Saving Souls at Christmastime

As a Church, we are engaged in the all-inclusive work of the salvation of souls on both sides of the veil. We send tens of thousands of missionaries throughout the world to teach and baptize the willing in this world. We gather them out, welcome them into our congregations and set their feet on what we have come to call "the covenant path." 

As they progress along that path they are increasingly blessed by making and keeping sacred covenants. Eventually, they enter a temple somewhere in the world (there are now 355 in various stages of completion), and are sealed to an eternal companion of their choosing. These are the ordinances of salvation, and they bind couples and posterity together, linking them to ancestors who have gone before them.

The other night, our family who were nearby gathered in a sealing session at the Mount Timpanogos Temple to perform proxy sealing ordinances for many of our deceased ancestors. Most of those ancestors were in the family of our dear daughter and sister, Kim Goates. She is a native of Brisbane, Australia, who emigrated many years ago to the United States where she met and married our oldest son Jeff. 

The picture shown here is all of us assembling for dinner after the session, and doesn't include Jake and Rich who returned home without eating with us. 

The date December 19th is significant in two ways - it's our original sealing date in 1969, when I married Patsy, and it's also the birthday of son Steve. 

Since her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Kim has been instrumental in her search for all her extended family in Australia. Those names have been compiled and the other night we all participated as a family in procuring those sealing ordinances for each deceased member of her family, a work they could not perform for themselves. We were blessed in that session to be assigned to a sealer whose first mission was in. . . wait for it. . . Brisbane, Australia. Truly, the "divine coincidences" we routinely encounter in this work of salvation cannot be overstated. Someday I hope to learn more about how all those intersections seem to collide in such marvelous ways. 

From the Church's website, we glean this explanation:

What Is the Work of Salvation?

The work of salvation is Heavenly Father’s work “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). This important work includes member missionary work, convert retention, activation of less-active members, temple and family history work, and teaching the gospel. Too often, we think these aspects of the gospel are unrelated. But in The Work of Salvation: Worldwide Leadership Broadcast on June 23, 2013, Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught that “the work really is indivisible. These efforts are not separate; they’re all part of the work of salvation.”

The phrase “Hastening the Work of Salvation” - the name of the broadcast’s companion website (hasteningthework.lds.org) - refers to the Lord’s promise: “Behold, I will hasten my work in its time” (D&C 88:73).

Essential priesthood ordinances - baptism, confirmation, ordination to the priesthood for men, and temple ordinances - stand as milestones along our path to return to our Heavenly Father. As we participate in the work of salvation, we follow and inspire others to follow this covenant path.

I couldn't help thinking about the gathering that was surely taking place in the spirit world among Kim's ancestors as those ordinances were being performed. Some, who look in on this "impossible" work of salvation for the dead simply cannot digest the math. There are so many more dead people than living people, they reason, how can you possibly think you will even make a dent in those daunting numbers. I know, it truly does seem impossible. The odds are never in our favor as disciples of Jesus Christ. And it has ever been thus. Christ was only ONE. We are only 17 million against a living population of 8 billion, and multiples more who are dead. What are we thinking?

I wrote about the impossible gospel years ago, and we are undeterred against all the insurmountable odds. Having lived my lifetime of experiences, and with the perspective gained from hindsight, the onward and upward momentum of the work of salvation is something truly breathtaking to behold in these latter days. 

President Russell M. Nelson is leading the armies of Israel in all parts of the world today. His priesthood keys are being shared now in an exponential way I never could have envisioned in my younger days. The Kingdom of God on earth is expanding. The world of spirits is actively "recruiting" among those of us who have seen our loved ones graduate to a higher and holier place. They are engaged in the same way we are. 

In fact, the other night as I performed proxy sealings I was kneeling across the altar in turn from three of my daughters, Dianne, Tina and Allie. I could remember all those times it was Patsy kneeling across from me, and I was invigorated and energized by those memories. It was truly a joyful and wondrous work we were doing. Can we really refer to it as "work" when it is so much fun?

That's what the temple experience is designed to do for us. We bless others and are blessed by them. 

And at Christmastime the work of salvation is just that much more delicious.

How Can One Man Be So Blessed?

Allie, Dianne, Dad, Emily

Yesterday, I was in the Mount Timpanogos Temple with three of my daughters. We are pictured in front of a manger scene on a blustery day after our endowment session. It was the "warm before the storm," a fitting analogy when the sky was blue overhead and the temperature was warmer than normal for a winter day.

Today, in Pine Valley where I live up in the mountains, I awoke to blowing snow. The temperature had plunged to 20 degrees. 

I am always in awe of weather patterns here in Utah. A few years ago for the first time I learned about "atmospheric rivers." That's where the upper level wind patterns set up in a direct path that points directly at us originating somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. In the winter those winds aloft bring prodigious amounts of weather, usually snowstorms, with them. Like the phrase implies, the weather flows like a river with little or nothing to stop it.

Some have asked me if I intended to stay alone in my home this winter since the passing of my wife, Patsy, earlier this summer. I hadn't thought, really, about doing anything else. This is where I built my wooden "palace" in the mountains all those years ago, and it's where I thrive the most. It's familiar. 

I know every nuance of this little shack. I am astounded at its appraised value today. How did that happen? At night I hear the rippling of the flag that flies just outside my bedroom window. I actually had to take it down recently to aid my ability to fall asleep. I hear the coyotes sing their lullabies. 

I hear the propane boiler cycling on and off in the crawl space that heats the water circulating in the baseboard heating system. I love the sound of the crackling firewood in the wood burning stove in the other side of the house where I installed it when all I used it for was to generate heat in cool summer mornings. 

And now I live here year-around and fight off the cold winter blasts that come barreling down upon me when the atmospheric river does its best to discourage me, especially when it sets up directly north in the Polar region.

Once in awhile, I hear my faithful snowplow guy outside my window when he comes early in the morning to clear the road for us. That was a steep learning curve for cousin Steve Smoot and me when we had to learn how to do it all those years ago. We managed through record-breaking 100-year winters like last year, and years when we only plowed four or five times. 

Through it all, here we are, still standing as it were on a rock in the middle of the atmospheric river flowing all around us. 

Now, I have a Starlink satellite internet system to link me to the outside world. It is astoundingly more robust and reliable than anything I could have ever envisioned when I put this plan in place all those years ago to live here. But new revelation was given. What did we ever do before Elon Musk?

When the wind is howling outside late at night and in the early morning hours, I can hear the wooden members that hold the structure together. I hear the wood shifting and creaking slightly. Am I ever worried about it crashing down around my head? Nope. I built it. I know why I hear what I hear, and I am seldom alarmed. I am the creator, and I know my creation. Therefore, I do not wring my hands in anxiety over what will happen to it. 

I find a spiritually analogous meaning in it all. Our Father in Heaven is our Creator. He knows us all - every one of us. He has made ample provision for us. 

He vouched safe our moral agency before the foundations of this Mother Earth were laid. 

He knew exactly the number of His children who would come here to inhabit it. 

He made the provisions for the amount of natural resources we would need to sustain ourselves. 

He anticipated there would be some "bad actors" among us who would reject Him. 

He also knows there are many of His children who would triumph over all their enemies and honor and serve Him. 

He has raised up prophets from the beginning who would give guidance to all His children. 

He gave them inspiration and revelation, and made revelation a possibility for all of us who would obey and value their writings in the scriptures. 

He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to atone for all our sins.

He promised and delivered the Holy Ghost to guide us in all we do while we live here.

To which I add my humble amen, and amen, and amen.

Be a Maker of Peace

As this Christmas season commences, I have a suggestion. Let's all make a concerted effort to make peace in our world this year. It all starts with each of us as individuals. But you may ask what can one person do to make a difference in such a noisy contentious world? My answer is that you can do more than you imagine.

This year, as in every year, there is chaos everywhere. We end each year, it seems, determined to do better in the coming year. That's what New Year's resolutions are designed to help us focus on. We get to breathe a huge sigh of relief as we recount what happened to us in the year. We pause, we slow down and reflect, and we are often overwhelmed with sorrow and grief over the tragedies that have hit us. Often these setbacks have come upon us uninvited and certainly unwelcomed. And yet, come they do and there seems to be little we can do to stop them.

It's the stuff of which this mortal probation is all about. If life were predictable and everything always worked out exactly the way we drew it up in our planning, there would be no testing, no opposition and no stretching to help us progress to a higher and holier place. Indeed, we would be following blindly like robots programmed for perfection without having paid a price for any of it ourselves. And whose idea was that in the beginning? Oh wait, I remember now:

And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first.

And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him. (Abraham 3:27-28).

And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying — Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor. 

But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me — thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever. 

Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down; 

And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice. 

And now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which I, the Lord God, had made. 

And Satan put it into the heart of the serpent, (for he had drawn away many after him,) and he sought also to beguile Eve, for he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world. (Moses 4:1-6). 

In today's world, we are witnessing the adherents to Satan at war with one another. Some in the Church are still fond of citing the "two plans" that were posited in the beginning. But, there were never two plans, only one plan - the Father's plan. At issue was who would implement THAT ONE PLAN. 

The Father's great plan of happiness included the agency of man "which I, the Lord God, had given him, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten." 

In opposition to the Father's plan Satan offered to redeem everyone and to have the Father give him all the honor and glory. Because of his rebellion, he was cast down, deprived of the privilege of a mortal body. 

Satan must have been very persuasive, however, because we learn "at that day many followed after him." When we think about all those - dare we call them "evil spirits?" - who followed Satan in the pre-existence, then we do the math on it, let's look at Neal A. Maxwell's analysis: 

64,000,000,000 who have lived in physical bodies on Earth to 1976 

~ 70,000,000,000 to 1984 (Maxwell's estimate) or 2/3 of all the spirits 

35,000,000,000 or 1/3 of all the hosts of heaven who followed Satan 

The current world population is 8,076,994,357 as of Wednesday, December 6, 2023 according to the most recent United Nations estimates elaborated by Worldometer. 

Now think about this: For every one of us Satan has about four of his minions he could assign to us to help him in his avowed mission to "destroy the world." Seems a little overwhelming doesn't it? Here's the good news: God has called only one prophet at a time to send His redeeming love into the world to bless all His children, and that man, that one man, is President Russell M. Nelson. That one man has been a consistent champion and witness to the divinity of the Savior Jesus Christ, who was chosen by the Father to implement that ONE PLAN of redeeming grace.

President Russell M. Nelson

When he dies (he's in his 100th year today!), as surely he will, God will raise up another prophet in his stead to carry forward the work of gathering Israel in these last days until the Savior comes again to rule and reign on Earth. Here's what the prophet has said about peacemakers: 

"At this point you may be thinking that this message [to become peacemakers] would really help someone you know. Perhaps you are hoping that it will help him or her to be nicer to you. I hope it will! But I also hope that you will look deeply into your heart to see if there are shards of pride or jealousy that prevent you from becoming a peacemaker. 

"If you are serious about helping to gather Israel and about building relationships that will last throughout the eternities, now is the time to lay aside bitterness. Now is the time to cease insisting that it is your way or no way. Now is the time to stop doing things that make others walk on eggshells for fear of upsetting you. Now is the time to bury your weapons of war. If your verbal arsenal is filled with insults and accusations, now is the time to put them away. You will arise as a spiritually strong man or woman of Christ. 

"The temple can help us in our quest. There we are endowed with God’s power, giving us the ability to overcome Satan, the instigator of all contention. Cast him out of your relationships! Note that we also rebuke the adversary every time we heal a misunderstanding or refuse to take offense. Instead, we can show the tender mercy that is characteristic of true disciples of Jesus Christ. Peacemakers thwart the adversary. 

"Let us as a people become a true light on the hill — a light that 'cannot be hid.' Let us show that there is a peaceful, respectful way to resolve complex issues and an enlightened way to work out disagreements. As you demonstrate the charity that true followers of Jesus Christ manifest, the Lord will magnify your efforts beyond your loftiest imagination.

"The gospel net is the largest net in the world. God has invited all to come unto Him, 'black and white, bond and free, male and female.' There is room for everyone. However, there is no room for prejudice, condemnation, or contention of any kind. 

"My dear brothers and sisters, the best is yet to come for those who spend their lives building up others. Today I invite you to examine your discipleship within the context of the way you treat others. 

"I bless you to make any adjustments that may be needed so that your behavior is ennobling, respectful, and representative of a true follower of Jesus Christ. 

"God lives! Jesus is the Christ. He stands at the head of this Church. We are His servants. He will help us to become His peacemakers." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2023/04/47nelson?lang=eng

I had the perfect example of a peacemaker in my own home. Patsy was always a peacemaker who shunned even the slightest hint of contention. She lifted others, blessed them with her grace and her love. She served them constantly, tirelessly and championed them in their adversities. She even worried about them, but even in that one weakness she ultimately overcame her worry with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. She took her worries to Him in everything, and in time - His time - solutions presented themselves to which she immediately subscribed and put into action. 

We are often talked out of our good intentions by the four evil spirits working on our faith. We too often are convinced that we are just one person, and what can only one weak individual like us do to bring about improvements in a wicked world? 

When you are tempted with those faulty thoughts, think about what one prophet, one mother, one father, one son or daughter, one bishop, one Relief Society President, one ministering saint can do, and then be assured that you are not just one. As our son, Steve, reminded us at Patsy's funeral, "When we show up our gifts show up too." What a priceless insight that is for each of us. You just have to "show up." 

But you might counter, "I don't have any gifts compared to everyone else around me." Again, that thought is worse than faulty. It is Satanic. Your gifts are many and they are powerful, more efficacious in someone else's life than you will ever know. 

When I think about Patsy's gifts and how they have been multiplied many times over into a posterity that now numbers over ninety precious souls in mortal tabernacles who are faithful and serving the best they know how, I have come to believe that none of us should ever discount our capability for good in such dismissive terms as, "I'm just not good enough." Or, "What difference can I make?" Or, "I am only one person." Stop it, already! 

You can be that peacemaker in your marriage, in your ward, in your stake, in your calling in the Church wherever it may take you, and don't be surprised when you get to the spirit world to be surrounded by your kindred spirits for whom you did all those vicarious ordinances in the temples. You are blessing legions whom you have never met in this life!! 

Only you, only one person, only someone as insignificant and weak as you. 

Only someone who learned how to make peace.

I Can Tell You What Your Final Judgment Looks Like

I shared what follows with my family earlier this week. One daughter responded that she thought it was the best thing I had ever written. It was high praise coming from one whose opinion matters a lot to me. So I will be bold this morning and pass it along to the world comprised of my faithful readers.

I wrote last week, I reminded them, about having equal access to the Savior's atonement regardless of how "big" a sinner we might have been. The argument was raised by one of their friends that only those who had sinned, left the Church, then returned, could possibly appreciate and value the atonement. The premise was the biggest sinners love the Savior most. 

On the heels of that personal missive to them, I offer this post in logical sequence. It is prompted by the report I read and watched of a Q&A session with Elder David A. Bednar among the saints in Chile where he was ministering last week:

He boldly and simply declared, “You don’t have to die to find out where you’ll go on the day of judgment.” I hope you will enjoy watching that brief clip cited above.

President M. Russell Ballard

Then on Monday morning I opened the Google browser to see the report of the death of President M. Russell Ballard. He was 95 years young, a valiant servant of the Lord to the moment he drew his last breath. His October 2023 General Conference address, spoken without any written text in front of him because he could no longer read the teleprompter, gave us all the sense of a final benediction in his simple, plain and powerful witness of the Restoration. He is a direct descendant of Hyrum Smith, and he always bore a powerful testimony of the Prophet Joseph. 

His death now opens another vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve. A new junior member will be named in due time by President Russell M. Nelson, and everyone else will move up one seat in seniority, making Elder Jeffrey R. Holland the new acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve if precedent is followed. 

None of these things is surprising to us, since the kingdom of God on the earth today is well-ordered, predictable and in harmony with divine guidance. Under the direction of a loving and powerful living prophet, the work is accelerating at a rapid pace. 

Temples are dotting the earth. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 335 temples in various stages of announcement, construction, dedication and full-time use. Imagine when that number goes to 3,000 temples and beyond! Some of the younger members of our family will live to see the day and it will be glorious!

Which brings me back to the topic of the day. If you love the Lord and His Church, and you love living the gospel, you will inherit the highest degree of the Celestial glory in your final judgment. There are details like entering into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, but that broad sentence will suffice for our purposes today. 

If you love gathering each week at your home ward for sacrament and other meetings and mingling with the saints, you will be thinking celestial, as President Nelson has encouraged you to do. 

If you love reading and studying the scriptures and the words of the living prophets, there can be little doubt that you would love spending eternity with those prophets and you will! 

If you love your family members and are constantly looking for ways to bless their lives and the lives of others within your sphere of influence because it brings you such joy here, then think of those blessed acts of charity for an eternity up ahead, and you will have a glimpse of life in the Celestial Kingdom.

On the other hand, if living the gospel in this life is simply too much, or seems hard to do and you are more comfortable with skipping your meetings and being with other like-minded people in your telestial world here and now, then God isn’t going to force any of His children into a life in the resurrection that makes them uncomfortable. Yes, He wants every one of His children to return home to Him and live eternal life with Him, but He will never compel us even in the slightest way against our will. We get to choose our own path. What a plan! Indeed, it is the plan of happiness and we will all be happy with what we choose.

He extends the covenant path to us through His prophets and through the collective experiences of all the prophets who have recorded their teachings in the scriptures, but if it’s just too much to do, there isn’t the least bit of compulsion in His plan. He honors everyone’s choices, whatever they may be. 

There may be a compelling reason this topic appeals to me right now. That reason is there is nothing I would rather do than live life eternally with my cherished companion of mortality (only a “nanosecond” in eternity). That’s what I choose, and that is what I am living for each day that remains. 

I went to the temple last Friday in Ogden with daughter Allie, then we had lunch together. It was a heavenly outing. 

Ogden Temple

I went to tithing settlement Sunday with our new bishop, Brent Edmunds. The numbers aren’t really very exciting like they were once when I was earning income, but the total doesn’t really matter as much as the intent in my heart to do good. We rejoiced together in that interview. 

Our sacrament meeting featured a report of their mission by Brent’s parents, Steve and Liz. It was heavenly to hear their testimonies over the pulpit. I thought as I listened to them, “These are the kinds of people I want to associate with in the future of the spirit world and the resurrection.” 

It’s what motivates me now - to be like them and to be with them. It’s what my final judgment will look like, and it’s not a mystery to me anymore. I can see it up ahead, just over that next horizon. It’s the culmination of everything I have lived for, hoped for and longed for. It’s where I am most comfortable, and that vision includes all of you as my family!

I can’t imagine being in company with anyone I love more than you. I know who you are. I know from whence you came, one at a time as you entered mortality. Now look at how our posterity has multiplied because of your faithfulness! 

I know Patsy and I linked arms with God who created your spirits as we created your bodies, and in each case you brought us so much joy as you came into this world. I can only imagine the joy that Patsy must have surely experienced as she went through the veil of death and was welcomed into the embrace of her Savior. (2 Nephi 9:41). It’s where she always wanted to be, and I desire nothing less for myself.

I want to be with her and with all of you. It’s what I choose freely and without any compulsion whatsoever. I love God and His Son. They are my best friends because I know Them. I love the gospel Christ taught and lived by example for each of us. 

I love the thought of my paltry few dollars paid in tithing that are joining with billions of other dollars  spreading comfort and relief all around the world. 

I love the temple ordinances, again offered freely to all God’s children, securing to all who claim those supernal blessings for themselves the promise of eternal life. 

Isn’t it curious that we know so little about the glory of the Terrestrial and the Telestial kingdoms? I have always felt that is because all the revelations point us instead to the Celestial Kingdom. 

There is hope, always and forever, that all of us will choose whatever suits us best, and that it will be life with Patsy and our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. 

Brigham Young

President Brigham Young (1801–77) spoke of the extent of the Savior’s efforts to save mankind: “This is the plan of salvation. Jesus will never cease his work until all are brought up to the enjoyment of a kingdom in the mansions of his Father, where there are many kingdoms and many glories, to suit the works and faithfulness of all men that have lived on the earth. Some will obey the celestial law and receive of its glory, some will abide the terrestrial and some the telestial.” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1954], 56, emphasis mine).

The "covenant path" is not hard. Instead, it is a path highlighted by generous promises. I love those promises, and I know each of you will find them as compelling as I do. Repentance is the key to understanding how to obtain them. We don’t have to be perfect, we simply need to do our best and repent when we fall short. It isn’t hard to understand at all. Christ lived the only perfect life and His perfection rescues each of us when we repent.

The final judgment is right in front of you for choosing today. You don’t have to wait until you die to know exactly what it will be, because you are choosing it every day here and now. I love you. Choose well. 

What Can I Do to Help Others Who Decide to Leave the Church?

Today's post is prompted by a recent conversation with my children and grandchildren who are reporting what to them seems like an epidemic of their peers who are leaving the Church. I assured them this is not something new in the history of the Church. I have not lived through all the history of the Church personally, but I do have 76 years of it under my belt and I've seen a lot of it "up close and personal."

Jesus Christ
by Liz Lemon Swindle

When I was a young elders quorum president, I discovered there were a few of my elders who were in various stages of leaving the Church for just as many various reasons. Some were on their way out the door because they felt the Word of Wisdom was too restrictive. Others didn’t like the way Elder Ezra Taft Benson mixed his religion with politics. Still others took exception to various policy positions the Church had taken. 

Back in those days it was the equal rights for women amendment to the U.S. Constitution that was the hot button issue. One man brought to his monthly PPI with me a box loaded with anti-Mormon literature, declaring that until I had read it all he wouldn’t take me seriously. I informed him I had already seen every document he supplied to me, and asked him what else he wanted to discuss. My response left him speechless. 

Another young man (all of these were returned missionaries) had committed adultery with a married woman in our ward and had been excommunicated. 

I also remember a young man who had “come out” as gay, and didn’t feel the Church was the least bit sympathetic to his situation. Others quietly kept up a drum beat against the Church’s policy to restrict Blacks from having the priesthood.

That’s a sampling of the cases I remember. 

Since those early years, there have been many more to whom I have been exposed and was asked by local leaders to help. These include eventual apostates who declared they simply "knew more" than the Brethren. They could not be taught. Adultery continues to be a stumbling block for many, as it has been since the beginning of time. 

Some became wealthy and objected to tithing robbing them of their worldly success. I've even known some who told me they were just "too lazy" to be active in the Church - it was just "too much work" for them. 

Stop me if you've heard this one: "The Church is just too wealthy - look at all that money they're spending on temples around the world, and all the humanitarian donations they are making everywhere." It seems the enemies of the Church will never stop their diatribes. It is more common now to see legal court cases challenging the use of tithing money in open opposition to the Church's senior leadership. 

Most recently it seems there has been a wave of criticism for the "aged" leaders who are out of touch with the younger generation in the Church. Look on the faces of these men, and tell me you cannot love them.

The First Presidency

There is a common denominator I have witnessed over the years. To me, none of these complainants seemed very humble, nor were they teachable. Each had seemingly reached the point of no return, anchored in their belief that they knew better than anyone else, and that those who remained in the Church were merely deceived lemmings who were simpletons only going along to get along. They all expressed anger and judgment about their own experiences. 

Scott Strong, my dearest friend of a lifetime, introduced me to two of his friends who had served with him on a writing committee for the Young Men curriculum many years ago. The more famous of the two was Paul Toscano. Both were eventually excommunicated as apostates, and in the case of the lesser known of the two he became a polygamist and moved to Oklahoma with his wives and children.

In interviewing and listening to their views in frequent “study sessions” with them, it became obvious by their statements that they felt the Church was being led by the “B” Team of General Authorities, and that they belonged on the “A” Team. That’s why they were stating they were happy to leave the Church. 

They spoke of secret prayer circles, and other secret activities they were keeping hidden. They were receiving visions and visitations from angels who were instructing them to do certain things that were abhorrent and in open rebellion against the Brethren. It was all based on knowledge they possessed that no one else in the Church was privy to. Nothing they taught Scott and me was a surprise. It was predictable, and tragically, it was leading to the place where each ended up. 

Someone said it best: “There are a thousand reasons to leave the Church, but you only need to find one to remain true and faithful.” 

Things have changed in Church administration over the years. Excommunication was often the outcome of what was called a “Church court,” then disfellowshipping became the solution of choice under “Church councils.” Now many of those decisions are left to bishops under “membership councils.”

So what can we do when someone we know and love decides to leave the Church for whatever reason they choose? Here are some ideas:

1. Continue to minister unto them in love. 

The Savior taught:

And behold, ye shall meet together oft; and ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not;

But ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name.

Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up — that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed.

And ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the world; and whosoever breaketh this commandment suffereth himself to be led into temptation…

Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them. (3 Nephi 18:21-25; 32, emphasis mine).

Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Their reasoning may seem tricky to us - they think we are deceived for staying in the Church, while we believe they are deceived for leaving it. We never know what life situation may befall someone to “wake them up” to taking the things of the spirit more seriously. As we continue to minister in faith each day of our lives, we often come to a point when they return and cite our ministrations as one of the reasons they came back. Or maybe they will never return. 

George P. Lee

2. Don’t be too surprised to see what happens to people who lose the spirit of the Holy Ghost in their lives. 

The most stark contrast I ever witnessed was Elder George P. Lee. He was excommunicated, and later arrested on a drunk driving charge. To the right you will see his "mug shot" after his arrest. He was a General Authority Seventy at one time in his life until his inglorious fall from his lofty position. His picture has always served as a terrible reminder to me about what happens when we lose the spirit in our lives.

Another of those elders in our young married lives was D. Michael Quinn, a famed Church historian, who would go on to publish a string of scurrilous and critical works against the leadership of the Church. I remember him being so agitated with me that President Harold B. Lee wasn’t actively praying for the Blacks to be given the priesthood. He, of course, had no idea what President Lee was or was not praying about, but he believed I should be exerting my influence upon him as his oldest grandson to bring about that change in Church policy. 

Quinn had married a good friend of ours, Janice Darley, and they had a wonderful family. He was excommunicated eventually for apostasy and ended up in San Francisco as an avowed homosexual. He died recently (2021), never having made steps back to the Church. His was a life among the “A” List bench of talented men who could not humble themselves enough to submit to the humble prophets God had raised up in these last days.

3. Pray for them constantly. 

Keep them in your prayers, and mention them by name to your Heavenly Father. Even if they choose to reject you and your ministrations, prayer is one of the most powerful conduits you can use to open up the heavens on their behalf. 

Addictions of all kinds keep people out of the Church. Take away addictions and mental illness and we will see many pure souls who long to be with the saints again. See those souls as the powerful spirits who they are. Keep in mind that while their lives here in mortality might appear to be a big messy glob of nastiness, they may always be remembered for the pure innocent children they once were before the temptations of the flesh overtook them. Always look for that spark of divinity within each one when you are saddened by their choices. Prayer will reveal more ways to you about how to help them. 

Always remember God loves all his children, and He wants them all to come back home. He will be more than willing to help you help them through the inspiration He will send to you through the Holy Ghost as you listen carefully for those promptings.