Talk in Church

The subject I have been asked to speak on is “Stand fast in the faith of Christ”.

To stand fast means to remain firmly In the same position or to keep the same opinion.

Faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. So the way I’m interpreting Stand Fast in the Faith of Christ is to remain firmly in the same position of complete trust in our savior, Jesus Christ.

Wow, I really love this, to remain firmly in the same position of complete Trust In Our Savior Jesus Christ.

I really love how that complete trust is in our Savior, Our Redeemer. I cannot think of anyone else since the beginning of time, that I want to place my complete trust in. Can you?

In Proverbs 3:5-6 we read “trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He Shall direct thy paths”

Why do you think it’s important to put our complete trust in Jesus christ? 

In 2 Nephi 4:34 we read “O Lord I have trusted in the and I will trust in the forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of Flesh for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of Flesh. Yay, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm. Nephi is using some pretty strong language here I think it’s worth breaking the scripture down a little to see what we can discover.

The word cursed means afflicted, vexed, tormented. 

What is the arm of Flesh? Well, we read cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of Flesh and then in the next line, Nephi says the same phrase but he changes the words “arm of Flesh” to “man” so I submit that arm of flesh is man or man Without the Holy Ghost verifying. And I would say that this applies to every man- just to be clear, when Nephi is referring to man in the scriptures, he is referring to mankind as in men and women. 

We should trust no man unless we check with God and God tells us that they can be trusted now does that mean because a person says something and what they say is true and that is verified by God or scripture or is truth that you already know, that now you can just trust everything they say forever and ever? Or does that mean because someone holds a certain calling or you’ve known them since you were much younger that you can trust everything they say? Or because someone gets up in church and gives a talk that you can trust everything they say? My answer is absolutely not! People are man, arm of flesh and remember what we read, trust in the Lord and not in man. As mortals, all of us and I mean everyone, who has walked this Earth with the exception of Christ himself, the rest of us are subject to being wrong, making mistakes and not being fully connected to God and His will and Truth at all times. It’s just the way it is we are all mortal and subject to the flesh.

I would like to share an experience, it’s actually something that I shared with the young women a few weeks ago, where God taught me about trusting in the arm of flesh. Around 2018 I was really struggling in my personal life and my struggles were so heavy and all-consuming it was making it difficult for me to take care of my family and serve in my calling. This had been going on for months and things were not getting easier. I was doing all the things and checking all the boxes, Temple attendance, prayer, scripture study, serving in my calling and I was also meeting with my Bishop occasionally because besides my husband I didn’t feel like I could share my struggles with anyone. During this time, I had the prompting to start doing something, but I was still uncertain so I brought it up to my bishop and he advised me not to. So, I decided that it must not be right and I put the idea aside. That same prompting came again and again and then my husband suggested it without knowing that I had talked to the bishop about it. After several more months of struggling, I finally decided to do what God was asking me to do, you know that thing that I had been ignoring and putting off for so long. I went and did it. It was hard and uncomfortable, but it helped. Little by little the things I was learning there and the people I met who could understand what I was going through because they were going through something similar, it all started to make a difference. The thing that I learned from this was that even though that Bishop cared about me and my situation, he gave an opinion and that opinion was not verified or confirmed to me by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost was actually telling me to do this other thing and I didn’t listen. When I decided that I would put my trust in God, he blessed me. He helped me. That Bishop, who is still my friend and his wife is my friend, I appreciate all the love and guidance he gave me all the service he gave to my family and our Ward. He just had a different opinion. I did go back later and talk to him about it and tell him about my experience. But trusting in Him over what God was telling me through the Holy Ghost was not working it wasn’t until I trusted in God that things improved.

So, I think it’s significant that we are told to put our trust in Christ. I mean who else knows us so well. The only one who could know us that well is our Creator, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Messiah. Christ is the one who performed the atonement for each of us. He is the one who knows us better than we know ourselves. He is the one who knows our strengths and weaknesses. And he loves us anyway and he is waiting for us. He wants us to turn to him.

So how? How do we turn to him? Mosiah 4:9-10, Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.And again, believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them.

3 Nephi 9:13, return unto me and repent of your sins that I may heal you. 3 Nephi 11:32 repent and believe in me and verse 37 repent and become as a little child and be baptized in my name.

This is the first part of the doctrine of Christ. It is simple, it is beautiful and it is all over in the scriptures. We are the natural man we are an enemy to god. The Way We Stand Fast in the Faith of Christ is to put off the natural man and we do that by repenting and turning back to god. 

Close by sharing testimony of Jesus Christ

First email of questions sent before the fireside

I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to ask questions about church history.  I have been studying the church’s resources including the scriptures, the Joseph Smith Papers and information on the church website for several years.  There are many things about our church history that are troubling.  I have brought up a few points here and I sincerely hope they will be addressed and not just glossed over or dismissed.  I think that these questions are valid and I am no longer willing to leave them on a shelf.  I have devoted my life to the church, through serving in callings, attending the temple, paying tithing, doing family history work, etc.  I have felt betrayed to find out some of the things that I mention below.  I am also not trying to shake anyone’s faith by asking these questions, but if we have faith only in an institution and in men and not in God, then our faith in an institution and man should be shaken. I am also sending this email anonymously because I fear that by having these beliefs I may not be welcome in the church that I have loved, was born and raised in and have raised my own children in.

Is there a place in the church for members who are faithful to their covenants but are now discovering through extensive research of the scriptures, the Joseph Smith Papers and prayer that polygamy is not ever commanded by God? Also that Joseph, Hyrum and Emma fought against polygamy and that Brigham Young and others like Heber Kimball, Willard Richard, etc. altered that narrative after Joseph was murdered to fit with what they were doing? Or do these individuals need to be flushed out, punished and even excommunicated for their beliefs?

Is there a foreseeable future where the church will change and abandon the polygamy narrative for the tare that it is? Will it be disavowed like Adam/God theory, blood atonement and Black’s and the Priesthood? 

The idea that God sometimes commands polygamy to raise up seed, but that he did not command polygamy for Adam and Eve, Noah and His family or Lehi and his family when they were trying to have a lot of children quickly seems strange.  In fact, with Lehi and his family, the abomination of many wives and concubines was one reason that they were told to leave Jerusalem and go into the wilderness. Can you explain why God would only command polygamy to the early church but never to any others in the whole of scriptures?  (And the answer that he did command it to Abraham and Sarah or Jacob is false.  He did not command them, Sarah urged Abraham to take Hagar and Jacob was tricked by his Father in Law)>

Why does the First verse in D&C 132 refer to polygamy as “the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—” ?  Everywhere else in the scriptures when you find the phrase “many wives and concubines, it is a bad thing. For example, Jacob 1:15, Jacob 2:24, Mosiah 11:2, Ether 10:5.  This leads me to believe that whoever wrote D&C 132 did not know their scriptures as well as Joseph Smith did. (I do not believe that Joseph or God were the authors of 132!!!) 

The idea that Joseph Smith did polygamy behind Emma’s back, that he lies to the church about it, that he had over 30 wives in total, that some of these wives were married to active, faithful church member husbands already, that he married teenagers who were in the care or employ of the Smith family is extremely damaging to people’s belief in Joseph Smith being a prophet of God. This narrative makes Joseph Smith a liar, an adulterer, and a pedophile, among other things. Is this really the information that the church wants its members to grapple with? Especially when this information is false!

Will the church ever release the William Clayton journals that they have been promising to release for many years?

Why is there so much doublespeak in the church about the infallibility of prophets? This is very confusing to the members and has created much division. In official Declaration 1 it says “The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty” To me, this pretty clearly says that the prophet can’t lead us astray. The following quote is from Goerge Q Cannon “Do not, brethren, put your trust in man though he be a bishop; an apostle, or a president; if you do, they will fail you at some time or place, they will do wrong or seem to, and your support be gone; but if we lean on God, He never will fail us.” This quote tells me that I should not trust in man, but to trust in God.  The scriptures also teach us to not trust the arm of flesh, but to put our trust in God like in 2 Nephi 28:31, Proverbs 3:5-6, etc.

Thank you for your answers to these questions.  I will be at the presentation on Sunday evening to hear these questions and hopefully others addressed.

Email sent as feedback a few days after the fireside

I wanted to offer some feedback on the fireside Brother Ereckson gave last night. I really liked how he said that we are allowed to ask questions and that by asking, seeking and knocking God can and will answer our questions. I also liked how he talked about the examples in the scriptures of Adam and Nephi where when they did something and when questioned about it their answer was something like, I don’t know why, God asked me too. I have felt that more in the recent years than ever before in my life and I had not made that connection. I also really appreciated him talking about the gap of knowledge like with the Priesthood ban from 1847-52 where the historians can’t really find good information from during that time period to support the Priesthood ban being implemented. I’m sure there were some other positive things in the presentation that are not coming to mind right now. And I realize that Brother Ereckson has an extremely difficult job doing this outreach for the church when there is so much information available to the average church member which was not available a few decades ago. This information is sometimes interpreted poorly and bad information can be spread. 

All that being said, there are a few things that I thought were handled very poorly and I feel that I may have been better off not going to the presentation at all because of those things. It was portrayed to be a safe space, but it was anything but that. In fact i almost left early because of they way Brother Ereckson attacked individual questions and poked fun at people for asking questions thru invalidating concerns and even his tone in his voice while reading those questions. I mean the whole idea of the fireside was to answer difficult questions wasn’t it? Then to tell people they are wrong in what the have been asking, seeking and knocking about. It just felt gross. Also he really answered very few of the questions, but used a lot of logical fallacies, misdirection, and smoke and mirrors. Directing people to the Saints books and the app was good for those who have no idea about church history, but I have used those resources and when you go further and research the primary original documents instead of just the flowery stories and interpretations he referred to, you still come up with the same questions. And I’ve also realized that the evidence to support the stories told in Saints and in the Gospel Topics Essays is weak and problematic.

It would, in my opinion, be better for the church to say they don’t know and leave some gaps in the information about polygamy than to tell the church that Joseph Smith did polygamy with 30+ women. Why do we have to take what Joseph was doing with sealing the family of God together in horizontal chains and make it into what Brigham Young was doing with sex, adultery, whoredoms and abominations? They are not the same thing! And the idea that God commands polygamy ever is taking the Lords name in vain.  Also to minimize it by saying that only a few thousand people did it compared to the 26 million member that have been in the church is a straw man argument.  Doing wrong just because a lot of other people around you are doing it doesn’t make it right. I don’t need polygamy to not be a thing to understand my worth in God’s eyes. I know my worth in God eyes. I know he loves me individually and perfectly. But to say that God sometimes commands a whoredom to even just a few thousand of his children in order to raise up seed and provide a test for them, I don’t believe that. It doesn’t fit with the God of the Bible and Book of Mormon. God always commands monogamy, period. So whether it was Joseph or Brigham, it was still wrong and the church needs to completely get rid of it, including removing D&C 132 from our scriptures and possibly replacing it with a new revelation on eternal marriage that does not include polygamy.

The whole idea about conspiracy theories not being valid was very off putting. I understood the example about the Lincoln assassination being a conspiracy  that was foiled therefore conspiracies have too many working parts for them to actually come to be, but that’s not valid. We can read many places in the scriptures about conspiring men, secret combinations, secret societies, secret oaths, etc., I believe this is another way of referring to conspiracy theories. They existed in biblical times and will exist today.  So while some people choose not to see conspiracy in the world that we live in, they do exist and have existed since the times of Adam and Eve. Now, should we believe that the whole world is out to get us and that we should be fearful and hide in a bunker until we die, no. But, the scriptures do warn us about them for a reason, so to completely invalidate conspiracy theories especially when there is solid evidence that some things we thought were conspiracy theories are not a conspiracy anymore, they have been shown and proven to be real..  This argument was used to invalidate people and their beliefs and was given in very poor taste.

At the very end of the meeting President Tyler mentioned being spiritually fed like unto a Thanksgiving meal. It did not feel that way to me. It felt like I had been offered a bowl of vomit and filth, with a little good stuff mixed in.  I don’t say that to be disrespectful or rude, but to give a perspective that I am sure others in the room had, but are afraid to share. 

I write this letter to you as a faithful member of the church with all the background of being born in the covenant, married in the temple to a return missionary, raising my children in the church, attending the temple 3-4 times a month for over a decade while raising young children, and still attending the temple at least once a month for almost all of the other years of my adult life, serving in various teacher and scouting callings, as an auxiliary president twice and being a member of a ward council for over 4 years, serving in the presidencies of Primary, Young Women and Relief Society besides when I was president and having a valid temple recommend for my entire adult life. I don’t say those things to boast, but to give you an idea of my love and devotion to what I always believed was God’s one true church, lead by God’s Prophet on the earth in the Latter-days. 

Hidden and changing church history has broken my shelf and i have been left to pick up the pieces of what i thought was faith in God. But, it only turned out to be faith in man and a church organization. I feel completely betrayed by this church that is hiding truth from it’s members and is filled with corruption, just like it says in the scriptures. (Mormon 8:36-38, 2 Nephi 28:11-12) I will no longer put my trust and faith in this institution or it’s leaders. I trust in God, my Savior who will NEVER fail me. He is my rock and my firm foundation. He is leading me and showing me through study and prayer where I was deceived. And He is delivering me from the flaxen cord of the LDS church which has kept me bound to them, instead of to my Savior.  

I thank God for the tremendous amount of pain and growth I’ve gone thru to begin to have a relationship with Him now.  And for Him giving me the opportunity to ask, seek and knock directly to Him. I know and love my Savior and can feel His love, comfort and guidance for me in my journey.  He is the keeper of the gate and employs no servant there (2 Nephi 9:41). I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he brought forth the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. I believe that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ and teaches His pure doctrine of Faith, repentance, baptism of water, baptism of Fire and of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. God is good and I am so grateful to know Him.

Email I received in response to my email about my response to the fireside

Dear Sister:

I’m sorry this event was a disappointment to you. I appreciate the time and effort you put into composing your first email as well as this follow-up email. Writing about such things that press on your mind and heart can be very difficult. I appreciate your honesty and openness. I will share your feedback with the stake presidency.

Best regards,

Far West Missouri Stake
Communication Director