Why Become a Mormon?

What is it about the Church of Jesus Christ that causes people to join it? Why would I want to meet with the two young men in dark suits that knock on my door? What is it that all of this has to offer me or my family? Why should I want to be a Mormon?

I grew up a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I spent my Sundays in church and sunday school. I knew that I couldn't drink alchohol, coffee, or tea; I couldn't smoke, I couldn't have sexual relations before marriage, as well as other things. I didn't ever question it, it was the way I was raised, it just seemed normal to me.

Towards the end of high school and for a year after graduating, I began to drift a little bit. Meetings every Sunday weren't my favorite thing to do, so if I could find an excuse not to go, I would. I didn't see a need to follow the commandments. For me it was a time to really find out what I wanted to do with my life.

What has really changed my life is one decision. My parents wanted me to go on a mission, just like most of the other young men my age. I wasn't sure if I wanted to, or even could, spend two years teaching other people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I spent years trying to decide whether I would go or not. One time when I was with my dad, I really thought about what I was doing with my life. The answer I came up with is that I wasn't really doing anything. I wasn't moving forward, I felt like I was stuck in limbo. I decided the only way to move forward was to give a mission a shot. I got things into motion (with prodding and help from my mom) and on November 18, 2009 I started my mission.

For those who haven't been on a mission, it is a difficult thing. I had never felt so alone, so overwhelmed, and so scared about what was going to happen. I didn't want to be where I was, and the only thing that kept me from leaving and going home was that I knew going back would just put me back into limbo. I spent many hours on my knees asking for help from my Father in Heaven. As the days past I received that help. As I began to study, and then live what I was learning, my life began to change.

I have always felt like my life was good. I have a great family who never let me go without. Things weren't always perfect, but I really feel like I couldn't have had it much better. It is now November 11, 2011 almost two years since I began my mission, and I have never been happier in my life. I don't understand why, because I have never worked so hard, given so much, or been quite this tired. I don't have luxurious things, and I can't even watch sports! It hasn't been easy, but I know that if you want to be happy, have a happy family, grow into a better person, have more love, have more trust, build bonds that will never be broken, and especially become a disciple of Jesus Christ; this is the church for you! I know that because of what it has done in my own life. This is Christ's church on the earth today.

Are You Listening?

Have you ever had a discussion with someone who just couldn't understand the point you were trying to get across. You can prove your point, but they still keep arguing theirs. In your mind you couldn't understand why they wouldn't accept what you were trying to say, and they are probably thinking the exact same thing. Usually arguments like this just result in both people getting frustrated. This happens to everyone, especially when you are on a mission.

They other day I was having a discussion about a point of doctrine about something I had figured out. The person I was talking to just couldn't get what I was trying to say though. He was telling me I was wrong and just wouldn't get my point; it was a pretty typical argument. We both got a little frustrated with each other and just agreed to disagree. About ten minutes later I really started to wonder why my friend didn't agree with me. I didn't care about whether he believed me anymore, and so I asked what it was that caused him to believe differently. He started explaining, and three or four times I caught myself about to argue, but I held off. By the time he was done explaining, I didn't understand why we were even arguing in the first place! We both believed the SAME THING! He was trying to show me one point, and I was so focused on making my point that I thought he was disagreeing with me. In all reality we both felt so strongly about what we were thinking of, that if the other person said anything different we automatically felt the other person was wrong.


I finally realized why there are so many false ideas about "Mormons" going around. Let me use an example: The Book of Mormon. Many people are against the Book of Mormon because they think it teaches things that are contrary to the Bible. They figure that Joseph Smith wrote it to twist the true teachings about Jesus Christ, and emphasize his own beliefs. They probably have a very strong belief of the Bible, and feel that the Book of Mormon is attacking what they know to be true. When they talk with a member of the LDS Church, they will try to make the point that they don't really believe in the Bible. In a believer's mind, if someone believes the Bible then they would have to believe the exact same thing as them. If they don't take a step back and research the LDS Church without that bias, they wont ever see the big picture and understand why we believe the Book of Mormon to be true. They would never be open to learning more about Christ. With that being said, it works the other way too. We should all be open to understanding why people come to the beliefs they do, and then judge the belief by it's merit.

If all we do is judge things by their truthfulness, we will never have to give up something we know to be true. If you fear changing however, you could miss something greater. I encourage you to give this a shot. I don't know everything, but I hope that I will continue to find truth everywhere. One thing I do know however, is the Book of Mormon was translated by a prophet of God. From that I have come to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our savior!

The Assist

 I love to play basketball, and I love to score points. Sometimes however, you have to pass up a good opportunity for someone else to have a better opportunity. When this happens, and you pass the ball to someone who scores, it is called an assist. The principle of this is that you sacrifice something good (your shot), for something better (the higher chance to get points for your team).

We talked about sacrifice this past Sunday in class. At first I came in with the impression that sacrifice is something that is hard to do, but must be done because the Lord commands it. By the end of the class my perspective had changed. I want to focus mostly on attending church.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, "We have to forego some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our families." There are many good things that we could be doing on Sundays. Spending time with families, helping provide for our families, etc... But our Heavenly Father has told us that the best thing we could be doing is to keep the Sabbath Day holy, and attend church. It may be a sacrifice to give up some things that are helping us, but if we do sacrifice, we will gain a much greater blessing.

I now know that while sacrifices seem hard, they really aren't. If we can have the faith and trust in the Lord, we personally may not get the points, but we assist the Lord (the best shooter on our team) and he can make the basket for us. Because we sacrifice we and our families come out on top. I now know that the chance to sacrifice is a blessing, not a burden.

Coasting Through Life

One of the hardest things for me on my mission is to see great people who don't care. They will give you the shirt off their backs, but they don't want to find out the truth. Maybe they never got answers so they stopped asking, or maybe they got the wrong answers. I don't know if I will ever know exactly why people don't even want to listen. Occasionally I wonder, "Am I ever like this? Am I ever afraid to ask the questions that will lead me to the truth?"

It is pretty easy to see that when you coast in a car, you start to slow down and eventually you will come to a stop. Spiritually we are the same. Often we feel like we are strong spiritually, and we decide we can ease off a little bit. We begin to coast through life, and sooner than we would like to think, we are spiritually stopped. The solution to this problem is simple, we have to accelerate to get moving again. But how do we accelerate spiritually?

We all know the feeling that we aren't getting better. We may even be reading our scriptures, going to church, and praying, but we still are not "accelerating." I want to focus on a scripture, Matthew 7:7 "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." In this scripture we find the key to move forward.

We all have questions about life. Things like, why do I feel like ... when I do ...? Why is ... so hard? What should I do in ... situation? But I think a lot of the time we put them off or forget about them. To make our study, prayer, and church attendance better, we should take these questions to the Lord and then look for the answer. I know he does answer, and we can gain that boost of faith that comes from the experience. This will allow us to be "doers of the word, and not hearers only."

Keep The Commandments

In the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 2: 24 it says, "And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?"

If we ever don't know what to do, turn to the Lord. Keep his commandments and he will bless you immediately. This is one of the greatest promises that we are given. It is also a plea given by a prophet. I also hope that we can all do the same. It isn't always easy, but it is always worth it!

Happiness - The John Tanner Story

Where does happiness come from? We can get many different answers from different sources. The world tells us that when we act on our immediate desires we gain happiness. This gives us pleasure, which can be a temporary substitute for lasting happiness. True happiness comes from following the plan that God has created for us. Who would know better than our Father what will make us happy?

The other day I watched a video about a man named John Tanner. He was a self-made wealthy man who was converted to the LDS faith in the early years of the church. The missionaries taught him, and he had a desire to be baptized. He couldn't however, because of a diseased leg that crippled him. The missionaries asked him if he had the faith to be healed. He did and the Lord healed him. He was baptized that evening.

Throughout the rest of his life he was called upon to help the church with its financial struggles. He willingly did so and over the course of his life gave 50,000 dollars to the church (we did the math and it came out to be around 2 million dollars in our money today). This cost him and his family a great deal. They had become poor and actually had to beg for food to survive. At the end of the film, he was called on a mission. Before he left he forgave the church all the debt they owed him. He then left his family to serve the Lord.

My feelings during this movie centered mostly on the great sacrifice of this man. To give all your money, and then watch your children go hungry would be a huge trial. I wondered at the great devotion and faith of this man. Then a thought hit me. Brother Tanner must have been happier during this trial of his life than at any time before. He knew the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he lived it! He accepted the Lords will for him, and did all he could to serve.

This emphasized the point that money does not bring happiness, living the gospel brings happiness. In 2 Nephi 2:27 it says, "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." The happiness from liberty and eternal life doesn't have to be just a future blessing. As we are obedient to the commandments now, we receive the blessings now.

The choices we make determine our happiness. Let us all choose to follow the Lord, choose to feel of his love, and choose to be happy at all times and in all places. As we do so, we will more fully become the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Online Missionary Work

Why in the world are missionaries online? This question is one that is really similar to what I was thinking when we found out that we would be working on Facebook and trying to share the Gospel through the internet. Facebook is something that has always been forbidden to missionaries, along with almost every website. So you can imagine our suprise when they told us about this. I was actually so shocked that I thought maybe they were playing a prank on us or something!

After about a half hour it started to sink in, and I started to think about all the possibilities this could present. The internet might be the best tool we have right now to get information out to people. Why not use this as a way to help people understand the happiness we all recieve from the Gospel? This could be a great way to get the truth to everyone!

The internet is full of things that will dull our spiritual sensitivity. It had many things that will turn people away from the truth because they do not completely understand. Over the last six years there was a study that has shown that internet searches of the word "mormon" have gone from 80 percent negative, to being 80 percent positive in some countries. The reason for this is that positive information about the Church is being spread across the web.

This is another effort to show the good. There are so many great websites that the Church has out right now: mormon.org, lds.org, youtube.com/mormonmessages, ect... We as (full-time and member) missionaries have an obligation to the Lord to share these things with our friends. This is an easy way to "...invite others to come unto Christ..." You can read more about this at Church News .

We can all do our part and share this wonderful message. Let's get the Lord's invitation to come unto him to all the world through the internet!

Who Am I?

A couple of days ago, I read a story about a lady who spent about half of her life looking for an answer that nobody could give her. Betty had always wondered "Where did I come from?" She knew that she had lived before this life, but anytime she asked someone about it they told her she shouldn't be thinking about such things and she might want to see a psychiatrist. Her requirement for anyone to teach her about religion was that first they had to answer that question.

I feel like this question can be determined when we look at who we are right now. In Romans 8:16-17 it says,
"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together."

 

We lived with our Heavenly Father before we came to earth. We were his spirit children there, and we are still his children here. The last part of this scripture tells us a little about where we can be, because we were, and are, children of god. It says that we are "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." An heir by definition is:

a person who is entitled by law or by the terms of a will to inherit the estate of another.

If we are a joint heir with Christ to the estate of God, we have great purpose in life! We can become like our Heavenly Father and brother Jesus Christ through His atonement! We can and will recieve all the blessings of our Father's "estate" if we do as he has asked. I know this to be true!

The Book of Mormon

There are many who claim to be a prophet. Christ even told us in the Bible that false prophets would come. He said, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Matt 7: 15). With this warning, how are we to know what to believe? Christ gives us the answer later on in this chapter, "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

One of the fruits that we have from Joseph Smith, so we can know that he was a true prophet, is the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is an ancient record of the dealings of God with the people in the America's. It is a history that begins in Jerusalem about 600 B.C. A prophet named Lehi is commanded by God to leave Jerusalem and he would be led to a promised land. They leave, cross the ocean, and eventually come to the land promised to them. Time passes, people listen to and learn of God. Many also reject the teachings of Christ. Prophets were called of God to teach the people and guide them to salvation. These prophets all testified that the Son of God would come and suffer the sins of all mankind. They also promised these people that Christ would show himself to him and visit them.

While Christ was on the earth he told the people in Jerusalem, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."  (John 10: 16) After his resurrection Christ came to these people in America, he taught them his gospel, he established his church among them. They had peace and prosperity for hundreds of years.

Eventually the people began to reject Christ's teachings again. They became wicked and killed Christ's followers. One last prophet named Moroni had the records of these people, written on gold plates. He buried these plates with the promise from God that they would be revealed to the world in the future.

Joseph Smith was shown by an angel where these plates were buried. He was able to translate them by the gift and power of God. It became evidence that God had called Joseph to be a prophet, to restore Christ's church on the earth today, and to lead all of God's children!

There is a promise in the Book of Mormon. Moroni tells us, "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost" (Moroni 10:4).

I can promise you the same, if you want to know if Joseph Smith is a true prophet, pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true. You will receive the answer that it is. I know it is true. Our loving God has reached out to us once again. He leads us with a prophet that he has chosen. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is his church on the earth today!

The Restoration

I mentioned in my last post that the Lord promised us that even though there would be an apostasy, he promises a restoration in the "Dispensation of the Fullness of Times."(Ephesians 1:10) In the year 1820 this happened.

At the age of 14 a young boy named Joseph Smith lived at a time of "unusual excitement on the subject of religion" (Joseph Smith History). There were many faiths who contended with one another over converts. During this time of confusion, Joseph Smith wondered which of all the churches was right. He wondered which was the "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," that Paul talks about in Eph 4: 5.

Because of the difference in opinion, Joseph couldn't decide which church to join. He says, "the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (JSH). In his search for the truth he came across the scripture in James 1: 5 that says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." This scripture "seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of [his] heart.[He] reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, [He] did; for how to act [He] did not know..."

Joseph determined that he must ask God which church is true. So one spring morning, he went to a grove of trees and knelt down and prayed. In an answer to his prayer he received a vision from God and Jesus Christ! He says, "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me... When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"

His prayer was answered an he was told that while each church had truth in them, none of them had the whole truth. After centuries of being lost, the Lord's gospel would once again be revealed to his children. He was also told how he would be the Lord's servant in this work, he had been called by God to be a prophet. He was given the authority to restore Christ's church to the earth today.

This event has a great importance for the world! Christ's church is back! We have a prophet on the earth speaking the Lord's will to us today! I know this is true and you can as well!