Reflections On Being Mormon

Reflections On Being Mormon

This post is not meant to be “preachy.” In fact, that is the last thing I want it to be. Instead, I hope this post will be mainly two things: 1) informative, and 2) an invitation to anyone who wants to learn more. I’m a Mormon, and Mormons believe in sharing their religion with others. If you haven’t already noticed, Mormons are always sending missionaries all over the world, posting videos affectionately called Mormon Messages, and inviting their loved ones to listen to what we believe. Sharing my beliefs with others is not just a gospel duty, though; it’s something I sincerely want to do. But as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I face the sometimes-daunting task of sharing something I believe with all the conviction of my soul—without being preachy. This post is an attempt to do that. 

My belief in and devotion to my religion runs so deep that I put off school, dating, and everything else for two years to teach people in Japan about Jesus Christ. There were many days spent on the streets and doorsteps of Japan sharing my faith in Christ with complete strangers. You would think that after an experience like that, any hesitancy to share my beliefs would be long gone, but it’s not. I still get nervous to invite people, especially friends and family, to learn about my Church. In my mind, it seems absurd that I would feel that way.  I mean, it’s not that I don’t believe what I am offering to others. But the nervousness doesn’t stem from doubt about what I am sharing; it stems from feeling inadequate in my ability to share it the right way.

So what makes it sometimes difficult to share my religion in the right way? Mormons believe that their church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the only true church upon the face of the earth. We not only believe that to be true, we say that we “know” it. I know how that may come across to certain people reading this post, but before you peg me as a zealot and exit out of my blog, I hope you’ll give me a chance to explain. There’s a genuine motivation and feeling behind writing something so brash on a subject as sensitive as religion.

I hope this post can embody the sensitivity that religion deserves and express my beliefs in the right way. What is the right way to share it? I think it’s unequivocal but respectful, bold but not overbearing. Charles Malik described it well when he defined a great leader as being “polite” but “never toning down the truth just to please others.” But still, with a claim like being the only true church upon the face of the earth, you can probably see why a Mormon who has family and friends not of his faith might worry about coming across as arrogant, fanatical, or extreme. This is especially true when I know those family members and friends to have exemplary families, generous hearts, and genuine faith in God. That is why I need to be clear that my belief that there is only one true church (Ephesians 4:5) does not equate to a belief that all other churches and religions are bad or insignificant. Quite to the contrary, I have heart-felt respect for other religions and Christian sects and believe in the good they both teach and perform. 

In fact, it is not a matter of good or bad, right or wrong. For me, it is a matter of complete or incomplete. My membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has helped me “come to the knowledge of [my] Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that [I] may know how to come unto him” (1 Nephi 15:14). The more I experience the completeness of Christ’s doctrine, as contained in His church, the more I experience the incredible love and care He has for me; the more complete I feel as a human being. So what are some of the doctrines that allow me to feel that way? That’s what I really want to share with you.

God has revealed His plan for us, giving us perspective and purpose.

Those that know me well know that I despise doing things without knowing why I am doing them. I can’t imagine trying to go through life without knowing the real reason for why we are even here, why we are even alive. But within the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I find divine knowledge about the plan for our lives, including where we were before we were born, why we are here on Earth, and where we will go once we die. I love having this knowledge! It allows me to know what it takes to be truly successful—not in terms of salary figures or fame but in terms of peace and performing God’s will. It helps me know what really matters and what is not really worth my time. It gives me hope by telling me what I need to do when I feel like my choices have set me on an unwanted course. It allows me to avoid getting stuck in life and continually progress. It helps me feel complete.

God speaks to us today through living prophets.

Another way my beliefs help me find success is through living prophets—people who commune with God and have divine authority to teach His words (Amos 3:7; Hebrews 5:4). At my age, I am trying to make a lot of important decisions in my life: What should I study? What career should I pursue? How am I going to make a real difference in the world? Who do I want to go through life with? Once I find someone I love, how will I build a happy and successful family with that person? With how many decisions I have to make and how complex the world has become, it is hard to always know what will keep me on a path to happiness and peace. But this is exactly why God has given us prophets along with the plan for our lives—as the world gets more and more confusing, prophets tell us what we need to do to stay close to God and remain on the path of joy. The prophet today is a man named Thomas S. Monson. With him, there is a quorum of twelve Apostles that guide the Church, just like when Christ was on the earth. Even in the toughest circumstances and decisions I’ve had to face in my life so far, I have found tremendous happiness as I’ve followed the counsel of these servants of God. In an increasingly fragmented world, the direction I receive from prophets today helps me maintain my feeling of completeness.

The prophet, Thomas S. Monson (center) and his two counselors, who are apostles of Jesus Christ

           God has given these prophets divine power to seal our families together forever, come                  what may.

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve dreamed of having my own happy family. Because of that, I’ve been preparing all my life to be a faithful husband and a loving father. Out of all the things I want to accomplish and become in my life, being a husband and father reigns supreme. However, as much as this dream is an important motivator for me, it also constitutes the grounds for one of my greatest fears: losing those I love to death. The worst part about this fear is that it is inevitable. Everyone dies. But that’s exactly why I love being a Mormon. The divine authority living prophets in the LDS church hold is also the authority of God to seal things on earth and in heaven (Matthew 16:19). When two people are married, or “sealed,” by this authority, their relationship is bound in a way where even death itself cannot destroy it. Where man’s authority can only pronounce us man and wife “till death do us part,” God’s authority can bind us not just for time but also for eternity. That means that my family will be mine and I will be theirs, not only until death but even after we die. In every sense, we will have become an eternal family, never to be separated because of the authoritative sealing upon our relationships.

That tastes good to me. It’s consistent with how powerfully we love each other. I don’t think I could whole-heartedly believe in a religion or a God that doesn’t teach that I could be with those I love beyond death, for my love itself seems to imply it. Because of the authority given to prophets in this Church, I know that we don’t come to earth and spend our lives loving those closest to us only to have them stripped away from us when we die. This knowledge, while possessing no guarantee that death will not come to my family, does give me sufficient hope and courage to love deeply; it gives me courage to love completely. 

These doctrines may be unfamiliar to you. They may be something you already believe. Whatever the case may be, I know that they are true. I have asked God in prayer if these things are true and He has given me a personal witness that they are. Everything good we desire as human beings and as children of God can be found in Christ’s restored church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The peace, hope, forgiveness, and love I have received from knowing the “very points” of Christ’s doctrine has allowed me to come to know my Savior in powerful, intimate ways. It has allowed me to feel truly complete. That is why I’m a Mormon. That is why I want to share what I believe with those I love. I apologize if I shared anything I believe in a way that was offensive to you. That was not my intent. I must admit that even after spending hours working on writing this post, I still feel it impossible to adequately express things rooted so deeply in my heart. Thank you, however, for allowing me to try. If you have questions or are interested in learning more about what I believe, I hope you will reach out to me. You can also check out mormon.org, if you’d like.

            Also, here’s a great talk from one of our church leaders to people not of our faith: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/come-and-see?lang=eng

One Step Enough For Me

All You Need to Read if All You’re Interested in is What’s Happening in My Life:

Let’s cover the basics right from the start: 1) No, I am currently not dating anyone. I have dated a few girls in the last couple years but still haven’t found the one for me. But don’t worry; my parents are very good at not letting me forget that I am single and that marriage is an essential step in my eternal progression. 2) I am studying English with a Business Strategy minor. What am I planning on doing with that, you ask? (or even if you don’t). I plan to get a PhD in education and then build businesses designed to initiate and manage the major changes I believe will occur in that field in the near future. 3) I am currently working full-time in a training/management position at the Missionary Training Center where I train and manage between 35-60 teachers and anywhere between 100-300 missionaries at a time. This requires that I only go to school part-time, meaning I will graduate, depressingly, at the end of 2016.

What do I really want in life, and how will I get it?

It was five minutes to 9:30 when I walked into room 230 for the first day of Strategy class. The room was set up in a stadium-like fashion where no matter where you sat, you could pretty much see everyone else. I sat down next to a friendly-looking fellow and introduced myself as confidently as I could. Intellectually, I was trembling. Everyone I consciously looked at seemed to breath smart, talk smart, walk smart, and know that they were smart. Although in the moment I recognized this mindset to be fallacious, I couldn’t help feeling like it was somehow true-- everyone was smart, and furthermore, smarter than me. I mean, there was a guy two rows in front of me that seemed to have already read all the material for the semester and written 3 page papers on each article. Across the room, sat another guy that looked like he had already started two successful businesses and was just taking this class as a refresher. Then there was the guy that everyone seemed to know and like. He walked into the room and said hello to six or seven different people by name and seemed to struggle knowing which of his friends he should sit by. Even if he wasn’t smart (he did look smart), he was going to have plenty of friends to help him understand and succeed.

Despite my feelings of desperation and inadequacy on the first day of class, as the semester progressed, I learned to feel confident around a lot of other people that were confident. Most of the people I met in the class were, in fact, very smart and inspiringly ambitious, but also down-to-earth and kind. As time went on, I realized that I actually enjoy being in an environment where you are expected to think critically and accurately, an environment where you are expected to contribute. Something I came to feel as I was immersed in that culture from 9:30 to 10:45 am every Monday and Wednesday was that I could literally be and do whatever I wanted. Those words were no longer a mere platitude my mom used to tell me while I was growing up; it became a real possibility. The problem was deciding what I really wanted to devote my life to and, consequently, what I wanted to become with my time on earth.

When it comes to this decision, I’ve learned that there are plenty of people that feel like they know the path to success and are eager to share it with you. They know how to build your resume, connect you to the right people, and even teach you how to think. These things, they seem to think, will land you a job with a top firm, making millions of dollars, and bringing glory to your family, alma mater, and your name. On deeper reflection, even if people don’t tell you those things directly, the business school climate seems to infuse them into your brain. I could sometimes feel the disapproval of some when they found out I was devoting so much time to my job at the MTC rather than doing internships with more “reputable” firms. Although I tried to resist, I couldn’t help but feel that they were somehow right. I struggled with knowing whether staying at the MTC, something I felt like God was directing me to do, was really the best thing for me.

I also started to struggle with my desires to be wealthy. Growing up, money was never really a big determining factor in my career choices. I was taught that if you spend less than you make, eventually, you would become wealthy. But the more I formulated what I wanted to accomplish in my life, the more I felt, not just a desire, but a need to be wealthy.

Now, I recognize that these desires are not necessarily bad per se. The desires themselves were not troubling me. It was that the desires to make lots of money, work at a prestigious firm, and be successful in the world seemed to actually be competing with my desire to do whatever God wanted me to do. What if God didn’t have riches in store for me? What if working at a prestigious firm isn’t really what He wanted for my life? I realized that if what I wanted for myself wasn’t really what God wanted for me, that I would have a really difficult time accepting that, and that really bothered me. At first, I thought I might just pretend that my more secular desires weren’t really competing with my spiritual ones, but then I remembered Tennyson:

There lives more faith in honest doubt

Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gathered strength

He would not make his judgment blind

He faced the spectres of his mind

And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a greater faith his own

            I resolved to live by these words and deal with my feelings head-on. I started studying consecration and sacrifice in the scriptures. I started praying for the ability to truly “yield [my] heart unto God” (Helaman 3:35). Weeks went by where I didn’t feel like I was getting much direction. Then one day, while I was studying and seeking for guidance, I felt inspired to write a poem. I opened a Word doc and just started writing. What I produced, though admittedly unimpressive poetically, captured my struggle and revealed God’s guidance for me at that time.

                       

You pull upon my heart for love I wish to give 

But cannot yet.  

I wrestle with green paper. fancy plates. big desks 

which multiply heavier 

with each passing Monday and Wednesday 

From 9:30 to 10:45.   

I wonder what you'll ask and tremble at alters I've never met

and checkbooks of zeros. My brain soothes me, 

but I do not trust my brain so easily tricked.  

So I reach with my heart, offering gifts you do not want. You want the  

inner valves and veins of my inwards but I will not let them go.  

I fear your paths and burdens and I want the bigger desk. 

I look at your face, framed and hanging beside me and want you to be the most my heart could have.

I reach, claw, fight, and plead for you to take what only I can give.  

I sneer at the ugly wall someone built between us and then  

I feel the wooden handled hammer in my hand. You ask for it, and

I give it to you. 

But I still want it. I want to build that big, polished, pure-oak desk. 

But then you give one to me. Six chairs surrounding 

With jammy fingers making sticky prints. Mac'n'cheese in little mouths fed with little hands. I look across and see her eyes staring trustingly. I hold her heart in my own; she--mine.  

Smiling, I finally grasp your hand and whisper,  

"Thank you for my desk."

            When I finished writing, something was different. It wasn’t a huge change, but it was a distinct one. It felt like I had just found my misplaced wallet after 30 minutes of angry searching. It was simply the feeling that I wanted what I had always wanted—to be a husband and father who gives his life to God and his family. I still felt a desire to follow my ambitions in having a successful career and changing the world, but the more I thought about the words I had just written, the more I felt that those things would never mean anything to me or to God if I failed to fulfill the dream I have had ever since I was a little boy—making a genuinely happy family with the love of my life.

            This experience became the impetus to methodically recapturing my future from the control of resumes, GPA’s, famous businessmen, and well-meaning advisors and placing it securely in the hands of God. Doing so has taught me an important lesson: Everything I accomplish in my life—everything—will be because God has provided the opportunity, talent, or experience needed to do it. God will get me where I need to be. It won’t be my impressive resume. It won’t be because I got into the strategy program. It won’t be because of me at all.

On first thought, you might think this would diminish my self-confidence, but the reality is that this realization has brought more confidence, direction, and faith. More than ever before, I feel like I can “trust in the Lord with all [my] heart and lean not unto [my] own understanding” with the knowledge that “he shall direct [my] paths” (Proverbs 3:5).

But I’ve learned that trusting in God so completely requires a particular type of attitude, a specific way of looking at the world. I think it might be what the Book of Mormon prophets call an “eye of faith” (Alma 32). It is the ability to reside in uncertainty without becoming anxious. It is the determination to not jump ship when it starts taking on water; it is the courage to not retreat when the opponent gets a few good shots on you. It is seen in the man digging in deeper when the enemy appears innumerable. It is seen in the woman standing a little taller when the pressures and weights of the world seem too heavy to bear. It is the realization that closeness to God is often found in our own personal gardens of Gethsemane. It is not merely enduring the trial—indeed, adversity is the gardener of faith whether we like it or not—rather, it is enduring the trial well.

Please notice that I’m not saying that we should enjoy trials, uncertainty, or affliction. They would not qualify as such if they were enjoyable to us. Instead, I am trying to say that complete trust in God is always accompanied by the implicit confidence that everything is going to be okay, that God is at the helm and that “all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good” (Doctrine and Covenants 98:3).

This confidence has transformed the uncertain journey of my life from a fretful dragging of the feet to an exciting, soul-stretching quest. I still don’t know exactly what lies ahead, but I no longer fear ambiguity. I know God is my Father, that he loves me with a perfect love, and that He will never forsake me. He will “guide my future as He has my past” (“Be Still My Soul”). I know I am His son and because of that, I have infinite potential to do whatever He would have me do. That knowledge acts as an anchor to my soul and makes me to pray with saints of every dispensation, “Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene—one step enough for me” (“Lead Kindly Light”).