’s not mentioned in the Bible..

But the prophecies of Isiah was written down hundreds of years BEFORE Jesus was born...

When was the “Nephi” prophecy written ?????


99 posted on 03/09/2008 9:17:07 PM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: P-Marlowe
It is pretty clear in all these quotes that these guys believe that the Father came down in his flesh and bone body and had sex with Mary

++++++++++

Only if you limit God's ability to do all things.

You know, He is Omni-this and Omni-that.

So stop your gutter-thinking about the ability of God.

100 posted on 03/09/2008 9:17:44 PM PDT by fproy2222 ( Jesus is the Christ)
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