But as I committed to doing His work for a year and a half, meeting with people who were strangers to me, but beloved to Him, it became so clear to me that He really does know everyone.  And He doesn’t just know you.  He loves you.  I was humbled to feel that love on many occasions, it was perfect and gentle and caring.  I know that it came from God because these were people that I didn’t know–I had nothing in common with them, no ideas of becoming life-long friends–they were literally strangers.  But the love that I felt for them was powerful and it made me want to hold them tightly and take away all their problems.  Like a parent.  Like a loving, all-powerful heavenly parent.

If you are curious to know if God knows you too, invite the LDS missionaries over for a sincere talk.  Be open to them and they will be open to you.   Ask them to pray with you about this question and you will know, from the source, that He does know you.  You will see the love reflected in their eyes that God has for you, and you may feel the same sort of compassion and love for them.  It all comes from the same source.  And then you’ve got to realize that if God loves these two little 19 year old boys from southern Idaho who haven’t seen much of anything in the world yet, He loves you too.

Related Articles and Links:

The Sons and Daughters of God
What Do Mormons Believe? – God the Father
Does God still speak to us today?
mormon.org – God’s Plan of Happiness
How Do You Pray?
Is Jesus the only son of God?
The Plan of Salvation
Where Do Babies Come From?
Scriptural Evidence of a Pre-Existence

They got this right.

A.  I have toddlers.  I wasn’t expecting to answer this question for 10 years from now!  The answer is: Hold hands.  Kiss innocently and sweetly.  Hug while standing up.   Make your interactions as pure and selfless as you can. Instead of showing your love physically, show it through service to each other.  When you are dating a person that you are madly in love with, it feels like you are sitting on top of a little piece of matter that could EXPLODE at any instant and create an entirely new universe.  It’s intense and fresh and wonderful.  But you have to keep it under control.  Make it your hobby to keep it innocent.

The best reason is because God told us to.  Lots of times, and lots of places.  “Bridle all your passions that ye may be filled with love” Alma 38:12. And having His blessing on your physical union is SO important after you are married.  If you give way to Satan and your own lust while you are dating, you risk losing God’s help right after you are married.  And Satan doesn’t want married couples to have perfect intimacy, he wants to destroy that.  So he wants you to have exciting, sinful, distorted intimacy before marriage and guilty, self-conscious, marred connections once you finally are married.  That’s Satan’s plan.  And it leads to all sorts of unhappiness in every phase of your life.  God’s plan is the opposite:  You have sweet, pure interactions (not intimacy) before marriage, even though it is SO. HARD. and you keep from arousing that universe within each of you until you are married, and then after marriage, you have wonderful, satisfying and holy intimacy, blessed by God.  You will be so glad you waited.  The atonement is very real and very good at healing these relationships, but why even cause Christ to suffer for that?  Why not just follow God’s plan through from the beginning?  It will come soon enough after you are married–and if you don’t end up marrying him, you won’t have wasted your precious self on someone you won’t be with forever.

More links:

Mormon Dating Question

What Can’t Mormons Do: Law of Chastity

Mormon Messages Video

We recently got a nice comment from a woman who used to be a member of our Church, but has since becoming involved in another, more mainstream Christian Church.  She wrote about her “new eyes and strong desire to help others come unto Christ [the same way that she has].”  It was really nice to read, actually. And I’m grateful that she commented because it gave me a chance to think about what she is advocating.  As a member of a church that proclaims to be the “only true and living church on the face of the earth” (D&C 1:30) it is sometimes hard to wrap my head around the fact that someone could leave this “fully true” church for a “partly true” church.  (Don’t get all offended, I’ll explain my labels).

There are at least two parts to our church:  the human part and the inspired part.  The human part is honestly just like any other Christian Church.  There are fellowship meetings, get-togethers, sermons by people who have some pet virtue they want to beat into the parishioners heads.  Sometimes the church is amazing in this realm.  Sometimes people reach out to new people and bring them into their warm circle of friends and fellowship.  Sometimes seven different people come up to you during the first 14 minutes of church when you are visiting just to introduce themselves (thank you, Abilene Texas 3rd ward!  You guys were awesome!).  Sometimes there are incredible choral programs for Christmas and Easter.  Sometimes someone’s sermon changes your life for good.  Sometimes you find your closest friends through the Home or Visiting Teaching programs.

And sometimes, honestly, the human parts stink.  People are flawed.  And they bring those flaws to the church–especially in the LDS Church where everything is run by the members–a lay clergy, volunteers in every single role from the tiniest nursery tots all the way to the High Priests Group nodding off in the back row.  So that means that every person’s flaws and weaknesses are somehow incorporated into the functioning Church body (as well as their good qualities, but that observation belongs in the paragraph above).  And so, for people like the woman I mentioned above, visiting a warm and welcoming  congregation, perhaps with a social following the service and all sorts of ancillary programs to sign up for, may seem like a shocking difference (especially if her LDS ward was the opposite of the Abilene Texas 3rd Ward).  And it might seem like that church is more true.  More full and lively.  And it probably is more full and lively.  As far as fellowship and sociality goes, the Mormons don’t claim to have a monopoly.  Other churches are simply outstanding at uplifting and professional sermons, providing like-minded friends, urging people to lead honest and moral lives.   I don’t think any Mormon would argue otherwise; and if the human part of our church were the only part, then the answer to my post title is Yes.  It is just another Christian Church.

But there is another part to the church: the inspired part.  And this is the part that separates it from the “partly true churches” that have great human components.  God the Father and Jesus Christ really did restore the Church of Jesus Christ back to the earth through Prophets.  The Prophet really does speak to deity.  That’s an important distinction.  The organization of the church below them with Apostles, Seventies, Elders and so on is truly inspired.  It works on a small scale and it works globally.  I don’t think that Joseph Smith could have come up with that one on his own. The temples are also inspired.  Probably the most important element of the inspired part–that which makes it the true church–is the performance of saving ordinances:  Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, the Sacrament, Temple Endowment, Temple Sealing.  These things are HUGE.  It’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been to an LDS temple why they are so important, but it’s like having the map back to heaven, printed in your own language.  The temple is the point of having the Church back on the earth at all.  This is what makes the LDS Church the “only true and living church on the face of the earth.”

However, sometimes even members of the LDS Church miss this.  They see only the human parts and if they aren’t comparable to the other Christian Churches around their neighborhood  then it only makes sense to switch.  Being a member of the LDS church matters if those saving ordinances like baptism and temple ordinances are important to you.  They are important to me.  They give me security and increase my faith in Christ.  I know that He will do what He has promised to do because I’ve covenanted with Him to follow Him and He is always true to His covenants.  Those ordinances mean that I have a constant companion all the time: the Holy Ghost.  He leads me, comforts me and corrects me.  My temple marriage means the world to me because my little family means the world to me: if my road cycling husband were killed in an accident, I have God’s promise that we will be together again in the next life.  And I trust that.  I won’t even start to imagine losing one of my cherubic children because its too painful to contemplate, but we will be together for eternity too.  And when I die, because of what I have learned in the temple and covenanted to do, I have full confidence that I’ll be privileged to meet my Savior.  That is so important to me.

Way more important than how successful the ward party was and if today’s sermon wasn’t given as tactfully as I would have liked it. But that is my preference.  Everyone is entitled to their own priorities and I won’t condemn you for yours if you don’t condemn me for mine.

Q.  Do Mormons believe in the use of birth control or only mass producing children?

A. Only mass producing children.  That’s why so many Mormons are going into engineering. . . there has got to be a more efficient way.

Ha.  There are a LOT of shades of grey between those two options.  This post by Megan addresses some of those issues.  For the record though, there are Mormons with no children and Mormons with 15+ children.  For everyone, it is a personal decision between the husband, wife and the Lord; not a mandate from the Church.

A.  Yes we do.  Here are a couple of posts from our archives.

Life After Death

The Plan of Salvation

Thanks for asking!

The answer more and more is yes. Please see the article on Organ Donation and the Resurrection.

The real issue is how we respect our bodies, and cremation seems a little harsh to Western sensibilities, but as the Church becomes more global, it has accepted the ways that death is dealt with around the world.  The advise is to pray about it, consult with your bishop if necessary, and act as the Spirit directs.

Great question–I’ve been wondering the same thing since I’ve been reading “Stiff–the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” for book club this month (we have a kind of quirky book club). The answer is: Yes. Mormons can be organ donors.

The best advice I’ve found on the subject comes from Cecil O. Samuelson, who is the President of BYU, a general authority of the church, and a doctor. He stated:

As is the case with many other scientific developments, there are many questions about organ transplantation that have serious economic, ethical, moral, and religious implications. And, as with many other important aspects of life, we have been counseled to study the information, make decisions, and pray for wisdom about our choices. (See D&C 9:7–9; D&C 58:26–28.)

The Church has taken no official position on organ transplants. It seems obvious, however, that organ transplantation does not affect one’s resurrection, since the organ would soon have returned to the basic elements of the earth following death anyway. Whatever happens to an organ following death, we are promised that “every limb and joint shall be restored to its body, yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost.” (Alma 40:23.)

Since our bodies decompose back into the elements from which they were made in a matter of a few weeks or months (depending upon your burial method–read “Stiff” for lots more information about that), we don’t resurrect from an intact body–rather, we resurrect from the elements that created us, as they gather back together in a perfected form. So whether a person is missing a heart, kidney, liver or lung–everything will be returned and restored to him or her at the time of the resurrection.

So do good with your organs! Spread life around!

This is Elder Samuelson’s entire article on organ donation (just scroll down to the second heading), and this article talks about cremation.

One term that came up several times in conversation with them was “fellowship”, which I came to understand as a sort of social network  of other Christians (like that group); to lend support, help each other and just provide friendship.   I thought at the time, what a great idea, but also, how sad that “fellowship” isn’t built into their churches already.  I’m not claiming that Mormons are perfect at fellowshipping, because there are plenty of former Mormons who will say we really stink at it, but it is built in to the Church’s organization. And although there are some places in the church that don’t do it well, I’ve been in many places that do it perfectly, and it is a blessing to everyone involved.

The Visiting Teaching and Home Teaching programs are two complementary programs within the Church that provide “fellowship” from two different groups.  Home Teachers are men, anywhere from age 14-110 who are paired up into a companionship (like our missionary program) and then they are assigned usually three or four families within their same ward (congregation) to visit monthly.  While visiting them, they teach a spiritual thought from the First Presidency (the Prophet and his counselors), get to know the family generally, and assess any needs or concerns that they have.  They are the first point of contact for that family if there is a problem.  It may sound like having assigned friends, but it is a lot more substantial than that.  Home Teachers are assigned by the leaders of the Priesthood quorums by inspiration and after serious prayer.  It’s amazing to see some of the home teaching miracles that happen because just the right person visited at just the right time.  While the first visit or two may be a little awkward, especially if you are new to a ward (whether recently baptized, or recently moved), Home Teachers quickly become comfortable friends.  Growing up, our family had one home teacher for years.  Lanny.  He was also our neighbor across the ditch bank, and he took us all out to Chuck-a-Rama every Christmas.  He got to know us really well and we got to know him really well.  He wasn’t just an assigned friend, he really cared whether we were okay and was happy to help.

Visiting Teaching is about the same thing, only it is women, and they just visit women–not their entire families.  Every woman in the Church who is over 18 years old is a member of the Relief Society, and are assigned visiting teachers.  These relationships are some of the dearest in my life.  Again, at the beginning it may just feel like assigned friends, but there is a real power in having people visit you in your own home, who really care about you.  I look forward to their visits every month.  They are also assigned by the Relief Society President after receiving inspiration about how to pair up  the companions and who to assign them to.  I think this is an especially inspired program because of the inherent social needs that women have.  We need to talk!  We need friends!  If we are new to an area, or to the Church, we need someone to sit by at our meetings.  We need someone to call if we are stuck sick in bed.  And visiting teaching gives a woman 6 possible friends automatically: their companion (who are often the dearest friends of all), the two visiting teachers who come to them, and the three ladies that they visit.  And because it is a church-wide system, there doesn’t need to be awkwardness, or worry that we are stepping on someone’s toes.  It’s just a lovely way to “fellowship”.

From what I have seen and experienced, Mormons celebrate Christmas in just about the same way that the rest of the Christmas-celebrating-world does.  We (in the U.S.) have a Christmas tree, stockings, egg nog (not alcoholic), family gatherings, presents, a visit from Santa, caroling, parties, and other unique family traditions.

One thing that Mormons try to do, which might set us apart from the worldly Christmas around us, is to focus on Christ as the center of the celebration.  Many families reenact the Nativity at some point on Christmas Eve or Christmas; and we try to emphasize gratitude for our blessings rather than getting more loot.

The First Presidency of the Church (our modern prophet and his counselors) produces a Christmas fireside each year, which is very typical of our attitude toward Christmas.  Watch the whole thing by clicking on this link.