Mormon Missionaries

With the recent battle over Prop 8 in California, many have falsely targeted the Mormon Church for wanting to take away the rights of others. This ad ran repeatedly on and before election day in California to encourage the "No" vote. It depicts two Mormon missionaries raiding the house of a same-sex couple to find and destroy their marriage license.

This type of portrayal of Mormon missionaries in the media saddens me. Why? Because I was a Mormon missionary. I willingly chose to spend nearly 19 months in the service of the Lord and His children. I was assigned to serve in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It was the most transforming experience of my life. I am better for having served in that capacity.

To understand why this ad so blatantly misrepresents the Mormon missionary effort you have to understand what a missionary does, thinks, feels. We have a clear and simple purpose: Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the Restored Gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, through repentance, through baptism, through receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. The key word in our purpose is to INVITE. We cannot and do not force or coerce anyone into hearing our message or joining the Church. That is not the way Christ wants his message taught. We walk with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts each day as we have the opportunity to talk about our Savior Jesus Christ and His church which has been restored to the Earth through the prophet Joseph Smith. We love the people we serve. There were countless times when my companion and I would try to ease the burden of an overstressed mother or father through simple acts of service. We would do our best to prepare messages that would meet their needs and edify them spiritually. We prayed for them. We rejoiced with them. At times, we wept with them. We loved them. I still love them.

That is why this ad about what Mormon missionaries do is false and misleading. We consider it a sacred honor to be able to wear Christ's name on our name-tag and represent Him and His Church through all the world. We are imperfect- naturally. But we try our best to become a useful servant in the Lord's hands. That fact gets lost in the misconceptions that circulate about Mormon missionaries.

If you have any further questions, please seek out a local member or missionary. If you don't know how to find one, call 1-888-LDS-7700 (1-888-537-7700), or visit this site and Church representatives will be happy to visit you.

The Pursuit of Absolute Truth

Technology has connected us with everybody else, and we can achieve international audiences quickly and effortlessly. It is exciting because it is still progressing at a very fast rate, and new knowledge and information just keeps coming and coming and coming.
The challenge, therefore, is to keep yourself sharp, and keep yourself in pursuit of eternal truths that are absolute for everybody. The greater the technology, the more messages we will be presented with, and the more we will have to be our own wise gatekeepers and not get tripped up between truth and falsehood.
Everybody always wants to be right, and now there will always be huge audiences between e-mail, social networks, and cell phone databases, to tell that person they are right - even when they're dead wrong. It's automatic.
An absolute truth is that God lives, and he knows you by name, and he has a very specific plan for you. Another absolute truth is that man and woman were meant to be together, to marry, to procreate, and to raise families together. These are true for everybody, and will never change. People may disagree, people may seek audiences to support what they would like to be true, and they may promote their agendas heavily and gain support through now instant audiences worldwide. The truth is that all the validation in the world would still not make a falsehood true.
Stay sharp. Seek eternal truths.