It says "Connection refused" but I haven't done anything in order to be refused connection (anything bannable) so I'm kind of curious as to what the issue is... :/

The survival server is down. The creative server ip, if you want to get on that, is:
creative.minerealm.com

This is not the correct thread to post this in. But to answer your question, yes, the server is down.

I wonder, is Survival down?

LOL

I have a couple questions I would love answered...

First, my sheep keep disappearing. Literally sometimes in front of my eyes, they will vanish. What is the deal here, glitchy server/game?

Second, What is the deal with mobs in the world. I have built a mob grinder and set my difficulty to hard, and nothing. I can barely get a spawn. How in the world are we suppose to enchant anything, lest we happen upon a spawner. Sorry, I am just trying to figure a few things out that have been rather frustrating. Thanks for any and all help!!

I believe both are related. If I understand it correctly, mobs and animals are limited per chunk to reduce lag. There are tons of mob spawners to use for free and there are ways to set up animal farms that work alright, but bread, watermelon, and zombie flesh are much easier.

Drhetters...

Thank you much, I sure do appreciate it. I have been flustered with this mob grinder for a while, and just couldn't seem to figure the thing out.

@ cheddarMob

The maximum amount of mobs per area is something like 5 per 10x10 area. If there are any more they will despawn. Concerning your sheep problem I would advise building 10x10 pens with a few blocks space in between. That way you can still farm wool without having your sheep dissapear.