“Cali, what does your Mormon church believe?”
I remember one day in middle school when I was hanging out with my friends at someone’s house.
It was the first time someone had asked me this question, and I was excited to answer!
I felt like I had been preparing for this my entire life.
I decided to launch into an explanation about the Plan of Salvation, and I even remember drawing out the whole diagram with arrows, earth life, and ending with the three kingdoms of glory.
That moment was so powerful in my mind because I was totally on my own, having to explain my beliefs. I was proud of what I did.
But I also realized that what I was explaining wasn’t having the impact that I wanted.
I could tell I had lost their attention and their interest. (I’ve always been a very self-evaluative person.)
Should I have started with Joseph Smith instead? Or maybe the Book of Mormon?
This dilemma stuck in my mind for a long time. I wanted to find the right thing to start these conversations with, so that other people would really “get” our religion without me launching into obscure concepts right off the bat.
And then, years later, I saw the opening lesson in the Preach My Gospel manual.
It is a lesson on the First Vision, yes, but the first concept that is taught is:
“God is our loving Heavenly Father.”
That felt so right to me. That’s where I should begin.
And then I made the connection…
What’s that first Article of Faith I had learned all those years ago?
“We believe in God, the Eternal Father…”
We believe in God, and we know that God loves us.
That statement was much more simple than the answer I thought I had been looking for.
But that statement is also so much more powerful.
Do you believe in God?
And do you believe that God is a loving, eternal, Heavenly Father?
What a blessing that is to believe!
And I’ve found that when I share that joy with others, I am able to give them the quickest glimpse into what truly matters to me.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
2 Responses
When I was a teenager, a Mormon friend of mine tried to explain about the three degress of glory to me as if they were three planets we go to after we died. It made absolutely no sense to me at all. It seemed like scientific gibberish. However sometime later I attended his Church for the first time and was converted by the testimonies of the members in fast and testimony meeting. The spirit was so strong it lifted me out of my chair and opened by mouth to say “You don’t know me and I’ve never been in your Church before and don’t know what you believe. But if there is a true Church on the face of the earth, this must be it, for never have I felt the spirit in any Church as I have today in this one.” You could have heard a pin drop in that room after I sat down. I eventually learned what they believed in the missionary lessons and was baptized. That was in 1967, and I transfered to BYU and graduated with a degree in math and physics to start a career in Computers.
Wow, what an amazing story! It sounds like a very powerful experience. Thank you for sharing!