On mormon.org, people who have questions about the church can chat online with a missionary. I recently volunteered at the MTC as one of those missionaries and had a surprisingly good and uplifting experience talking with a guy I'll call Bob.
For awhile, there wasn't anyone online, so I was just reading Preach My Gospel and waiting. Finally, Bob came on. He knew the Bible really well and had some thoughtful questions. The bulk of his questions were about baptism for the dead and how I knew it worked and why it wasn't mentioned in the Bible. It was great–he was skeptical, but he seemed like he wanted to learn and was open to hearing about my beliefs. He would give me certain verses and ask what they meant, I would give my interpretation and ask what his was. It was a nice discussion, and it really got me thinking. At first, I experienced a little anxiety because I wanted to say the right thing. But that soon disappeared, and I realized how much I loved discussing the Gospel. He asked how old I was after I said I had been a Mormon all my life (because he wanted to know how long I had been a Mormon, he said). I just said I was a college student, and he said he was too. I'm naturally skeptical, and I don't know if he was telling the truth, and I still don't. But anyway.
We also talked about faith and works, and it helped me realize new things about those principles: What separates faith from mere belief is that you act on it. So, if you don't have works, you don't have faith. e.g. You could say you believe in prayer, but if you don't pray, it seems like you really don't believe in it. [Side note: e.g. means "exempli gratia" ("for the sake of example") and is used when you're given an example. It's like "for example, . . ." i.e. means "id est" ("that is") and is used when you're clarifying something. Yes, I was a linguistics major. Yes, I am taking Latin next semester. :) ] In the end, it's really not your works that save you --it's Christ's grace -His atonement. We are saved by grace. But we must also have faith, belief in Christ, to be saved, and you can't have faith without works.
When 10 o'clock rolled around when we volunteers have to leave, I told Bob that I really didn't want to but had to go; I said to keep searching for the truth and said again how much I enjoyed talking with him, a true Christian who loved the scriptures. He kept saying, "Wait, one more thing. . . ." and then asked if he could email me? He gave me his email address and some scriptures to read, and I promised I'd email him.
So, I left the MTC happy and excited to continue our conversation through email. I emailed Bob after I had read his "assigned scriptures" and asked what he wanted to talk about. Well, apparently, he wanted to talk about how those scriptures were at odds with Mormon doctrine because they continually assert that there is only one God. He said that Mormons "preach three gods," which I took to mean that we say the Godhead are three separate beings, not one. He had some other things to say about how Mormonism was wrong, too. Bob also prayed that the holy spirit would teach me the truth.
I responded kindly and explain that when I had read those scriptures, the assertions that there is only one God was comforting to me. I agreed with it. It made me realize that even if you have a different idea of God, when you pray to God, you are praying to Heavenly Father. I explained that our view of the Godhead still means we believe that God is the only God and that the three members of the Godhead all work to bring about God's purpose: to help us gain salvation/be saved. I discussed the other things he had brought up, too, and I also asked him not to tell me what Mormons preach, because as a Mormon I have the authority to know what we do and do not preach.
His next email was even more emphatic that Mormonism was false and that I was wrong. It was a full-on effort to convert me (or un-convert me I guess). He gave me websites, one anti-Mormon and one from a former LDS bishop who was now a born-again Christian. The anti-Mormon one asserted that we are not Christians, etc. because we believe in "another Jesus" which bugs the crap out of me. Just as there is one God, there is one Jesus, and we believe in Him! Yes, this touched a nerve --people telling me what I do and do not believe. I think I know what I believe, people. Back off.
These emails made me sad, because our relationship had turned from a friendly discussion to a one-sided one where his only purpose was to prove I was wrong. Yes, I believe that my religion is true and so that naturally contradicts other religions, but I knew I could learn from him too and wanted to. He didn't want to learn at all from me--every point I could ever bring up he could contest. I decided to email him and be straightforward: If his only purpose was to tell me I was wrong instead of to discuss religion, and didn't want any further contact from him. It's always hard for me to be straightforward and I "verbally hedge" by throwing in maybes and if-you-coulds and such, but I'm really trying to work on it, and I've gotten a lot better.
I ended the email with my testimony of Jesus Christ in response to the website's assertion that I was not Christian. I said that I knew He is the Son of God, that He came to earth, atoned for our sins and died on the cross. I knew He was resurrected three days later and lives now, and that He and God love us. I wished Bob a happy Easter.
I still haven't checked my inbox to see if he responded, and I wanted to write this before he did. I don't know how much this whole experience affected him, but it has helped me tremendously. Let me tell you what I learned/further realized.
I am a recovering pharisee, I really am. I was oh so letter-of-the-law in high school. Sheesh. So much. I was continually passionate about rejecting the pharisees' beliefs when reading the Bible, partly because I knew I had the tendency to do the same thing. There was a quote that hung on the wall in my seminary classroom that got to me. I can't find it right now, but I'm still looking. It was about how testimony could be lost if we did not seek to preserve it every single day, every single morning. It had something to do with it being your goal every morning, so it lent itself to encourage us to come to early-morning seminary. I was really bad at being on time since I am neither punctual nor a morning person, and I felt bad for missing so much seminary and worried about my testimony.
Well, let me tell you something. I don't remember the last time I read my scriptures or went to the temple. I can't. I would feel sorry about that earlier in my life, but I don't now. I still pray. I still go to church. I still pay tithing. I went to general conference. I'm not just going through the motions. But what earlier in my life I thought I had to do to stay righteous/good/keep a testimony, etc. . . .I don't know. I know God understands my situation. Right now, it's hard to read the scriptures because of the emphasis sometimes on our nothingness and our status as sinners. I know that's not the main point, but those things just stand out to me and get me right now. He knows I'm still searching for truth by pondering. I've been reading a lot more books, and I get gospel insights from them.
Anyway, my point is, it would seem to a lot of people that a girl struggling with her view of the church who hasn't read the scriptures or gone to the temple for awhile should also be struggling with her testimony.
Wrong. Bob's attacks did nothing to make me falter. I know that this is Christ's church and that everyone who has a calling in it is called of God (including me!) I know Joseph Smith was a prophet. I know all these things. That hasn't gone away. It is so ingrained in me that I could never deny it--it is written in my heart. This seems obvious when I say it, but it's not about the outward manifestations of faith. It's about your heart. It really is. Naturally, as I said before about faith and works, reading the scriptures and going to the temple would be consequences of testimony. But people can also do these things to just go through the motions. Good ol' Bob helped remind me of my rock-solid testimony built on "the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God." (Helaman 5:12).
Happy Easter, everyone. We have so much to be thankful for.
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