No Coincidences

Tag: god

  • A Ward Family

    A Ward Family

    When Beth and I got married, we were required to leave our ward or church building we had been attending. That ward was for young single adults (YSA). As we were no longer single and saying goodbye to the days of young, it was time for us to leave.

    That ward held an important place in my heart. It was that ward that helped me come back to Christ. It was the leaders there that helped me re-establish my faith. It was the people there that helped me feel welcome and helped me to stay.

    I didn’t want to leave.

    Beth said we had to.

    After the YSA ward Beth and I joined a family ward that didn’t last long before it was split, boundaries were reset, and we joined another ward.

    We’ve now been in the Chaparral ward for most of our marriage.

    We recently moved so we’re joining a new ward, a new group of people, a new building. It won’t be that different, aside from the people.

    And yet it’s been really hard for me to say goodbye.

    We’re just moving down the street, I’ll still see some of the people from our old ward sometimes. But it won’t be the same.

    I compared it to moving away for college. Moving away for college was really difficult for me. I love my family. I knew when I left for college that everything was changing. I also knew it was something I had to do to grow.

    When I left for college, of course I’d continued to see my family. They’d only be a 5-hour drive away. But I wouldn’t see them every day. I wouldn’t talk to them every day. We wouldn’t be in the same house.

    In the same way, leaving our ward, they’d just be a 15-minute drive away. But I wouldn’t see them every Sunday. I wouldn’t talk to them every week.

    I guess I just don’t like goodbyes.

    It’s difficult saying goodbye to my family every time I leave home.

    And that’s when I realized that the Chaparral Ward in the Scottsdale Arizona North Stake had become my family, and I would miss them.

    My calling in our ward for the last year was Elders Quorum President. Before that I was an Elders Quorum counselor so I’d been in the Elders Quorum Presidency for the Chaparral Ward for a couple years. I had pages and pages of notes. Tons of spreadsheets. Tons of information, and thoughts, and to-dos for and about these people I had come to care a lot about. As I compiled it all into one email for the person taking my place, I realized I wouldn’t need most of this information ever again.

    As I closed 15 browser tabs on my computer that I’d had open for a year, it was like saying goodbye.

    A ward family is unique and special. I will miss those people. I will miss those relationships.

    A little over a year ago the Chaparral ward received a new member. A man was baptized into our ward. Soon after his baptism, he moved to a new area, so he left our ward. But he was still family. He started dating a woman from our ward and they were sealed in the Gilbert temple recently. Beth and I were privileged and blessed to be there.

    Beth and I found a babysitter that very morning, just in time to get to the temple. We were one of the last to arrive and walk into the sacred sealing room. We had only been out of the Chaparral ward a couple weeks. As we walked into the sealing room, we looked around at all familiar faces, all faces from the Chaparral ward. I realized that for this couple getting married, with no local family or family in the church, this was their famliy: Ward Family. Everyone there were members of their church. Everyone there loved them. This is the significance of a ward family. This is the power and the love of a church.

    I guess this is what Christ wants. It’s why His church is important. Over time we spend so much time with these people. We love and we serve. During my time in the Chaparral ward I thought about this group of people so much, sometimes at the expense of my family. Sometimes my family needed me but I was at someone’s new home at 8am Saturday morning helping them move. Often I would be on my phone with someone needing help while my girls crawled over me. The time put into those people I loved so much connected me to them.

    A new Elders Quorum President comes in and the ward will continue with business as usual. All will continue seamlessly. This is the structure of Christ’s church.

    It’s the love of Christ that allows us to serve in these callings. I’m grateful for that calling. It was so hard. I couldn’t believe I only served in that calling for a year because it felt like so much more. That calling stretched my limits and taught me a lot.

    I’m grateful that Christ asks us to serve when we’re so incapable.

    But now I say goodbye and we move on to new opportunities, new people, new chances to serve.

    “To ten million fireflies, I’m weird ‘cause I hate goodbyes

    I got misty eyes as they said farewell.”

    -Owl City

  • A Corny Video but Compelling Witness

    A Corny Video but Compelling Witness

    I came across this extremely corny 8-minute video that I had to share.

    It depicts a somewhat realistic interaction between two high schoolers that is then transported (classic short video trope) into a courtroom debate.

    I’m poking fun at the video because it really is quite cringy. But I love it. Which is why I’m sharing it.

    This video made me think of this post I wrote recently:

    Is the Book of Mormon true? Yes.

    The other day I overheard someone talking about how they don’t believe in God. I didn’t talk to them. But later I daydreamed about what I could have said. I daydreamed about walking up to them and telling them I know God exists. I imagined this imaginary person asking ‘How do you know?’ I would then explain about the Book of Mormon, and that because of it, I can know that God exists. This imaginary person would then ask, ‘How do you know the Book of Mormon is true?’ At which point I could try to explain in less than 1000 words as even my imaginary friend starts to gloss over and not understand/comprehend/care about what I’m saying.

    That’s what this short video made me think of. This video made me think of all the people I wish I could convince that the Book of Mormon is true. And along with that, all the people I wish I could convince that this matters, and it’s important.

    A quick recap from the video and from myself because I can’t help myself –

    Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon without notes or source materials, nothing in front of him, in 65 working days. Today tens of thousands of people his same age stress and fret over 10-page term papers with sources included. The Book of Mormon is 531 pages.

    So he was a literary genius? Quite the contrary, could hardly write an understandable letter.

    So he faked for decades being an illiterate farm boy while dictating the greatest fictional literary work of all time? Uhm, okay. “This would require a beyond creative, theological genius to compile a book that radiates with the spirit.”

    Not to mention the things no one in his day knew about that have since come to light. Things it would have been impossible for him to know.

    As this video says, it’s not about proving the Book of Mormon is true with facts.

    It isn’t fiction. But I can’t prove that to anyone (as much as I think I actually can…). You have to read it then you have to ask God. And then if you get your answer, what next?

    A reminder of what the Book of Mormon asks us to do – prove it. Then be baptized and remember Jesus Christ, the redeemer of this world.  

    Moroni 10:3-5:

    3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

    4 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.

    5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

    Mosiah 18:8-10:

    8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

    9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

    10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

    If this book is true, what else matters!?!?

    Family = eternity.

    Jesus Christ = resurrection and eternal life.

    Heavenly Father = our Father, we are sons and daughters of God.

    If the Book of Mormon is true these things are true! Don’t day to day issues seem smaller when you realize you will live forever, with your family, as a divine being alongside THE divine beings?

    What a message.

    Read the book. Prove for yourself.

  • One Eternal Round

    One Eternal Round

    I started making some bad decisions in high school. These decisions nearly derailed my life.

    During that time I was becoming friendly with a girl. She knew about some of my bad decision-making.

    One night when we were hanging out I told her I would never get married anywhere but a temple. This interested her. Why, she wondered, would someone like me, who seemingly cared nothing for this religion that I was raised with, care about a temple marriage?

    I explained to her that I believed my church was true. If my church was true, then it held the authority to marry couples for eternity. That church, therefore, sealed families for eternity. I told her if I married someone I didn’t want it to end after we died. If I were to ever get married, I wanted it to be for eternity.

    When I was in college my decision making had gotten increasingly worse.

    On a night I don’t remember, it was later told to me that I bore my testimony to a girl at a party. I don’t remember any of this. Apparently, religion came up and I told her I knew the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was Jesus Christ’s church on the earth.

    This girl asked the obvious question, “If you know it’s true, why are you doing the things you’re doing?”

    I’m told I said that even though I wasn’t living the standards of the church, I couldn’t deny what I knew to be true.

    That testimony that I don’t remember had a big impact on that girl.

    Years later that first girl from high school sent me a postcard. That girl from high school had gotten baptized. Her postcard was one of a few critical moments that helped me come back to church and changed my life.

    A month after that postcard, in the midst of my difficult journey back to church, I stumbled upon a Facebook message that had gotten blocked and I’d never seen. It was from years prior. It was from the girl at the college party, the girl I bore a drunken testimony to.

    She told me she’d gotten baptized. She told me she had never let me know how big an impact that testimony had on her ultimately getting baptized. I visited her and her budding family. She was sealed in the temple. She had an eternal family. She was happy. It gave me strength to continue on the path of repentance that was so, so hard.

    The girl from high school got married in the temple and now has three kids. She has an eternal family. She is happy.

    A patriarchal blessing is extremely sacred. I share a short line from my blessing with the utmost reverence:

    “Trouble not yourself over lost days, for you are an eternal being”

    I can’t tell you how comforting those words were when I was trying to find strength to stay faithful, and how important those words continue to be to me.

    It is all one eternal round to God (D&C 3:2). He knew I would stumble. What did He do when I stumbled? Put two people in my path that I could somehow, inexplicably, impact at my lowest, during my most degraded behaviors.

    What did He do?

    He put those two people back in my path when they could help me back. He put two people back into my life to help me remember what I always knew, what I was getting dangerously close to forgetting. He put two people in my path to remind me who I was. I am nothing special of myself, but I am a son of God. That is special.

    I marvel at the workings of God. That He loves us so much that He gave us a world so we could leave our Heavenly home, just as children leave their homes here on earth to go out and learn, and grow, and fall. He gave us an earth to fall. But He allowed us a way back.

    I know there is a way back.

    I know that Jesus Christ allows that way back.

    I know that God planned for everything. We are His work and His glory.

    I can never deny what I know.

  • Ministering

    Ministering

    Alma 35:7

    “And it came to pass that Alma and his brethren did minister unto them.”

    This is referring to the poor people of the Zoramites who had been forced to leave their homes and their city because they believed in Jesus Christ. These poor Zoramites were welcomed to the city of Jershon by the Ammonites, a recently converted group of Lamanites. I’ve written about the corruption of the Zoramites before.

    The Zoramites were so mad at these poor members of their society that they had already banished that they told the Ammonites in Jershon to not allow these poor individuals to live in their city. The people of Ammon, being decent human beings, ignored the demand from the wealthy Zoramites to cast out these poor people again.

    This is where the verse quoted, verse 7, comes in.

    Alma and his brethren ministered to these poor Zoramites. It was Alma and his brethren who preached to the poor Zoramites which ultimately led to them being cast from their homes. The people of Ammon also ministered to these people.

    Doesn’t this seem like an obvious thing? To take care of an innocent group of already poor people who were forced to leave their homes?

    If there was any question whether the teachings of the rich Zoramites were corrupt and had their roots in an evil nature, this behavior seems to confirm this fact. By their fruits you shall know them.

    And what’s up with the rich Zoramites that made them leave? It wasn’t enough that they forced these people out, making them pack up and go with what little they had to another town? They had to follow these people and try to get another town to not allow them to be there? How petty is this? This makes me think of some who leave the Church. Isn’t it enough to just leave? Do you have to follow the Church around bashing it, hating it, trying to destroy it?

    It is said that adherence of the sabbath day is what separated the Jews from the rest of the world and today respecting and keeping holy the sabbath day should be a mark of Christians, though that has unfortunately changed. That was the sign in ancient sign. What is the sign today?

    What sets apart Christ’s true church? It should be ministering to the one. Christ’s church should have a clear focus on ministering to one another, and to others.

    Christ’s church is not vindictive, it is loving. Christ’s church is not exclusive, it is inclusive. Christ’s church should be a community of saints supporting each other in every physical, emotional, and spiritual way possible. Christ’s church should be like Christ’s ministry. It should be a church of ministering to the one and to the all.

    The Ammonites are an extraordinary example of ministering. “And [they] did minister unto them.” Even with the threat of war, they still ministered. Even with the threat of murder, they ministered.

    What is our excuse as members of the Church of Jesus Christ if we aren’t ministering to each other? The Church of Jesus Christ has an organized, cohesive, important program of ministering. If we aren’t doing our part to minister to one another then we aren’t doing our part in separating ourselves from the world.

    I’m grateful that Christ’s church has an organized emphasis on ministering. I’m grateful I get to be a part of it. I’m grateful that Jesus Christ was the example of a perfect minister.

  • Why is the Book of Mormon Needed?

    Why is the Book of Mormon Needed?

    In honor of General Conference this weekend, I’m going to post a short and simple message.

    I know that we take the Book of Mormon for granted. I know that there are infinite purposes and benefits to us having the Book of Mormon on earth.

    Why do we need the Book of Mormon? Below is one critical reason.

    The Lord declared that there would be a sign before the gathering of His people, and before He started to establish Zion.

    The Book of Mormon is that sign. It is God’s sign that the Abrahamic covenant is still in force. The elect of the Lord are being gathered. This has been prophesied.

    This is why we need the Book of Mormon.

    “In fact, if there were no Book of Mormon, the promised gathering of Israel would not occur.”

    -President Russell M. Nelson

    Or else where are people gathering? Do we see any other gathering in the world today? Surely it must be happening. God can’t be a liar.