The First Day of the Best Weekend in 6 Months

I have been thinking for the past couple of days about writing a blog but I just didn’t have anything to write about. Today was the start of General Conference. General Conference happens every 6 months and it is when the entire 15 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints come together to listen to the leaders of our church. We receive council and advice from them. They teach us how to be better people. Today I had the amazing opportunity to attend conference in person at the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City. It was an amazing experience. As we were walking up to the Conference Center and as we were leaving there were so many protesters outside calling all of us to repent. What I noticed was that they were angry at us, but I did not see one person say anything rude back to them. Nobody yelled at them, nobody argued with them, in fact some even stopped to listen to what these people had to say. I saw so many members of the church who just looked like they felt bad for these people, and in fact, I myself couldn’t help but feel a slight tinge of sadness for these people. There is however one thing that I would like to address. First you should know a little bit about what we believe. We believe that there is a living prophet on the earth today and that there always will be. A lot of people disagree with this and make statements saying that we have a false prophet. To those people I would pose the question, if Christ is as unchanging as he says he is and is stated in Hebrews 13:8 “ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” then wouldn’t it make logical since that his church be the same? If there were prophets and apostles when Christ was alive and even before that then why would we now not have that? Christ loves all of his children the same. He did not love the people of biblical times more than he loves us. He saved us for the last days because we are his strongest soldiers. He would not leave us here without someone to guide us in the right direction back to him. What would make one think that one day Christ would just decide that “No more. No more revelation, no more direction. I’ve changed my mind and they can do it on their own.”? Christ’s atoning sacrifice had to happen for that specific reason. We can’t do it on our own. Making our way back to our Heavenly Father is something that we need help with. We all make mistakes, but that is why Christ suffered, so that we can still return to live with him after we die. Now obviously we don’t just get to do whatever we want. If you mess up you have to repent. Repentance is what gives us power to access the atonement. So the way that our church is set up is that we have a Prophet. Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today and he will be until he dies.

 Being the prophet is not something that is voted upon by a group of people but rather a calling from Christ. Everyone just sort of knows who the next prophet is going to be. It is divine revelation. Underneath the prophet are his 2 counselors. Underneath those 3 there is the quorum of the 12 Apostles.

 This structure comes from the New Testament. The book of Acts to be exact. Just as there were 12 apostles then there are 12 apostles now. Also, in Ephesians 2:19-20 it talks about how we are not strangers. We are all one. We are brothers and sisters. Christ’s church was built around prophets and apostles with Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone. Faith in God the Eternal Father and in his son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost is the first article of faith. The articles of faith basically explain in a nutshell what we believe. In fact number 6 reads, “We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.” If you want to read the rest of them you can find them here. 

There is one more thing that I would like to address tonight. It is a rather simple one I think. These protestors were also shouting that we are all damned to hell. I would have to politely disagree. I have a testimony of this gospel. It is Christ’s gospel. It is the true church. But lets just say for arguments sake that it is not. Lets say that Joseph Smith was wrong and we are all wrong. I highly doubt that that would send us all to hell. Latter Day Saints are some of the most Christian Christians there are. There is nothing in our religion that teaches anything but love, hope, charity, compassion, service, or any other good thing. Never are we taught to treat people bad, to do bad things, to treat our bodies bad, or anything else that would not be in line with any other Christians moral beliefs. Sure we may have higher moral standards than some people but I don’t think that is anything to be frowned upon. I highly doubt that when it comes to judgment day I am going to be standing next to a person of a different Christian faith and Christ is going to say to me, “ You know Brooke, you did a lot of good things, but you were just too pure. You didn’t have to do all of those things you did. You didn’t have to save yourself for marriage, you didn’t have to be modest, you didn’t have to refrain from drinking alcohol, and since you didn’t do any of those things, you get to spend eternity in hell.” I find it hard to believe that living by the gospel standards is going to sentence me to a life of misery. Even if the church is wrong, which I will never believe that it is, I think that we will all be just fine.

Even if you are not a member of the church, or if you are a member but you didn't have the opportunity to watch conference today, I would invite you to watch todays sessions as well as tomorrows sessions. You can watch them at lds.org. There are some talks that will change your life regardless of your standpoint on the church.