Letter to my wonderful english teacher part three

I am honored that you read what I wrote.

What initially started this discussion was a comment by you in response to a post that I had written about my experiences with people drastically misunderstanding my beliefs—how discouraging and frustrating this was at times. And how I wish that people would come to me and ask me what I believed-- and if something seemed wrong that they should ask me first.

The first time I recall someone "drastically misunderstanding my beliefs" was in middle school. I was somewhat insecure and didn’t have many friends at the time. I was excited when I was seated by another boy in science class and I learned that he also believed in Jesus as I did. We were both excited to have this in common. I was so excited to have another person who felt the same way about Jesus that I did and wanted to follow His teachings just like me. 

We talked all period long until the very end when we brought up specifically which church we attended. He attended a protestant church in town, and I told him that I attended the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He paused and stuttered in what appeared to be disbelief… ”wait..you’re… a MORMON?”. He spat out the word like I had just shoved a dead rat in his mouth. I was extremely startled at his unexpected reaction and replied “..well, that’s a name that other people call us sometimes, but it’s the church of Jesus Christ…”. He cut me off—“You aren’t Christian! You don’t believe in Jesus”. I was dumbfounded. Jesus was central and foundational to everything that I had ever believed. What on earth had be heard that would cause him to make such accusations against me? At this point his entire demeanor had changed, he appeared angered and ready for a fight—not 10 seconds earlier we were both the best of friends and enjoying conversation in Christ, and now he looked like he was trying to decide whether to hit me or run away. I felt deeply hurt and confused. What was going on? I strongly reaffirmed to him that I DID believe in Jesus with all of my heart! He told me that I believed in the "wrong Jesus" then because I was a "mormon". 

I told Him that I believed in "the Jesus who was born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem who is the Son of God and Creator of Heaven and Earth and that He atoned for our sins and laid down his life and then took it up again on the third day; that He was my Lord and my Savior and my Redeemer and that through Him and in Him and of Him all mankind may be saved". 

My hands were trembling and voice was shaking and I spoke the words of my whole being and with all of my conviction. He paused for a bit as if trying to figure out how to fit things he had heard before with what I was saying—it seemed that the pieces wouldn’t fit together in his head. Then he said with his fists unclenching: “huh… I must have gotten it confused with something else”. Then the bell rang and I didn’t see him again until the next day. When science class started the next day I was excited to sit next to my new friend, but I was still a bit shaken with what happened the day before. Before class began, I went to talk to him, but his face looked like a stone. Expressionless, he told me that his mother told him that he wasn’t to speak with me ever again because I was not a "real Christian". He quickly moved away from me and went to the far side of the room and sat down next to another boy. I sat down by myself, trying to hold tears of being rejected by my new friend over accusations that were hurtful and false. The whole world seemed different to me after that, and I realized that there were some people out there who hated me, even though they didnt know me-- they considered me to be such a bad person that they wouldnt even let their children speak to me. I felt very sad and very hurt. I always tried to be a good person (this is right around the time that I had started reading my scriptures every day as my brother Doug had encouraged me to do). 

Not but a few days later, I heard some of the popular girls talking in the back of Mrs Conleys class “Ill bet you there is a Mormon in here!” one of them said in a hushed voice. “I don’t think so—how could anyone really be a Mormon?”. the other girl replied-, to which the first girl responded, “There is on in here and, I'll find one and prove it!”. Suddenly her voice shouted out and was heard above the humm of the classroom chatter. “IS ANYONE IN HERE A MORMON!?”. 

My mind instantly went back to that recent hurtful and strange interaction where I was rejected and viewed as a bad person who could not even be spoken too. My heart started pounding and I started sweating as my mind grasped the possibility that now the most popular girls in school were likely about to reject me and hate me as well. My stomach dropped and all of the hair on the back of my neck stood on end—I wanted to run and hide or somehow escape! If they found out I was a member of the church of Jesus Christ, then I was about to be rejected and hated by the whole class! And possibly by the whole school!  My whole world was flipping upside down. What is going on?! A week ago, I felt like everyone else-- just another kid in the classroom, but now for some unknown reason, I was being targeted for my religion, and I had no idea why it was happening or what I had done to deserve this. 

She shouted the question again, louder this time "IS ANYONE A MORMON IN HERE??!!" 

I didn’t respond to her but sank down pretending to write something on my paper; pretending I didn’t hear her. Then, to my horror, she leapt from her desk and began going down the row asking each classmate individually “are you a Mormon?… are you a Mormon?” Then she got to me. “Are you a Mormon?”. I gulped feeling weak, anticipating the painful rejection that was likely to follow. I knew that I couldnt lie-- thats just not the kind of person I was. Bracing myself for the emotional hurt, I responded, “well…yes…”. Here eyes widened in a mixture of what appeared to be surprise and disgust then it turned to the clever satisfaction that she had found "one of them". She immediately turned away from me, discontinuing her search and she ran back to her friends. I heard them chattering and pointing at me with disgusted looks, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. Never in my life had I ever been treated like this before. It was like a nightmare. My already fragile self esteem took a really hard hit.

Experiences like this continued through all of school and throughout my life. My comfort came later in the words of Christ when He said “Blessed are ye WHEN men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you FALSELY for my names sake…” (notice that he says "when"-- not "if". Christ knew me. He knew this would happen when I tried to follow Him with all of my heart.)

When I got older and more rooted in Christ after my experience of Him filling me with His Holy Spirit, I started visiting other churches in town, including protestant churches in the area. There was nothing ever spoken over the pulpit that I disagreed with in these churches. It was just like being in any church meeting that I had attended. The main difference is that they had less scriptures and quoted less prophets. To me, it was the same message: 

"For, for this end was the law given; wherefore the law hath become dead unto us, and we are made alive in Christ because of our faith... And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."

--2 Nephi 25

"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.

And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you... and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel."

-- Mosiah 4

That didn’t seem like any reason for people to treat me with the kind of disgust that they had. This is when I started asking questions, and then I found out why they viewed me with such disgust.

I learned that people thought that I believed horrible and wrong things. And what was even more disturbing and frustrating is that when I would tell them that these accusations were false and distorted—they wouldn’t believe me! They thought that I didn’t know what my own church taught. I was accused of so many false things, I could fill a book writing them all down. And it turns out that people had actually done this! There were people who had made it their profession to twist and distort and spread lies specifically against the church of Jesus Christ! I finally got my hands on some of this Anti-Church of Jesus Christ material that my classmates must have had presented to them in their churches.

It was a twisted distortion of lies and half-truths. My mother was particularly disturbed by it and started going through it with a pencil and notebook—this written material even had quotes from "church leaders" in it! But the things being spoken were ghastly and false. She was completely unfamiliar with the quotes as most of them came from a collection of writing from 150 yrs ago called the “Journal of Discourses” which I had not heard of before. I learned that in the early days of the church, some of the church leaders asked people to start recording every sermon that was ever given for the sake of record keeping. Some of the material was second hand data and had had been written down incorrectly and was considered by the church to be false/mistaken, and most definitely not doctrinal. I didn’t know anyone that had ever collected these old records, and so the anti-church of Jesus Christ material authors must have been very dedicated in their scrupulous efforts to try and find material that they could use to attack the church.  

My mothers curiosity was aroused and so she found a way to purchase the journal of discourses (before the days of internet) and started to look up the references from the anti-church of Jesus Christ pamphlets. She looked up the quotes and discovered that these quotes had been taken completely out of context of the paragraph that they were written, so that the meaning was completely twisted. But since the journal of discourses was not doctrinal and since no one at church had copies of them, no one could look this up and contest it.  Now I could see why my friends all thought I believed such awful things and thought that I didnt know what my own church taught.

But who was producing these obviously false distortions and why were they doing it? Where did all of this come from?

Christ answered that question for me in the parable of the sower about the seeds by the wayside. The adversary always attacks what God is doing in our day. He would have the Body of Christ divided against itself, so that the hand and the foot would not work together in unison. He would spread the most wicked lies to divide people up into smaller and smaller groups to separate them from the love of God, just as an opposing army might spread words of discord among their foes to confuse and disorient them and to cause disharmony. If God poured out his Spirit upon all flesh, but the flesh was so divided that they would not accept it, he could keep them weak and and blind and deaf and dumb so that the ear of the body could not hear the mouth, and the eye could not direct the hand to do the work of the God, when we ought to be united in Christ. If the adversary had his way, the dead prophets wouldn’t be believed either—ancient or modern, which is why atheism is becoming so popular in the world today. (On this topic, I am currently reading C.S Lewis book, the screwtape letters—I haven’t finished it yet, but so far, I highly recommend it). 

But I know that God is not done speaking. I know that God has more to say and more to do. God is not done calling prophets and apostles—not until we are all one in Christ, as Paul said: "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:"

Are the members (including leaders) of the church of Jesus Christ always right? Of course not! The Jews anciently got confused on many doctrines as did the early saints. Even Paul and Peter who walked and talked with Our Creator in the flesh contended on matters of the church.  Why would we think that Paul had to write so many letters of correction to the early saints? Do the modern members of the church of Jesus Christ have a perfect understanding of every doctrine? Absolutely not. Are they off-base on a few things at times? Most certainly they are.

I do myself from time to time, raise my hand and make a comment by way of correction in a meeting if ever I hear something that I think is not correct. The adversary works to confuse and divide them just the same as he works to confuse any of Christs followers in any other religion (division of Christs body).

But what Christ wishes is for His people to be One, as Christ said in His intercessory prayer:

"And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:"

I hope to serve God by helping to do all I can to help His people to become One in Christ. The problem is that the adversary has been successful in persuading so many of my spiritual brothers and sisters that we ought to reject and persecute one another. Focusing on what separates us and being stirred up in contention one with another. Some of the members of the church of Jesus Christ, think that they are the only ones who are members of Christs Body by virtue of where they sit on Sunday and the name of the church they attend-- and this is not the only thing that they are confused about at times. Some of them do not recognize that a protestant, catholic or someone in another religion could be part of the body of Christ and that God wants for all members of His body to be One in Him.

On the other hand, there are so many falsehoods spread about the members of the Church of Jesus Christ—that have been perpetuated from when God first started this particular part of His work in this church. The persecution was so severe that in Missouri where I now live, there was once a legal extermination order under Governor Boggs, making legal to shoot a member of the church of Jesus Christ on sight-- (Believe it or not, its true-- look it up on the internet). Joseph Smith was murdered and many of my ancestors were persecuted, having their houses burned and driven out of the country towards Utah, leaving bloody footprints in the snow from their burning houses and the dead bodies of their family members.

I testify that God is still just as active as he had been in prior days—if not more so. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God still speaks today, just as he did in prior days. His words are not limited to any one group or individual, but His Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, just as was prophesied would occur in the last days.

The church of Jesus Christ is most definitely not the ONLY work that God is doing in these last days, as many of its members think it is. I believe that God has long worked through you—and still works through you today.

Although the adversary works hard against the members of the Church of Jesus Christ both from inside and without, seeking to confuse them with false doctrine, just as he tries to crush them with persecution—regardless, God has done, and is doing and will do a work through them. But I know that God can work through anyone; that He has and is, and will do a work through many others outside The Church as well as in it, and perhaps even people who do not know the name or stories associated with Christ, but who believe in their Creator, though they may call Him by a name that is not familiar to either of us.  

Again—my hope is that we can all come closer to Christ. Sadly, the denial of the existence of God-- "anti-Christ" or atheism is the fastest growing ideology on earth today. Rather than focusing on helping people come to Christ, the deceiver would have all who believe in God at each others throats fighting with each other, when we could all be accomplishing so much more if we were unified. Yes, I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ and I believe that God wants me to serve in this church, but primarily, before I consider myself a church member, I consider myself a follower or disciple of my Creator, whom I call Jesus Christ. This we have in common; how can we contend, when we have so great a name to unify us?

A young man I spoke to a number of years ago (also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ) was once a student in your class. In High school a teacher taught a religious history class in which she specifically designed the class to make everyone who believed in God to feel like a fool by appealing to their "intelligence and courage" (Here I recently found a connection or reference to Screwtape letters in her words). She tore down his faith in God and many other students who passed through her class. This young man one day approached me. He told me that he was struggling in his faith after being in this class, and he wasnt sure that he believed in God in anymore. But he mentioned to me your name as a force for believing in God in his life. Over the course of our conversation, his faith overcame his doubts and He eventually served as a missionary, teaching people about God in the Philippines and remains faithful in Jesus Christ to this day. 

I am reminded of this interaction in 2nd Kings: 

"Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man;"

--with gratitude and love, ever a student, Richard Wadsworth

Here is a link to part 4
https://truthprocess.blogspot.com/2020/04/letter-to-my-wonderful-english-teacher_21.html