The Gospel According to Jeffrey

In the midst of my constant blogging about interesting things in my life and giving other people suggestions, I’ve got a bit of a switch-up, tonight: I could really use some help, here. About two months ago, my five-year-old son, David, suddenly became terrified of the dark, of going upstairs by himself, and of going to bed by himself. (He’s our only living son, so he’s been going to bed by himself since he was an infant.) At first, he was afraid of zombies; these days, he’s just plain afraid, ostensibly without the ability to articulate just what it is that scares him. Either way, the problem is the same: we have a lot of trouble getting him to go to bed. We’ve tried talking to him, assuring him that zombies aren’t real ( CDC page notwithstanding). We’ve helped him look out the window, to let him see that there’s nothing out there. We leave his lights on all night, so he’s not afraid of the darkness. We bought him a dream catcher, to help “keep the nightmares away.” I taught...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) When I started at Indiana University in Fall Semester 1992, there was not yet a Young Single Adult branch at the school. However, our numbers were such that the local Institute of Religion was always bustling, and with the subsequent assignation of all local YSAs to the Bloomington 2nd Ward, our about 50 active members were a very strong, tight-knit group. Keith, on the other hand, had a less faith-promoting experience at Ricks. While one would naturally assume a religious school to be a positive environment, quite the opposite is often true: less-committed individuals will often attend at their parents’ behest, and since Church activity remains part of the culture, there are plenty of bad examples among even fully active Church members. As it happened, Keith wound up randomly assigned to an apartment with three less-than-exemplary roommates, which took quite a toll on his faith. Undeterred, Keith pressed on and attempted to serve a f...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) The day after our baptism, Keith and I had a great day at Church. Everyone was so excited for us, and our bishop took me aside and shared some counsel that I can only describe as a prophecy. (I won’t share the details, but suffice to say, it has been partially fulfilled and in process of being completely fulfilled.) Afterwards, though, is when the real excitement started. After leaving Church, we headed back to Keith’s house. While Keith ran up to his room to change his clothes, his grandfather took me outside to the front porch for a little talk. Once there, he informed me that I was no longer welcome in their home and that I shouldn’t come back in. I stood there on the steps for a few minutes until Keith came out and asked me what was going on. I’ll never forget the look on his face as he quickly headed back in, calling, “Grandpa!” While I continued to stand on the porch, Keith got to fully witness a very loud argument, which I only...

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ. For the month of August, I have been publishing my conversion story serially. For those who have been reading along, thank you. For those who helped the story happen in the first place, thank you even more. And for those who haven’t read it yet (or simply want to do so, again), here’s a link back to the beginning . Thanks again for reading, and God bless! “All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church” (D.&C. 20:37). On the night of 31 August 1991, at 7:00 p.m., Keith and I h...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.… [And] when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.” (Acts 8:5,12). On the afternoon of Saturday, August 17—the same day I had my meeting with Pastor Andy —the missionaries came back to give Keith and me the third discussion. Again we bought cookies; again they failed to eat many. It quickly became the joke that we were buying them for ourselves. On Thursday, August 22, the missionaries returned to give us the fourth discussion. The plan was to complete the discussion that night, return to give us the fifth discussion on Saturday the 24th, and finish up with the sixth on Monday the 26th. Unfortunately, we got off on so many tangents that our Thursday appointment took over five hours. The missionaries had to get home for curfew (and probably still missed ...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “[M]eddle not with any man for his religion … permit every man to enjoy his religion unmolested” (President Joseph Smith, Jr., Times and Seasons, 15 Aug 1844). By now, Keith’s and my parents had each figured out that we were planning to become “Mormons,” which sent them running to their respective ministers—who, by a strange coincidence, were the same person. (Both our families were less active in the same church, but since neither of us was there regularly, our acquaintance was in no way connected to our membership therein.) Like many Protestant sects, the primary draw to my parents’ church is the pastor who heads it. At the time, this was Pastor Andy , a truly amazing man of God whom I continue to greatly respect. Andy was an old friend of my grandfather’s, so my parents particularly trusted him. It was therefore particularly shocking to them when, upon telling him that their son was about to become a “Mormon,” he responded with somet...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path” (Psalm 27:11). The next morning, we got up in plenty of time to make the 25-minute drive to Church. Keith picked me up at about 9:15 and we headed out to the Fardale Ward building , where Church would begin at 10:00 AM. Unfortunately, the missionaries’ directions were horrendous. We did eventually find the Church hidden amongst some trees, down a side road, and wandered into the chapel at about 10:35. The missionaries had just about given up on us, but totally lit up when we walked in the door. After Sacrament Meeting, the missionaries apologized profusely and introduced us to a few people, including the bishop and the priests quorum advisor (who was probably also the Young Men’s President, but I don’t know for sure). We also ran into Mr. Bennett, who had been my homeroom teacher and Keith’s math teacher, the preceding school year. We hadn’t had any idea he was a member of the Chur...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him” (Acts 8:36-38). The rest of the way home from the shore, Keith and I discussed what we wanted to do about this whole Church thing. Turns out we both knew we needed (and wanted) to be baptized, so the decision was pretty easy to make. On Saturday, we bought a box of cookies for the missionaries, who showed up for the scheduled appointment at 5:00. (They, of course, only ate one or two apiece, probably being concerned about their weight; if it had been elders, there wouldn’t have been any left.) After we said our hellos and ever...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matt. 21:21-22). After the missionaries left, Keith and I retired to my bedroom to figure out what we wanted to bring to the shore and start packing. As we were doing so, I asked him how much money he had for the trip, and was rather shocked by his response: “I don’t have any money. I thought you had the money for the trip!” “I don’t have any money,” I responded. “You know I got fired from my job, a couple months ago!” “Well, I don’t have any money either,”  he told me. “You know I quit my job, a couple months ago!” So we did the only thing a couple of teenage kids with no money could do: we ...

“…and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God…” As I pointed out in my last post (seven months ago! Wow! How did that happen?!), education was obviously very important to Nephi. Given the fact that we are reading scripture, though, it should come as no surprise that his education includes more than just secular learning. What may surprise us, though, is how fully this integrates into the dichotomy expressed in 1 Nephi 1:1. For those that have read the Book of Mormon before, the subtle hint that Nephi has “seen many afflictions” is a subtle use of understatement. While he indubitably lived much of his life in happiness, the scriptures rarely teach us of mundanities, preferring instead to focus on the major events of the prophets’ lives. Thus, we read of many trials through which he passed, the “ refiner’s fire ”of his mortali...

“This is according to the account of Nephi; or in other words, I, Nephi, wrote this record.” Dr. Hugh Nibley, arguably the father of Latter-day Saint apologetics, points out that the First Book of Nephi “starts out with a colophon telling us whose hand wrote it, what his sources were, and what it is about” ( Since Cumorah , 170-171). This is far from unique in scripture ( e.g. the Jerusalem Colophon ), but the statement is important. Latter-day Saints understand that while the scriptures are indeed the word of God, they are the word of God filtered through the minds of His prophets. The level of perfection to which any scripture can attain is only to the extent that its author was willing and able to write His words in the way that He intended, and to the extent that the reader ( e.g. us) is willing and able to understand them in the way that He intended. By opening his record in this way, Nephi is stating, “This is scripture, but I’m totally responsible for the way it’s written. If...