Finally a good experience at church

[Anonymous]

generally I find little good about church and I let you all know it. In an attempt to be fair to the church and look for the positive and for reasons to stay LDS, I have to admit, that yesterday was perhaps one of the best church experiences I’ve had in years.

I actually was the first poor soul to get up in F&T meeting. My testimony pretty much revolved around “I believe the church is a good tool to learn the gospel and teachings of Jesus, and help avoid many of the negative consequences…I believe in the idea of the atonement…I believe in personal revelation and that each person can find their own peace with god etc etc”

Anyway, it set a pretty good tone, and I only heard the words, “I know” twice the entire day, and both of them were, “I know the GOSPEL IS TRUE…” Nothing about the church really. To end it all, Tattoo lady got up, wearing pants and sporting a new eyebrow piercing, and gave a 15 minute testimony/talk, which was WONDERFUL. Absolutely unbelievable to hear her story and thoughts about the church and how it has helped her gain a testimony of the atonement.

My Youth SS class was okay, and then I taught the RS/EQ class. During the week, my 13 year old came to me and told me that in Buddhism, they have FOUR noble truths and an EIGHT fold pathway to enlightenment, and asked why our religion isn’t that simple and why it’s so complicated with our million rules and commandments. I thought about it for a few days, and went back to him and told him that in our religion we actually only have TWO noble truths (Love God, and Love Your Neighbor) and, yes, about a million fold pathway to enlightenment, which is the fault of men over the last two hundred years of our history. And that he should just focus on the two noble truths, and the rest will works itself out.

SOOOOO – that is the message I gave. I found a CG talk from the 70’s that talked exclusively about the two great commandments and how we as church members are very much like the Pharisees and do all the rites and rituals, but still got condemned by the savior. It went VERY well, and Tattoo lady and a couple of other folks who usually just sit and let the old orthodox guys do all the talking and preaching participated and yeah — it went well. Tattoo lady talked about “the mormon box” that we expect everyone to fit into. We talked a lot about traditions and cultural commandments and temple recommend questions and how they relate to the two great commandments, I also threw a lot of Buddhist theology and philosophy, and about the finding your own peace and pathway to god. The old guys didn’t’ say much – either way. I could tell they were uncomfortable, but they didn’t argue with me.

So there you go.

[Anonymous]

AWESOME! very cool. Thanks for sharing that Cwald. It totally made my day.

I loved your response to the observation about Buddhism (which I don’t knock). Yeah, it really can be as simple as that. Brilliant! I will definitely remember that.

[Anonymous]

That’s great, cwald. Progress! I am a bit envious, wistfully licking my Sunday wounds. What was the GC talk you referenced?

[Anonymous]

I will give you a reference when I get home tonight

[Anonymous]

Now I’m jealous. We don’t have a tattoo lady in my ward!

Sounds like a great day, thanks for sharing!

I enjoyed a recent discussion in SS about how we’re all sinners – and the story of the prodigal son illustrates how we can either be the prodigal or the “faithful” son but they are both sinners. That the pride and judgement of the “faithful” son is just as bad.

[Anonymous]

Way cool! Sounds like a great Sunday. Its nice to have those once in a while. ❗

I’ve often heard people say our church is simple, just obey all the commandments. :eh: I like the Buddhist philosophy as well, and the way it outlines it all, but it can become far from simplistic, very deep if you keep searching, I think…like all things.

[Anonymous]

I am so glad you had that experience, cwald – both for yourself AND for the others who benefited from it.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a lovely experience cwald. In our family we have four rules:

Love the Lord thy God

Love thy Neighbor as Thyself (I often emphasize that in order to truly love our neighbors we must love ourselves which can be so difficult)

Don’t encroach on other people’s property or person (this one is brought up a lot as boys tend to love to “poke” each other:) )

Do what you say you will do

We had to come up with something to simplify rule making and it works for us. Those 4 rules cover just about any conceivable situation. I’m so happy you were able to teach such profound principles and have participation as well.

I’m also a little jealous that you are in a place where you feel you can bear testimony. I’m no where near ready to do that. I’m proud of you though!!

CG

[Anonymous]

Here are the two sources I used.

“The First and Great Commandment”

Robert F. Orton

““The First and Great Commandment”,” , (October 7, 2001)

http://lds.org/general-conference/2001/10/the-first-and-great-commandment?lang=eng&query=love+your+neighbor” class=”bbcode_url”>http://lds.org/general-conference/2001/10/the-first-and-great-commandment?lang=eng&query=love+your+neighbor

And Do Unto Others Mark E. Peterson Ensign May 1977

http://lds.org/ensign/1977/05/do-unto-others-?lang=eng” class=”bbcode_url”>http://lds.org/ensign/1977/05/do-unto-others-?lang=eng

[Anonymous]

That’s a great story. I can’t stand “I know”. In fact, I suspect (know?! 😆 ) I’m going to give my testimony on Saturday, and I wish to avoid that phrase. “I believe” is better in my view.

Anything else is taking the epistemology… 😆

[Anonymous]

Meant to add, we had two wonderful testimonies last Sunday. One of them was by an African who had dreadlocks (tied back), and the other was by a girl in jeans, with short hair and a leather jacket. The first talked about his mission and gave some incredible stories including baptizing Catholic nuns, Muslims etc. The second spoke about the love she had for her family, and how her little brother’s baptism meant so much to her. He’s usually hyperactive, but was extremely well behaved on confirmation.

Her family have been inactive, apart from her, but they are good folk and I have been to their place a few times.

Incidentally most of the testimonies that day were by women.

I’d really like to see more of this, because it reflected a beautiful diversity, and those who “looked a bit different” gave the best testimonies.

[Anonymous]

SamBee wrote:

..

I’d really like to see more of this, because it reflected a beautiful diversity, and those who “looked a bit different” gave the best testimonies.

Yeah, this has been my experience as well. Maybe it’s because I listen “harder” when those folks get up and start talking. I guess maybe they don’t all always give the best testimonies – that might be an unfair thing to say, but certainly one can not determine who is going to give a “good” testimony, by the way a person looks – which is a mistake that happens way too often in our culture.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree, but I think the point is that conformity doesn’t produce passion. They came over as people speaking with their own voices, rather than some kind of sock puppet mouthing the words.

I remember someone on here mentioned a guy who had an incredible testimony of Joseph Smith, but was a smoker…

[Anonymous]

SamBee wrote:

…I remember someone on here mentioned a guy who had an incredible testimony of Joseph Smith, but was a smoker…

OMG! 😯

[Anonymous]

Wish I could dig it up and remember who said it. It was more or less along the lines that the guy smoked and drank, but had an incredible testimony. I don’t recommend ANYONE takes up smoking, by the way, but drinking in moderation is no great sin in my book.

People forget that Jesus came for the sinners, not the Pharisees.

[Author]

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