Hi, I'm Jules

I live in Key West. I love to read and I love to travel, and I do both often. I'm a Mormon.

About Me

I grew up in California and currently live and work in the Florida Keys. I love to read -- everything from young adult fiction to biographies about early 20th century political leaders to science fiction to the history of Russia. I speak Spanish, and have traveled to Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica, and used it to get by in Italy. I spent last year learning to play the viola. I have three brothers, two sisters, a niece, a nephew, and a dog.

Why I am a Mormon

I'm a Mormon because it fills me up to bursting with joy and love. Seriously. During difficult times in my life, I find peace in having an "eternal perspective" -- knowing that the hard things are really preparation for an indescribably awesome eternity with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, my family, and the people that I have come to know and love so much in this life. During good times in my life, I find my heart overflowing with joy, with love, and with gratitude. The gospel makes me optimistic -- knowing that this whole living thing is part of a grander plan to turn me into something so much better than I am helps me to constantly set and achieve goals to be a little better every day.

I'm a Mormon because I have yet to find anything else that adds such richness and fullness to my life. Because the Book of Mormon is full of stories, and sermons, and characters that inspire me to be better. Because when I go to the temple, I feel a closeness not only with Heavenly Father, but also with those who are there with me and I can sense the infinite potential of the human spirit. Because during a time in my life when I was going to walk away from it all, I could sense the great void walking away would leave in my life.

I'm a Mormon because I have seen the priesthood -- the power to act with God's authority -- in action, and I know that it is real and I absolutely cannot deny that. I have seen miracles happen because of that priesthood, I have had prayers answered through it, and I know, know, know that its a real, powerful, and good thing.

I'm a Mormon because it fills me up. With joy and love and gratitude and inspiration and peace.

How I live my faith

I spend several hours a week working with teenage girls, teaching them about faith, and obedience and strength, about how to respect themselves and others, and about how to find joy in their lives. I drive eight hours each way to go regularly to our temple in Orlando, Florida. I make time daily for prayer and scripture study. And every day, I try to model my behavior after the Savior's, striving to be obedient to the commandments and to love and serve those around me. I'm far from perfect, but I like to think I get a little better each day.

What is faith?

Jules answered...

Faith is the choice that we make to believe in things we can't prove through our limited tools of scientific discovery. It is a choice to trust that we have a Heavenly Father and a Redeemer although we have not personally seen them. It is the choice to be obedient to the commandments of God even though we have only a "hope for things which are not seen, which are true" (Alma 32:21). It is the choice to make the sacrifices necessary to live our lives in the way that will bring us the greatest eternal blessings, even when those sacrifices are hard.
Cary answered...

Faith is a huge topic, rarely fully understood even by people who talk about it a lot. In the Mormon conception, it's a step of confidence between mere belief and full knowledge. It's perhaps best described by contrast with these two extremes on the continuum on which they all lie. First, faith is not that passive thing we call belief because it's a principle of action. So for someone to have faith, they have to be motivated to put a belief into practice, not merely be content with keeping it in their mind. For example, we believe that Christ is the Savior, but because we have faith we ACT as if this were true, and follow His example as best we can. In fact, "acting as if..." is a fairly good phrase to define faith. On the other hand, faith is not "perfect knowledge" either. There is enough of an element of uncertainty about the thing we have faith in, that it takes an effort of conscious decision-making to test our faith's hypothesis. If we had a full knowledge of a thing, that whole test, and the faith to find out if it's true, wouldn't be necessary. Atheists will argue that faith is mere belief (and baseless, at that), but what I have described for faith here leads to a more "scientific" approach that Atheists would like to admit is operable in the minds of the faithful. The proper response to a scriptural assertion, then, becomes not blind obedience, but rather careful thought, hypothesis forming, and testing. As tests come back proven or unproven, faith will grow in the right direction until it approaches "perfect knowledge".

What do Mormons believe concerning the doctrine of grace?

Carlos answered...

There is a passage from the Book of Mormon that can help us understand the doctrine of grace:

"And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free... there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah... he shall make intercession for all the children of men; and they that believe in him shall be saved"

We fully belive in justification and reconciliation by grace - it is an essential doctrine of the Church, and is found repeatedly throughout the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
Anyone who believes in Christ shall be saved and inherit all that the Father has; however, we need to understand what it means to believe - we need to understand the word "believe" as Christ intended it to be understood.

The prophet Joseph Smith taught that faith is a principle of action. Yes, it's true that all we need to do to be saved is to believe, but believing isn't just a verbal declaration - true belief requires action.
Knowing that the world is full of breathable air isn't enough to live - we actually need to act on that knowledge and breathe in order to keep living. Likewise, having faith in Christ isn't just something that we say we have - we have to act on that belief. I can't honestly claim that I have faith in Christ and know that His path is the path to happiness if I'm not consistantly trying to gain that happiness.

We fully believe in salvation by grace, but it's possible to fall from grace if we lose our faith - and if we are not doing the things that Christ requires of us then we do not have true faith.
All we need to do to attain grace is to develop faith in Jesus Christ, but developing faith unto salvation in Jesus Christ is a lifetime endeavor which requires our absolute best sacrifice.