Email to Family and Friends
This has been an amazing week! The Lord have given us much opportunity this week to bear pure and powerful testimony of The Book of Mormon. This book has brought me closer to God than any other book. It is another testament of Jesus Christ. It is the word of God brought to us in these latter days. One of my favorite scriptures is "Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also. And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure." (2 Nephi 29:8-9) The Book of Mormon testifies to the entire world that Jesus is the Christ. That Christianity is not just another religion. Read it.
"First and Foremost"
I have spoken of a few things pertaining to our religion. But after all is said and done, if all of us could but understand just one thing. It would be, "First and foremost, it is that God does live, that he is our Eternal Father and our Creator. All human beings are his offspring. Knowing this, we accept the commandment of the Savior to perfect ourselves so that we may be like him." (1)
The greatest truths of all other truths that God has given us in all time and eternity, is that God is our literal Father. He is just as much or more our Father than our fathers here on earth. He loves us more than we can even start to comprehend here on this earth. He knows us more than we even knows ourselves. He knows what we like, dislike; He knows what makes us happy and sad. We are His children, we are created in His image. "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (2)
I have come to know God as my Father. Due to our family circumstances, my father wasn't in my life to much. Growing up I was asked many times who my father figure was in my life. I had many many great mentors, friends, and siblings that I have looked up to in my life, but none that I would ever call father. Through my journey of finding the truth, there is now one in my life, that I refer to as my father, and that is my Heavenly Father. He is the one I strive and dream to be like as if I were a little child. There is none other who has made such a large impact in my life and has taught me so much than my Father who dwells in the Heavens above. I couldn't even imagine going a day in my life without speaking and communicating with my Father.
I know He lives! I I know you can know, I know the relationship I have with our Father is not unique to me. You can come to know Him through sincere prayer and through diligent scripture study, especially The Book of Mormon. You can enjoy heavens help. I would like to add a second witness to my voice, this is the voice of an Apostle, a special witness of Jesus Christ. Listen to his words, for he has been called of God to declare glad tidings to all men. His words will bless your life.
"It is all the rage in this modern world to worship false gods of every sort and kind. There are those who bow before idols of wood and stone, and others who lisp their petitions to icons and images. There are those who worship cows and crocodiles, and others who acclaim Adam or Allah or Buddha as their supreme being.
There are those who apply the names of Deity to some spirit essence that is immaterial, uncreated, and unknowable and that fills the immensity of space and is everywhere and nowhere in particular present.....
...How belittling it is--it borders on blasphemy--to demean the Lord God Omnipotent by saying he is an idol, or an image, or an animal, or a spirit essence...
...It is the first principle of revealed religion to know the nature and kind of being that God is. As for us, “we know [and testify] that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them” (D&C 20:17).
This great God, the Lord Almighty, is a personage of tabernacle. He “has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s” (D&C 130:22). He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He has all power, knows all things, and, by the power of his Spirit, is in and through all things.
We know and testify “that he created man, male and female, after his own image and in his own likeness, created he them” (see D&C 20:18).
All men are the spirit children of the Eternal Father. We are the offspring of celestial parents. We lived and dwelt in the courts of glory before the foundations of this world were laid.
Our Eternal Father ordained and established those laws--called the gospel of God--which would enable us to advance and progress and become like him.
We know and testify that when he placed men on earth, he “gave unto them commandments that they should love and serve him, the only living and true God, and that he should be the only being whom they should worship” (D&C 20:19).
We know and testify that mighty Michael foremost fell that mortal man might be, and that “the Almighty God gave his Only Begotten Son” (D&C 20:21) to ransom men from the temporal and spiritual death brought into the world by this fall of Adam.
We know and testify that Christ “was crucified, died, and rose again the third day”; that he “ascended into heaven, to sit down on the right hand of the Father, to reign with almighty power according to the will of the Father.
“That as many as would believe and be baptized in his holy name, and endure in faith to the end, should be saved” (D&C 20:23–25).
We know and testify that salvation is in Christ; that it comes because of his goodness and grace; and that he is our advocate with the Father.
We bear record that he is the only mediator between man and God; that through his atoning sacrifice fallen man may be reconciled with God; and that he “hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10).
We worship the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Ghost, and we invite all men everywhere to come and join with us."...
....We know by the revelations of the Holy Ghost to our souls that God is our Father, that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the kingdom of God on earth and has been set as a light upon a hill to proclaim the truth about God to a fallen world....
....Our testimony is that the Almighty God is our Eternal Father who lives in realms celestial; that the Lord Jesus Christ is his Son in the true and literal sense of the word; that the Holy Messiah came into the world to die upon the cross for the sins of the world; and that the Holy Ghost--a personage of spirit, a spirit man--is their minister and witness, whose revelations and gifts and endowments are available to the faithful in every nation and among all people." (3) -Elder Bruce R. McConkie
Elder Philip R. Bredsguard
Thermopolis, WY
Notes
1. Where Do We Stand?: Mark E. Petersen
2. Genesis 1:27
3. The Lord God of the Restoration: Elder Bruce R. McConkie
