The Truth!

I have been uber busy the past couple of weeks with work, Church, and other personal business that I have not been able to get an entry to the point of being worthy to post. Thankfully Ryan Probasco pointed out some serious flaws with one posted prematurely. Thank you Ryan.

A good portion of my day at work is spent strategizing with our team at school how we will handle new students coming to our class next year. Between this and data collection, the days fly by. It is hard to believe that there are just over twenty days left of school. Thankfully the people that I work with are dedicated to the point of being fanatics. It is great to work with people who so dedicated to their profession. It makes every day exciting and a learning experience. I love my work and am looking forward to starting another year with the same great people.

Church, as always, keeps me busy. The week I spent in Utah was the first time that I missed PEC in months. It was a good break. Also letting councilors handle some things has lifted some of the load. Not that it was too hard to carry in the first place. But it is always good to have people around you who are capable and can do their job.

This summer I will be doing something that I have always wanted to do since the mission but never had the chance because I was saving money for school. I well spend the middle of June until the end of July working as an EFY counselor. I wonder what this will be like. I imagine that a majority of the other councilors will be quite a bit younger then me. But like most generalizations, it may not be entirely true, or a complete falsehood.

In the coming weeks, I am expecting to complete a post about dealing with depression from an LDS perspective, various doctrinal topics, and whatever seems worth writing about. Also look forward to EFY posts from the perspective of the participant turned employee. If it is now, how it was when I attended, it should prove for some interesting thoughts, but more then likely, it is different.

Thanks to everyone who has read the blog and left comments. Good, bad, neutral, ugly, they are all welcome. What makes this partly worthwhile is hearing what you think about these things.

Thank you,

Chris

Studying the Old Testament in Gospel Doctrine has been good this year. Like most members of the Church, it is the standard work that I am the least familiar with. I have read the book from Genesis to Malachi once and there was much that I did not understand or found applicable. There are, however, books in the Old Testament that I have read several times such as Isaiah, first and second Samuel, selected Psalms and Proverbs, and Genesis. But as whole, I am not familiar with most of it.

One lesson stood out particularly because it directly related to some things that I had thought about often. The lesson was about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

What is interesting is how Lot, Abraham’s nephew, found his was into Sodom. Long before the destruction of Sodom, there was a conflict between Lot and Abraham regarding their flocks. Abraham, wanting to make peace with Lot, let him decide where his flocks would graze and water in, and based upon his decision Abraham would go elsewhere.

Lot chose the good land that was in the plain of Sodom and Gomorrah and this did something that would affect his entire family. The account in Genesis says that Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom. He was now facing what was then a great, prosperous, and wicked city.

Hugh Nibley said that what really matters is repentance and the direction the individual faces with regards to it. He said that someone who his facing the direction of eternal life and has made the first steps forward, is better off then the man who has been on the path for years, but has turned himself around and has taken the first steps in the opposite direction.

Lot’s choice to face Sodom would later cause him to move his family into the city of Sodom. He and his family would suffer greatly because of this choice.

After Lot made his decision, there was an attack on Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot was taken captive in battle. Abraham came to his rescue and helped drive the invaders out of the plain. After the battle, the King of Sodom told Abraham to take his part of the spoils. Abraham refused, saying that he would not take the smallest thread lest the king of Sodom could claim that he had made Abraham rich.

Abraham wanted nothing to do with Sodom. He knew that both it and Gomorrah were wicked and that having any association with them would do nothing but to corrupt him and his those with him.

Abraham would go on to become the father of the faithful, while Lot, after fleeing Sodom, drops out of the narrative after a dubious drunken encounter with his daughters.

Our orientation will determine the direction we will travel, and our final destination. A slight, seemingly insignificant deviation, uncorrected, will make it impossible to reach our distant, desired, final destination.

The book of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon contains an account of people who pitched their tents towards a holy place. Benjamin, the prophet king of the Nephites, knew that the end of his life was near, and that after fighting yet another war with Lamanites, there was a need for the people to reorient themselves towards holy things.

Benjamin’s people gathered together as families to the temple. Those who could not, because of the gathered multitude, enter the temple to hear Benjamin, pitched their tents with door facing the temple. This small act, pitching a tent with the door towards the temple to hear a prophet, would have a profound impact on those gathered and their descendants.

Orientation towards good or evil is based upon decisions that seem small and many that we do not even think about. How we treat our families, our coworkers, and the way act at work, the entertainment we choose will determine whether our tents are facing Sodom or the Temple. The incredible thing is unless two desired destinations are in the same line of travel, you cannot be going towards two places at the same time.

Lehi, the Prophet and Patriarch of the Book of Mormon people, had a vision where he saw a desert symbolizing the world; a straight and narrow path representing the word of God; a fruit tree symbolizing eternal life and the joy that comes from living the gospel in this life; and, among other things, a tall, expansive, lavish, building representing the vain things of the world or Babylon.

Lehi related that those who left the straight and narrow path, the Gospel, wandered in “strange roads” and were lost. Slight changes in the direction they were facing affected their trajectory. These wanderers either drowned in filthy waters, wandered in a barren wilderness, were lost and either starved or died from dehydration, or were crushed to death as the foundationless great and spacious building toppled when the world ended.

Because the current state of things is temporary, having the correct orientation is what will matter in the end. Lot was concerned with his flocks and the possibility of lucrative commercial opportunities in Sodom. He had been wandering with his Uncle for years and probably felt this was an opportunity to get rich and live a life of leisure. Pitching his tent towards Sodom, gave him temporary pleasure, but because of his choice, it would cost him everything the same way that we will lose it all if our hearts are not set upon the right things.

Abraham has since received his exaltation as we learn in the Doctrine and Covenants, where the fate of Lot is unknown for he dropped out of the narrative. Truly what we value will determine our orientation, and our orientation will determine the path we will take, thus bringing us to a chosen destination be it good or bad.

For the past twenty-seven years General Conference was something that I watched at home with my family or at the local ward building. This year was different as my brothers and I attended the priesthood session at the conference center in Salt Lake City.

I heard that there were protesters General Conference. The Church has harsh critics. Some of the worst are among Baptists and the Evangelical community. As a missionary in small towns throughout northern California I became familiar with their arguments and read some of the tracts they distribute to save other “Christians” from Mormonism.

At first I felt obligated to defend the faith and not only disprove their arguments but prove to them, from the Bible, with an emphasis on the New Testament, why we were right. It became apparent that this was not going to work, nor was it productive, and did not encourage development of attributes needed by a minister of Jesus Christ. In fact it is a transgression to get in heated arguments like this where there is the possibility for bullying and intimidation. In the Book of Mormon, Christ condemned these heated exchanges, saying that such things were not of him but of the Devil who wanted men to contend with each other.

My friend Ryan said that the protestors were at some level not there to convince anyone of the errors of LDS doctrine in a free and open exchange, or that it had to do with Christianity, but had everything to do with intimidation. He also said that some the protestors, were insecure about their own beliefs so they engage in a form of exhibitionism in order to assuage their insecurity; like the person, who doubting if the Church is true, bares a blood and thunder testimony thinking that this will confirm their belief.

Other then the protestors, it was great. I look forward to the remaining sessions of the conference tomorrow and having a great vacation in Utah visiting friends and just relaxing for a week.