Let us do good Part 1

In June 2015 I was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I had just been sent home from an LDS mission in March of that year, March 17th to be exact. I can remember the day because I remember seeing in the newspaper as I was going home that a solar eclipse was expected in the country I was in on March 20th, three days after I left. The solar eclipse I would later learn coincided with the spring equinox, and also one of six supermoons, although the supermoon was a new moon, and so it wasn’t visible. 

I had been sent home because I had read and believed some of the things written by Denver Snuffer who had himself been recently excommunicated. In addition I had come to my own conclusion based on my own studies, and prayers that in order for the first presidency and quorum of the twelve to be prophets and apostles, as they claimed to be, they must receive that ordination directly from under the hand of Christ. I had read Oliver Cowdrey’s charge to the 12 in relevant part: 

“You have been indebted to other men, in the first instance, for evidence; on that you have acted; but it is necessary that you receive a testimony from heaven for yourselves; so that you can bear testimony to the truth of the Book of Mormon, and that you have seen the face of God. That is more than the testimony of an angel. When the proper time arrives, you shall be able to bear this testimony to the world. When you bear testimony that you have seen God, this testimony God will never suffer to fall, but will bear you out; although many will not give heed, yet others will. You will therefore see the necessity of getting this testimony from heaven.

Never cease striving until you have seen God face to face. Strengthen your faith; cast off your doubts, your sins, and all your unbelief; and nothing can prevent you from coming to God. Your ordination is not full and complete till God has laid His hand upon you. We require as much to qualify us as did those who have gone before us; God is the same. If the Savior in former days laid His hands upon His disciples, why not in latter days?”

To this day I still believe this charge to be correct. Those who would labor as ministers in declaring God's word ought to receive their calling directly from God. They ought to labor and never cease in that labor to strengthen their faith ect. until they have seen God face to face and can bear testimony to the same. Their ordination is not full or complete until Christ has laid his hands upon them. 

In any event I just share this small snippet of my history to give some context for folks so you can know where I am coming from. I did not leave the LDS church, the LDS church left me. I still believe in Jesus Christ and strive to follow His teachings. I consider myself still a faithful Mormon, seeking and accepting truth wherever it is to be found, as I believe all truth as with all good things come from God. 

I realize that this reddit page is filled with individuals with varying degrees of faith. Some still believe in Christ, others believe in God, or a God. Some are agnostic and not sure about the existence of a Creator, and still others find themselves as Atheists. 

The wonderful thing about God is He comes to us wherever we are at. In these “let us do good” posts I plan to share here, I am targeting everyone regardless of faith. It does not matter where you are in your faith, you can, and I would invite you to, do good for those around you. You needn’t believe as I do in order to show love to those around us. 

I believe most if not all of us on this reddit forum have been hurt in some way by people in the LDS church. Whether those people have been on a local level, family members, or church leadership, we all have something we can claim aught against folks who are LDS. What would happen if we as ex-mormons laid those things down, and instead focused on what good we could do for those around us, including LDS members?

Would our noble and virtuous actions change hearts? I would suggest at very least that if we acted in a way that showed we didn’t care about the abuses that have been heaped on us, instead we were more concerned with the individual, and what we could do to make their lives better, that at least a few faithful would see this light from outside the church, and it would help them to see that those who have left are not terrible “apostates” as they had supposed, but good people who face much the same challenges and difficulties in life that they face. 

I would suggest that it is not us vs the LDS church that will bring lasting change and peace, but rather an us vs our own inward accusations. I will demonstrate this with a story from my life. 

I worked at a company that was run by a man who myself and others saw as a tyrant. At work it was always us vs him, and it was miserable for everyone. I learned to loathe this man so much that when his birthday came, and everyone from the company was signing his card I refused. When he held the door open for me coming into work one day I said thank you, but inwardly I felt he was shallow, and just holding the door open because he wanted to seem like a nice guy.

It was brought to my attention one day that I, not this man, had been treating him as a tyrant, and that if I would lay down my accusations against him, and go out of my way to treat him with a boundless selfless love that things would change. I decided to try it. I began to view this man not as a tyrant but as someone I wanted to love and do good for. I found myself going out of my way to smile and joke with him, going out of my way to try and get not only the work he wanted done for the day finished, but more as well. My heart changed and suddenly this man who I had viewed as a tyrant was not tyrannical in the least. He was a man who struggled under a heavy burden of stress every day, and my heart suddenly yearned to do all I could to make his burden lighter. He was quick to joke, and had a passion for sports. He was a good guy that I had made bad.There were indeed things he did to me and to others that were not kind, but as soon as I saw him in this new light those things didn’t matter. I saw him as an individual, and that changed me. Work not only became a peaceful place, but also an enjoyable place to be, and all that changed was me. 

What would happen if one of our relatives texted us, telling us we were going to hell for leaving the church, and instead of seeking a rebuttal, we instead let the statement go, and went out of our way to do good to them. Maybe it could be inviting them to lunch, just because you haven’t seen them in a while and want to know about what’s going on in their life. It doesn’t matter what the good is as long as it is done with a genuine love for that person. 

I would imagine they would probably want to talk about the gospel. Maybe if we let them talk without trying to convince them of error, and even thanked them for how much they care, because really truly I think they do care even if they express it poorly, I think if we took this approach it would completely catch them off guard, and people would be able to see that there is a lot of good, a lot of love outside the church, and that could completely change their view. 

Now of course not everyone is going to respond to our love, and good, with good. Not everyone is going to change or see things differently. There will still be people who are angry, and difficult, but that doesn’t matter because we see them as people, and we love them boundlessly, and because we do this we are able to be at peace with them, because all we seek is their welfare. 

Anyway, this is my invitation to any who would like to join me. Together we can make this world a much brighter wonderful place to be 🙂