I am in need of some advice on how to approach the gospel part of the following situation.

Tl;dr: my dad is very likely the target of a "pig butchering" scam and is claiming that he feels it's fine because he feels like the Spirit is guiding him and defending it as revelation.

Longer story now--

Backstory on my dad: He's 70. He has been a career doctor and has a fair amount of money, though most of it is tied up in real estate development investments. In the past year and a half both of his parents/my grandparents have died and he finalized his divorce from my stepmom after 20 plus years of marriage. He is not in a good emotional state and doesn't recognize it. This makes him somewhat emotionally compromised, vulnerable, and naive to a degree. I am the only one of my several siblings that understands how my dad thinks and how to talk to him, and I'm really the only one in a good position to relate to him.

I found out from some bits and pieces of my conversation with him recently that he is planning a trip to Singapore to meet up with a woman he met " by happenstance" on telegram. By all accounts, this is a classic pig butchering scam. You don't know what it is, look it up for context.

He is absolutely dead set on making this trip. He has had several of his own siblings try to warn him about it and calling him foolish and all sorts of things, my (oft-times belligerent, but well-meaning) older brother has tried talking to him to warn him but he wasn't hearing it. When I finally caught wind of the whole thing yesterday from my brother, I decided I need to hear it from the horse's mouth. I knew that he was planning on going to Singapore sometime soon, but I didn't know why. Then he was asking me to 3D print like a heart model and was wanting to get it in a hurry, so I knew that something weird was going on, but my brother told me that in his conversations he found out that my dad was going to meet with some woman that "accidentally messaged the wrong number" on telegram.

I'm very concerned for my dad's well-being. Admittedly, he has already taken a lot of precautions to make sure he's safe like registering with the state department and the embassy in Singapore, he doesn't have a lot of liquid assets available to him, so there wouldn't be a lot of money that could be exploited from him and anything that he does have access to, my stepmom still has access to.

I have some knowledge of anti-human trafficking and counter intelligence operations from mandatory briefs in the Army and friends in that field, so I suggested to him some additional precautions like developing a distress phrase in case he's being held against his will, not bringing his normal cell phone or computer at all so the information and contacts in it can't be exploited, and some other precautions. At this point there's no convincing him not to go, it's only about mitigating possible damages.

Here is the part where I need some perspectives. In my conversation with him warning him against doing this he claimed that he felt like the Spirit was telling him he needed to do this and that "we were told to spread the gospel to All Nations" and that this was a potential opportunity to do so. He's been a temple-going member his whole life, I've been a member my whole life, we come from a very strong gospel centered family going back to pioneer times. He has an incredible amount of faith and devotion but sometimes.. I don't know... he's almost a little bit too much. This being a case in point. He sent a message to my whole family group chat with the following:

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Just letting you know that I am taking every precaution possible. I have had so many advisors on this that I have a pretty full list. It's really overkill, but if it makes everybody feel better and not worry about me, then I'm happy to do anything to that end. This will include a "stress phrase" that u/archeantus is helping me to devise. More to come on that.

And just letting you know in general that I have covenanted to give all of my time, talents and material resources to the building up of the kingdom of God in Zion. In this responsibility, I am responsible to do the will of the Lord. And in this I have the same promises as missionaries who serve full-time. Especially look at verse 88 below.

I assure you and I have been promised that I will be OK. I have faith in that. I am following the promptings that I have been given and those promptings have been given to me in a spirit of love, the love of God and peace, and I have experienced these feelings in the temple. I pray continually for His ever present guidance. It is my opinion that following the Holy Ghost is the best guide of anything I have given myself to doing the will of God in my life in general and that goes for this endeavor also. You may believe that or not, but recognize that I'm the only one that is able to know and received direct revelation and inspiration about what I'm supposed to do. I hope you will have faith in that and have faith in me.

D&C 84

80 And any man that shall go and preach this gospel of the kingdom, and fail not to continue faithful in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, nor joint; and a hair of his head shall not fall to the ground unnoticed. And they shall not go hungry, neither athirst.

81 Therefore, take ye no thought for the morrow, for what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed.

82 For, consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin; and the kingdoms of the world, in all their glory, are not arrayed like one of these.

83 For your Father, who is in heaven, knoweth that you have need of all these things.

84 Therefore, let the morrow take thought for the things of itself.

85 Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.

86 Therefore, let no man among you, for this commandment is unto all the faithful who are called of God in the church unto the ministry, from this hour take purse or scrip, that goeth forth to proclaim this gospel of the kingdom.

87 Behold, I send you out to reprove the world of all their unrighteous deeds, and to teach them of a judgment which is to come.

88 And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.

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On the non-gospel side, I've pretty much done all I can to address the situation, but I just don't know what to do with defending his actions with scriptures and his "personal Revelation".

Tear me up as a bad son, but all of us are losing sleep over this.

Hi. Convert of 22 years. I think there is confusion for me about what the Word of Wisdom is. I believe might understand it correctly. No coffee, tea, alcohol, nor tobacco. Another thing we follow and have been taught to follow is the law: no meth, heroin, robbing banks, or speeding, for example. But I think when we are asked, "do you follow the word of wisdom?" We can say yes even if we smoke weed for fun. Am I wrong? (I smoke it sometimes bc I sometimes want to end my life and it makes life tolerable. I tried one time. God stopped me. Anyways, I am seeing a therapist. )...Bc technically and literally weed isn't part of the WoW.

Second question. If we are asked, "do you follow the word of wisdom?" And we say "yes" bc we don't consume the stuff I mentioned above, YET we are morbidly obese due to no underlying medical issue, doesn't that make us liars? I've read books on diet and health and exercise (was a personal trainer) and the "calories in calories out" ideas of body weight management is blatantly false. Insulin makes us obese. It makes us obese when we eat grains and sugar. Its more complicated than that, but i digress. Thats all just a tangent to my question. So...

If we havent eaten food according to the WoW, "meat sparingly" then shouldnt we admit that? If we consume 70×7 pizzas a week, doesnt that mean that no, you dont follow the WoW? Doesnt that equally makes us unworthy to have a recommend? So if you eat meat everyday, then doesnt that mean you dont follow the WoW?

When I first began wearing garments, the temple matron instructed me very specifically on how to dispose of the garments that were being made at the time (assuming you don't have a good place to burn them, which I usually don't): cut out the symbols and cut them up in a way that makes them unrecognizable/not easy to puzzle pack together. Then cut the rest of the fabric so it doesn't just look like a garment with the symbols cut out.

Several years ago, I bought garments with the symbols screen printed. The sister at the distribution center told me how exciting this was because they would fade with time so you didn't have to worry about treating the symbols specifically.

Can anyone confirm this--whether by instruction or experience? I noticed a hole in some bottoms and began to break them down like I have always done, and I honestly don't see the symbol anymore. But it still feels a little strange, so I just wanted to ask if there are any other instructions on the screen printed version that I'm missing.

Tia

I guess I’ll start this off with a little background as to why I’m here. I’m a 25 y/o woman who did not grow up in a religious household, but did have parents who went to church (mom catholic, dad LDS). Growing up, religion/God was always seen as a negative, so naturally, I picked up that viewpoint as well. That God isn’t real and religious people are annoying cuz they try to shove the Bible down your throat.

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Fast forward to late 2024 and lo-and-behold, I met a mormon boy who I eventually started dating. He never once pushed me to do things or attend things I didn’t want to. He said it’d be fun to do church related activities, but that was it. We eventually broke up a year later due to needing to work on ourselves but we still talk everyday. We have talked about our future when he comes back from his mission, and one of his expectations in a partner is to be a member of the church.

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Here’s where I need guidance. I’m not turned off from the idea of being a LDS member, but I’m also unsure? For starters, I have the judgement from my family (mostly mom and brother as dad is out of the picture). They tell me things like “you know it’s a c*lt, right?”, “you’ll never be accepted”, “they don’t like black people”, etc etc. Comments like these make it hard to try and explore the church as I’m afraid of what’s to come (Mind you I still live with them which makes this harder). I don’t even tell my family that I’ve been attending church occasionally out of fear of judgement.

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Another concern I have is, how can I full-heartedly believe in something I’ve been conditioned to think of as false? I try to pray when I can but sometimes it just feels empty. How can I truly believe in Him without feeling like I’m gaslighting myself? I asked my ex this before and he told me to just have faith, but how can I do that when I’ve never had/felt that before? The closest thing I felt to spiritual peace was when we first broke up, and I just started praying in bed and I felt as if a hand had scooped sand out of my emotional/mental sand box. I haven’t felt that peace since.

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Lastly, I know at the end of the day it’s my life and I can do whatever I want, but I also value peace amongst my family. I would also like to say that I’m not solely joining a religion just for a man. I want to see if this religion is something that benefits and resonates with me, as I’ve already felt some of its peace.

I was asked to sub and teach the RS lesson and I have forgotten everything I know about how it is supposed to go 😂

Does anyone have any good resources to check out to help me prep a lesson?

Lesson is on “Jesus Christ—the True Vine” by Elder Soares