Meet Michael

Meet Michael.

Today Mark and I were out to lunch at Carl’s Junior. As we waited for our food I noticed a little boy wandering around by himself. I scanned the place to see who might be looking out for him – to make sure he belonged to someone there. No one was watching him. I let the minutes pass, thinking surely someone will notice he is not with them and call for him, or he would find his way back to the group or person he belonged to. Still nothing. He moved from table to table drawing on the back of service questionnaires with a small pencil.

When our food was brought to us, I asked the lady who brought it if she knew who the boy belonged to, because it appeared that he wasn’t with anyone in the restaurant. She said she didn’t know. Just then the boy walked up to us. I asked him if his mommy or daddy was there. He said his mommy was. I asked him where she was and he said that she was working (behind the counter).

My mind filled with various thoughts and feelings. Was he going to be there in the lobby all day, entertaining himself? How could his mom really watch him and work? Could she not afford a baby-sitter? Was grandma maybe coming to get him shortly and mom only brought him for a short-term solution? Does mom bring him every day? Would he be safe? What should I do? What could I do?

He asked us if he could sit at the table next to us. We told him ‘for sure’! He sat down and continued his drawing – which was really just scribbles. We chatted about his drawings and he told us what each ‘scribble’ was. He thanked me when I told him he had quite an imagination . Yes, I truly meant it as a compliment. He was articulate, cute, funny, and outgoing. He moved his paper to our table and stood between us while he drew and we ate. Mark drew him a bunny, a dog, and house. Michael asked me to draw him ‘Wall-E’. I suggested I get his picture instead. He liked that idea.

As we parted ways I took one of the questionnaire’s to write my own little note to him. It said:

Dear Michael,

Jesus Loves YOU!

Love, Mark and Angela

I handed it to him and asked if he could read it. He shook his head ‘no’. So I read it to him and he got a huge grin on his face. He ran up to the order counter to show his mom. As we walked out the door, mom looked our way and we smiled at each other.

The whole experience warmed my heart and I’m reminded how good it is to be kind to others and lend a hand. We’re all doing the best we can and sometimes we feel our best isn’t good enough (and what a heart-breaking place to be). It is so good to have mercy and compassion from others when we are in that place.

In His Name,
Angela

The Meaning of ‘Enan’

For those who may be wondering, ‘Enan’ (in my blog title) is a Hebrew name meaning ‘having big eyes, or curious’. I was trying to think of a clever way to express my insatiable and methodical thirst for knowledge, and the significance of names is appealing to me… wallah… Enan.

My mom tells me that when I was a young child anytime her answer to me was ‘because’ I retorted, “’because’ isn’t good enough (very respectfully, I’m sure… not)!” I’ve always felt I needed to know why things are the way they are, and then determine if they really need to be that way. I’m sure I frustrated the heck out of my parents (and probably still do) but I’m grateful to live ‘the examined life’ as Aristotle called it, or in other words, to be a red pill kind of girl. Although I’ve come to appreciate the idea of tradition now that I have a family, I’ve never been a proponent for its own sake – if it has a satisfactory meaning behind it, great. Sing ‘Rock-a-Bye Baby’ to your infant… why?

There is nothing wrong with Blue Pill kind of people. I’m sure they have more fun in life. They are probably many of the Sanguines of the world. We’re all wired differently, and thank God for that! If the world was full of ‘Melancholy Examiners’ like me – it would shut down for days at a time trying to make a decision or pondering something of probably little significance.

I’m not a ‘put people into a box’ kind of girl, but if you love to learn about yourself and find out how you and your loved ones predominantly bring value to the world (and how you suck), you may like this website: www.mypersonality.info. I really dig diving into personalities. If anyone else knows of any great personality sites or books, feel free to post them in the comments.

Enjoy!
Angela

Mormon Slams: To Respond or Not to Respond?

It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten an anti-Mormon slam. I agonized for the day whether or not I should respond. So far in my experience, nothing good has ever come from the halls of debate when it comes to religion. It only seems to breed anger and perpetrate ugliness. On the other hand, while arguments do not create convictions, a lack of one can lend to false beliefs and somewhere we have a responsibility to set the record straight. In my mental duel with these two principles I’ve concluded that it just depends on the person’s intention. Are they genuinely curious or are they attacking you? What is the Spirit prompting you to do? In this case, it became clear to me that this was an obvious attack. I actually enjoy a good debate, but a good debate takes two good debaters, and there is no rationalizing with an irrational person. Plus, I’ve learned through experience to heed this counsel:

“For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirith up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another. Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the the hearts of men with anger, one against another: but this is my doctrine that such things should be done away.” (3 Nephi 11:29, 30)

Also, insofar as debating goes, nothing can take the place of the witness of the Holy Spirit. We could dig up the Arc of the Covenant and most would still not believe. In fact, when Jesus comes again, we know many will still not believe. While many are arguing for facts, the facts, frankly, won’t convert them. John the Revelator said, “The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.” (Revelation 19:10) and the Apostle Paul said, “No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost.” (1 Corinthians 12:3) Many people mistakenly believe that they need external evidences when in reality it is only the Holy Spirit, an internal evidence or witness, that will convert us. Hence why the Latter-day Saints believe in the counsel of Moroni:

“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. And by the power of the Holy Ghost, you may know the truth of all things. And whatsoever thing is good is just and true; wherefore, nothing that is good denieth the Christ, but acknowledgeth that he is.” (Moroni 10:4-6)

This is not to say that I don’t believe in studying a matter out – I absolutely do. In fact, I studied the Church and its doctrines for a couple of years before heeding the counsel of Moroni officially. Our Heavenly Father gave us a brain and he wants us to use it insomuch that we are not victims of cognitive dissonance. Critics often accuse Latter-day Saints to be such ill-informed dupes. In reality, our Church doctrines make much more common sense than mainstream Christianity’s views on the godhead and other topics, and we happen to have a variety of extremely intelligent converts.

As I wrap this up, I’d like to make a note of something I find very interesting. Most non-LDS Christians would probably not bash their Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist friend publicly for their religion – even if only because it would cross this invisible line of being highly politically incorrect and their own conscience wouldn’t allow it. Notice, though, how acceptable it seems to bash the Mormon. Brigham Young sums up my thoughts on this very well, “It is light, intelligence, the power of God that make the wicked tremble and wish ‘Mormonism’ out of the way. If it were a false doctrine or a false theory, the Devil would not endeavor to disturb it, wicked men would not fear it, Heaven would not smile upon it, nor give a revelation to any man or woman to believe it, and we should have poor success; and Heaven forbid that we should have success or gain influence upon any other principle than the revelations of Jesus Christ.”

In His Name,
Angela

Day of Faith at Harvard: Personal Quests for a Purpose – Rachel Esplin – LDS

Rachel does a fantastic job articulating our faith and represents us well.

more about "Day of Faith at Harvard: Personal Que…", posted with vodpod

Finding Joy Now!

Who Was She?

She could read English, French, German, Greek, and Latin

She graduated Magna Cum Laude

She traveled the world (to over 39 countries)

She was a world famous speaker and author

She helped found the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

She met every US President from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson

She was friends with Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin, and Mark Twain

She has a published autobiography among eleven other published books and numerous articles

She is credited with introducing the breed of dog, Akita, to the United States

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (one of the U.S.’s two highest civilian honors)

She was elected into the Woman’s Hall of Fame

She has received the following posthumous honors:
•    Listed in Gallup’s Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century
•    She is honored on a 2003 state quarter
•    She has a hospital named after her and dedicated to her
•    She has a street named after he in Spain
•    Her life story was made into a TV movie

Have you figured it out yet?  I am talking about Helen Keller.

So how did this girl with so many trials in her life overcome and accomplish so much?  I dare answer because she figured out the secret to having joy.

“But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.  Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.”  (2 Nephi 2:24-25)

If we exist so that we might have joy (and fulfill the measure of our creation), then why do so many circumstances cause us pain and why is life full of trials and tragedy?  I think there are a few reasons.

1.  The Lord wants us to take refuge in Him and find the joy He offers despite our circumstances.  We must come to learn that our circumstances (a certain spouse, house, car, clothes, jewelry, job, degree, etc.) may provide temporary happiness, but do not provided everlasting joy.  On the corollary, what we perceive as negative circumstances and trials do not have to leave us feeling depressed and hopeless.  Once we understand joy, circumstance cannot rob us of it.

We can find countless examples of people who prove this besides Helen Keller.  The Apostle Paul wrote from jail about being thankful for all things.

2.  There must be opposition in all things.  If we do not know pain, we cannot know joy.  The depth of our pain or trial is equal to our capacity to understand and experience joy.

2 Nephi 2: 11, 13-16:
“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

“And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.

“And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.

“And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.

“Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.”

3.  This life is a probationary state and a testing ground.  We were given free agency and get to prove ourselves.  We are each accountable for our own choices.  No one is dealt a perfect hand.  Even people that seem to have been dealt a perfect hand find themselves with challenges we’ll never understand or appreciate (as an example think of the many celebrities that have fame, fortune, adoration, etc. who end up leading tragic lives or end in tragic death).  Our individual challenges are tailored to our needs.

We get to be accountable for how we choose to respond to life.  I am not a big supporter of ‘victims’.  While we can’t control all of our circumstances, we can choose how we’ll respond – and that is the test.  Will we use our trials as stepping stones to become better people, or we will allow our trials to crush us?  For those circumstances we can control, will we take an honest look and ask ourselves ‘how did I create this?’ and turn that knowledge into wisdom?  (See also my blog entry entitled ‘The Problem of Pain’)

Joy and happiness are not things to be anticipated for later in the future.  Life will always bring new challenges, no matter what stage you’re in.  We easily fall into the trap of thinking life will be better, easier, or happier ‘when…’  The time to be happy and find joy is now.

“Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; for the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. ” (D&C 58: 27)

Helen Keller innately understood this.  She is quoted as saying, “Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”

Another way to find joy is to love and serve your fellow man.  In talking to His disciples, Jesus gives them an example of serving and loving one another.  He says, ‘If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.’ (John 13:17)

To wrap this up, I leave you with a quote from the late President Harold B. Lee:

“Happiness does not depend on what happens outside of you but on what happens inside of you.”

Having lived through many trials, and I’m sure more to come, I testify of the truthfulness of this message, in the name of Jesus Christ.

Angela

————

I also leave you with some more relevant quotes by Helen Keller:

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.  Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened,
ambition inspired, and success achieved.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therin to be content.

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

The Pointlessness

The Pointlessness

4/20/03

The anxiety
The stress
The sleepless nights
The self-inflicting disease
The courage
The goodness
The self-rewarding praise
The speed of time
The stolen youth
The slow end
The self-preservating
The knowledge
The wisdom
The work
The self-improving
The artistry
The creation
The empire
The self-satisfaction
The pointlessness
The leaving it all behind
The empty pleasures
The rewarding endeavors

Leaving it to you,
The next generation
To be pointless – once again

——

I have to laugh at myself and my melancholy nature!  I remember writing this after reading Ecclesiastes once (back in 2003).  I do believe most things in life are pointless – but what is not pointless is the knowledge, wisdom, and experience we gain from our temporal existence.  For these are the things that are lasting and which we take with us into the eternities.  This life is a probationary state, a testing ground, to prove ourselves and become like our example of perfection, Jesus Christ.

The Problem of Pain

I was inspired to write this after I read The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis in August of 2003:

God is good.  God is love.  He loves me enough to challenge me and throw me into the fire.  He wants me to be as loveable as possible and provides opportunities to refine me.  Refinement is not absent of pain.  It is, in fact, painful by nature.  So often it clouds the memory of the beauty that will come.  I do not believe it is my purpose to be happy, nor any mans.  It is my purpose to respond, as the creature, to my Creator’s love for me.  Though it is by living the purpose He created for me that I will be happy.  Man is to know joy, and to know joy is to know pain and sorrow.  Our free will comes with the price of how we choose to use it; how we choose to manipulate non-sentient, inanimate objects and nature.  What can be used to build up, can also be used to destroy.  One complains about peddling uphill while the other enjoys the ride down.  Is the hill evil?  Is it the intention of the hill to cause pain, or even joy?  This is the problem of pain.  What is useful and pleasurable for one man, is the demise of another.  God cannot make separate rules for the same object.  While He is omnipotent, he is not insane.  His laws are constant and reliable.  While, yes, He creates miracles, they are just that… miracles.  A miracle wouldn’t be a miracle if it was the norm.  Is God “good” when a man uses a plank of wood to build a fire and warm his family and “bad” when that same plank of wood was used to hit someone over the head?  He loves us enough to demand perfection out of us.  The more trials in our lives – the more He loves us.  Our complaints, it turns out, are not that He doesn’t love us enough, but that He loves us too much.

My Testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ

I wrote this testimony and read it at my baptismal service, right after I was baptized:

This day, January 28th, 2006, I am reborn through baptism by the authority of God through the Melchizedek Priesthood.  I grew up most of my life as an Evangelical Christian.  My parents divorced when I was five-years-old.  My mom soon after found Jesus Christ as her Savior and Redeemer and began praying for my dad to come home a changed man and reunite our family.  She enrolled my brothers, sister, and me to all believe in and pray for this for five years.  After the fifth year my father indeed came home a changed man and remarried my mom.  It was like a fairytale.  I came home to my mom’s house after school one day and saw my dad there with my mom at the kitchen table.  I wasn’t sure what to think as my parents did not get along and would never spend time together.  I hesitantly went near them and my dad gestured for me to come to him.  I sat on his lap and he asked me if I could have just one wish, what it would be.  A surge of emotion came to me and as I cried I told him that I would want him to come home and make our family whole again.  Through his tears, he hugged me and told me my wish was coming true.  The miracle my mom prayed for and taught us to believe in was taking place.

I learned my greatest lesson in faith from my mother, who steadfastly prayed for and believed in reconciliation with my dad; and my greatest lesson in obedience from my father, who had also relinquished his life to Christ just before he felt God telling him to reunite his family.  At 10-years-old I had a very strong testimony of Jesus Christ.  I was quite the little missionary growing up; often teaching my friends about Christ and leading them through a prayer to acknowledge Him as their Lord and Savior and to invite Him into their hearts.

In Junior High School I was very active in my church youth group, being responsible for bringing many of the attendees at our weekly meetings.  I can safely say that at least 10-20% of my junior high class went with me at least once, with many of them attending regularly.  My brother, who was older than me and could drive, would leave with me an hour or two before our meetings started so we could pick up my friends.  We would take out the seats in my parent’s minivan, so we could all pile in on the floor.  Life was great and I felt on top of the world, doing what Christ commissioned us to do.

I stopped going to church around the age of 17.  I was getting disenchanted with the idea of it.  Unfortunately, I chose to focus on the judgment and hypocrisy I saw around me; instead of focusing on the Creator, I let the imperfection in His creation bother me.  I lost my testimony of why I needed to go to church as I began to feel like I wasn’t being spiritually fed there anymore and something seemed to be missing.

While I stopped going to church, I did not stop studying the Bible and keeping Christ close to my heart.  But as the years went by I slowly felt further and further away from Him and I lost the feeling that His Spirit was with me.  The Bible eventually also lost its allure for me and my prayers were inconsistent and more out of duty than sincerity.

Over the next ten years I suffered with severe bouts of depression and had more questions than answers about the Gospel.  I wondered about and sought answers to questions like what happened to those who died without the privilege of hearing about Christ.  The best answer I got was that we just don’t understand how God’s mercy may work in those circumstances.  While I knew I didn’t understand God’s mercy, I also knew that the Bible said that no one could come unto the Father except through His Son, Jesus Christ.  The only alternative that I knew of was eternal damnation.  This and other issues created even more distance between God and me, as I felt I didn’t really know Him or like what I knew of His plan very much.  While I still believed in Redemption and Salvation through Jesus Christ I lost my strong convictions and could not find it in me to share what I knew of the Gospel like I once had.

Some time ago, my business partner and I began discussing the Scriptures.  I knew he was a Mormon and I wondered how this highly intelligent man could be so lost spiritually and duped by Mormonism!  Unfortunately, in the Christian community there is a lot of time and energy put into trying to disprove the Mormon Church.  I spent time reading many anti-Mormon books, developing strong opinions about the fallacy of the Church, and even entered into several debates against it.  I began asking my partner questions about his beliefs – which I felt I knew already through my anti studies.  I wanted to open a dialogue with him so I could show him how lost he was.  I sincerely cared about the state of his soul.

Over the next two years we spent countless hours discussing our beliefs and kindly showing each other the others fallible thinking.  One night about six-months into these discussions, I realized that this Mormon thing could actually be true and I lay in bed wailing.  I knew if I found it was, it would shake up my whole world as everyone close to me in my life at the time was a Born Again Christian, and grossly misunderstands “Mormonism”, as did I.  Although I was very thick-headed and stubborn, God was slowly opening my heart.

Now that I was finally sincere in our discussions, I told my friend that I wanted him to show me why the Church was true by only referring to the New Testament.  He advised me to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.  I countered that I wasn’t interested in relying on some fluffy feeling that perhaps I could not trust, and said that what I really needed was an intellectual conversion.  I could see him roll his eyes through the phone as he sighed and said, “okay”.

We spent the next 18-months or so going through the New Testament showing me all the points of the True Church as Christ had established.  Some of his most memorable outbursts to my objections were “you can’t be anything but Mormon after reading the New Testament!” and “why do we call Him Father if he is not our father?”  In reference to the trinity, the best was “God is not a three-headed monster!”  I deserved every sarcastic outburst and more as we word-picked our way through the New Testament.  Every couple of months he would explode, “Would you just read the Book of Mormon and pray about it!”  But no, I would not.  However, I was gaining many small witnesses of truth through our discussions and by reading the New Testament in a whole new light.

Even though I was sincere in my search for the truth, whatever it was, I was still not ready to hear the answer I knew (yes, I knew) I would get.  I needed a bullet proof conviction and testimony composed of intellect and spiritual witness because I knew what I would be up against and my house had to be built on a solid foundation so it would not blow away when the rains came down.  For me, the bad weather would come in the form of my concerned family and friends, expressing shock and grief, and trying to talk me out of my new understanding of the Gospel.

By May of 2005 I had only read tidbits of the Book of Mormon, but from my new understanding of what the Church believed and having re-read the New Testament in its light, I felt ready to pray and ask God to confirm what I now thought to be true.  I asked my friend to kneel down with me while I prayed and after a few sarcastic “Hallelujahs!” from him, we knelt down together.  Since he was with me through my journey, I figured it appropriate for him to be with me when I took the counsel of Moroni and asked our Father in heaven if the Restored Gospel was true.  I received the confirmation I sought as the Spirit came strongly upon me.

I was still not ready to face the opposition I knew I would receive.  I continued to learn more and more until I was finally baptized some eight-months later.  A few months before my baptism, I finally told my family that I had been investigating the Church and gave them a bunch of intellectual reasons of why I thought it was true.  While I figured it wouldn’t accomplish much, at least I felt like they would know that this was not some rash decision and that I had clearly studied it out.  What it did, unfortunately, was create a frenzy of Church bashing and mutual personal attacks.  My family loved me enough to get so emotionally distraught over what they couldn’t possibly understand, and I couldn’t expect them to.  I was absolutely torn by what I knew our Father in heaven was showing me and the love I had for my family.  We were very tight, and this kind of wedge was such a foreign and uncomfortable dynamic for us.  Over time, I think we all realized our relationship was more important than any of us being right and proving our righteous positions.  I am again grateful for a loving and respectful parental family dynamic.

One has to be ready to hear truth before they can humble themselves enough to even be open to possibilities outside of their current belief system.  It truly is possibly the hardest thing I have ever done in my life – that is to let go of all my filters, known as a belief system, that I’ve subscribed to most of my life and allow a foreign, and even forbidden, belief penetrate as a possibility.  This process took years of baby steps for me, so I can’t ask for more from anyone else.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has answers mainstream Christianity begs for (or at least, should!).  My experiences of the people in this Church exemplify Christ-like qualities more than any other people I know.  I hope you all know what you have.  I hope you don’t take it for granted.  I hope you see the plain and precious truths the Restoration of the Gospel really does have to offer.  Here we have order, structure, practicality, and great sensibility.

I pray that if you have doubts about the Restoration that you would consult with members who have a strong testimony and not search on Google for your doubts to be supported by ex or non-members.  I know from experience in talking to people that most ex-members use their victim story about how someone in the Church did them wrong as their justification for leaving.  These stories do not change Truth.  They only remind us of the humanity of those who strive to follow the truth, despite whether they do it poorly or well.  The foundation of our testimonies cannot lie on anything but Jesus Christ, the only thing strong enough to support them.  Man will always fail us, no matter where we go.

Some say Joseph Smith’s story is too outrageous, too unbelievable!  To that I ask, really?  And Noah preparing an ark large enough for at least two of every creature on earth isn’t?  Moses hearing the voice of God through a burning bush isn’t?  Elijah being taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire isn’t?

But oh, then they’ll attack Joseph Smith’s character and by his flaws try to prove he therefore cannot be called a Prophet of God.  They conveniently forget about the flaws and sins depicted in the Old Testament of the ancient Prophets they so readily and easily accept.  They forget that Peter the Apostle denied Christ three times.  How they would love to read an account of Joseph Smith denying Christ even once.  They forget that Paul tried to destroy Christ’s church before he was called, and jailed several times after.  Were these men of the New Testament unworthy because of their reputation and/or character?  Or did Christ call them because they were willing, and not perfect?

Stop allowing the world to create doubt in your life about the Prophetic calling of Joseph Smith.  No man is perfect.  Joseph wasn’t, but neither was Adam, Noah, Moses, or Abraham.  Some of the ancient prophets committed sins worse than Joseph has ever been accused of and it’s all right there in the Bible.  Perfection is not required to be called of God in the work of His Kingdom.  It is a willing spirit that is required.  Stop allowing the rest of the world to get away with judging Joseph Smith with a higher set of standards than they judge the prophets and apostles of old.  Stop allowing them to get away with investigating the flaws of Mormonism when they are not willing to investigate or see the flaws in early Christianity that they so easily subscribe to with more lenient standards.  Stop allowing these inconsistent standards negatively affect your testimony.  I am embarrassed to say that it is so easy for the Christian faith to throw rocks when we all seem to live in glass houses.  Please continue to pray for softened hearts and understanding by those in the Evangelical Communities.

No man, or group of men, could have written the Book of Mormon in five years let alone 90-days.  If it were an angel of light, which is to say the devil, which appeared to Joseph Smith, he wouldn’t have written the book to be in agreement with the Bible and say, “Yes!  Worship Christ, He is our Redeemer!”  He would have tried to steer us away from Christ and possibly ask us to worship him.  At the end of the day, amidst all of the anti-Mormon propaganda, we must ask ourselves, where did this book come from, and who is the author?

The late Elder Orson F. Whitney related the following:

“Many years ago a learned man, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to Utah and spoke from the stand of the Salt Lake Tabernacle.  I became well-acquainted with him, and we conversed freely and frankly.  A great scholar, with perhaps a dozen languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science and philosophy.  One day he said to me: ‘You Mormons are all ignoramuses.  You don’t even know the strength of your own position.  It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church.  The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism.  If we are right, you are wrong: if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it.  The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on.  For, if we are wrong, they are wrong with us, since they were a part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago.  If we have the apostolic succession from St. Peter, as we claim, there is no need for Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one.  It is either the perpetuation of the gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the gospel in latter days.’”  (LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, rev. ed. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1970] pp. 3-4)

As a new convert who has read just about every popular anti-Mormon book out there and is well versed in many of the anti-Mormon websites and other literature, I would like to invite any of you who secretly struggle with doubt to seek answers to your questions.  There should be no shame in having questions; rather it is a shame not to seek answers or peace about your questions.  Avoiding our questions will weaken our testimonies.  Truth stands all scrutiny.  Do you get that?  Truth stands all scrutiny.  So walk through the scrutiny, lean into it, fear it not; because the truth, whatever it may be in any circumstance, will always be waiting on the other side of the door.  We all want to get to the truth and sincerely asking questions can only lead us closer to it.

May we all experience the joy of our Redemption and a strong testimony of Christ and the Restoration of the Gospel.