517. The Miracle of the Church -- (How do you get them to do all that?) -- asked by a protestant minister.
This is a great article from Meridian Magazine, which helps us realize how unusual our Church is, and the reasons why we are willing to live the Gospel, serve in callings, and help each other. It renews my faith to read this, and makes me realize all over again just why I love this Gospel!
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How Do You Get Them to Do All That?: The Miracle of the Church
Occasionally, with my tongue firmly lodged in my cheek, I’ll say: “This Church’s such a class outfit, I’d belong to it even if it weren’t true.” Then quickly add, “Of course, it’s a class outfit because it is true.”
Years ago while serving in the stake presidency of the Orange California stake, I received a phone call from a prominent protestant minister asking if I would be willing to share with him what our Church does to help its members prepare for emergencies. We met, and for all of five minutes we discussed the Church’s emergency preparedness program. Then my friend (and he did become my good friend) asked the questions he really wanted to ask.
“How do you get nineteen-year-old boys to give up schooling and their fun to leave their homes for two years at their own expense to teach people about Jesus Christ?” He went on to say that in his very large congregation there wasn’t one young man who would do this.
My answer was simple and direct. “This is the Savior’s Church, and to one extent or another these young men know that and want to do what the Savior wants them to do.”
He smiled and asked another question. “I know you don’t have a paid ministry. How do you get men and women to volunteer to spend the kind of time necessary to run your wards and stakes?” My answer pretty much parroted what I said before. Again he smiled.
He went on. “Is it true that every member of your church is visited each month by a representative of the bishop?”
This time I smiled. “Theoretically.” I explained the home teaching and visiting teaching programs and that most of our members are visited each month.
“How do you get them to do that?” he asked. “Is them being able to go to your temples the incentive?” With maybe a slight variation, I gave my same answer.
Then finally he said, “I understand your teenagers have some kind of catechism training on a regular basis. Tell me about that.” He was talking about seminary. I told him our young people attended classes to study our standard works, including the Bible, at 6:00 a.m. during the week.
His mouth literally dropped open. “Six o’clock? How often do they do that?”
“Five days a week,” I responded.
His head was shaking now. “How do you get teenage kids to get up for scripture study at that time of the morning five days a week?” He knew my answer.
After my friend left, I thought about the miracle of the Church; how easy it was for me, being smack dab in the middle of it, to take for granted the extraordinary thing I was part of. My minister friend saw it and was trying to find “practical” reasons for it. There was only one reason. And that was the one I gave him.
The Church is true.
For a long time, I thought about the Church and why it was a miracle:
The unfailing testimony of Jesus Christ in every policy, written word, and practice.
An organization that allows each of us to give meaningful Christ-centered service; to receive practical and spiritual support and encouragement from one another; to learn the doctrines of Christ; and, to receive assistance as appropriate to help meet our temporal and spiritual needs.
The latter-day scriptures including The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, and the on-going word of the Lord given through his prophets to provide us up-to-the-minute direction and knowledge and encouragement.
The gift of the Holy Ghost. Through this reality alone I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. When I was eight years of age, my father laid his hands on my head and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” Literally from that moment on and for the past sixty-seven years, the Holy Ghost has been pretty much my constant companion. My father had the power to bless me with that gift because the keys of that power were restored through the Prophet Joseph and passed on to my dad through the authorized priesthood leaders of the Church.
The ordinances of the holy priesthood as administered in our Churches and temples. From baptism and the sacrament, to the endowment and sealing, these ordinances are gateways that put us under covenant, bless us, and allow us to enter the presence of God and become one with Him. Through them we know who we are, why we are here, and what lies ahead. We have eternal purpose and are enabled to achieve it.
The binding of families eternally and the work of salvation for our kindred dead.
As I watched all of the sessions of conference this past week, time and again the reality of the miracle of the Church bore upon me. Apostles were called and sustained. Men and women of God spoke by the Spirit. Our prophet, encumbered by his aging body and mind, still witnessed of Jesus Christ, and admonished us to repent and be an example and a light.
As if to make certain that none of us who watched conference would forget the blessing of and need for the Church, Elder Christofferson, in the very last session, masterfully laid out why the Lord has established His Church. He said that for him personally, “the Church . . . has been a place to come toknow the Lord.
For me also, it has been a place where I have come to know the Lord.
And that is a miracle.
---------------------------------- Also another interesting article in Meridian this morning, about someone who was ready for the missionaries. We receive letters from 5 different missionaries, and love reading them!
She Had Been Praying to Find a Church
As my companion Elder John Keeffer and I were planning our next week, we realized that we had not found an investigator who had progressed to baptism this entire transfer. We would find lots of new investigators, but they would never progress. We decided that we should pray and ask for the opportunity to find a new investigator that would progress all the way to baptism.
Saturday arrived and we decided to go and check up on an investigator who we had found a couple of weeks before but had seemingly disappeared. This surprised us because he had stopped us to talk to us, so we had great hopes for him. We were a little disappointed that we had not been able to find or talk to him again. He was never at our return appointments. As usual we knocked on his door and nobody was home. It seemed that he had moved away.
We decided that we might as well finish knocking his apartment complex. At the first door we knocked on, a lady named Stacey came to the door. When she opened the door she said with a big smile, “Elders! Good to see you! Come on in.” We didn’t even have a chance to say anything and she had already invited us inside. We were shocked. So we walked in and she started to talk to us like we were her best friends. We finally asked her why she had invited us in. That’s when we realized our prayers had been answered, as well as hers.
She told us that her son Dixon, who was 12, had been watching us for the past month (we were always on bikes). He was always asking his mom what we were doing and who we represented. Then she said that one day they had driven by the LDS Temple. Dixon asked his mother what that building was. She told him that it was the Mormon temple. He then asked if they could go inside the temple and she told him that you had to be a Mormon to go inside. He then asked his mother, “How do we become Mormons?” She told him that you had to be born into the Mormon Church and that they would never be able to go inside.
At this point, we started to teach her about the Restoration and more about LDS temples. She was so excited to learn more about the gospel. We felt the strong impression to invite her to be baptized, even though we had only been with her for a few minutes. She said that she would indeed like to join the Church and so we set her baptism for 3 weeks later.
We then discovered that we had answered her prayers. Just thirty minutes before we knocked on her door, she had been praying that she would be able to find a church to attend on Sunday. We then knocked on her door and she let us in. It was fantastic. The next lesson we were able to meet with Stacey, her son Dixon, and her daughter Nyla who was seven. We invited Dixon to be baptized and he said that he would. Nyla also asked if she could be baptized. We had to explain that she could get baptized when she turned eight. She was really sad that she couldn’t get baptized with her family but was excited that she would be baptized the next year.
Everything went great with all the lessons. We had a wonderful lesson about the temples. We found out that Stacey’s husband had died just a year ago. We told her about baptisms for the dead and eternal families. The night after we had the lesson on temples she felt that her husband wanted her to go to the temple have his ordinance work done, such as baptisms for the dead, and being sealed together for time and eternity. When she was telling us of her desire to complete her husband’s temple work, the spirit was very strong.
Her baptismal day quickly arrived and she had the Bishop baptize her. After her baptism and talks were over, Stacey stood up and shared her testimony to those in attendance. She also discussed the importance of missionary work. It was truly one of the best experiences ever on my mission.
I know that the church is true and that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that missionary work is one of the most important things that we can do.
Elder Casey McFarlane,
Morgan, Utah
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