Ruins, Politics, and What Endures

A month ago, I went with Chrise, a sister from our office, and our mission president and his wife to see a striking ruin called Xochicalco. These ruins built about 650 AD are quite massive, but for all the work that it took to build them they were only inhabited for about 250 years. Ironically, today they are many kilometers from any major areas of population, visited only by tourists such as ourselves. Evidence points to a strong possibility that nobles who inhabited Xochicalco were forced to flee by a disgruntled populace. Most of this once great center of trade had fallen into…well, ruins. What we saw was mostly a reconstruction of it. There are many ruins like this one in Mexico and many other places throughout the world. Rome comes to mind. Places once filled with grandeur and power are now empty and crumbled with their inhabitants like those of Xochicalco unknown and forgotten.

The politics of today have echoes of those ancient times. Although we don’t call them nobles, there is still the drive for power and grandeur cloaked by the appearance of more noble purposes. Yet all the glory of the United States, Europe and China to name a few will one day end up in ruins. It is the nature of man made things. Ironically, those of us who live in current times think that it can never happen to us. I’m sure the nobles of Xochicalco felt the same way.

For me, real hope for something that endures lies in the people around me, much more than physical or worldly things. We are all children of our Heavenly Father, literally.  When I taught a young woman today, I could see my words carried by the Spirit awakening this eternal part of her. Last night I baptized two people. Both of them had grasped onto this same hope for something enduring many months ago, but it had taken them more than a year to finally reach the waters of baptism. They never gave up and that year of effort in my estimation was better than building a pyramid or a nation. The power of the ordinance that I performed last night will reach into the eternities.  

Help From Beyond the Veil

Many years ago, I went with my father to Ohio. There we visited many of the old homesteads and met many of his family. The main thrust of our journey was to gain help in the genealogy of our ancestors in Ohio. On one of the days we were there we were searching for one of our lines called Brandeberry or Brandenburg. Dad said he knew where their old homestead was, but we wandered around kind of lost until I felt impressed to say let’s turn down this road. Which if I remember correctly my dad resisted because I for sure didn’t know where I was going, but we finally did and came across a barn with the name “Brandeberry” in giant letters across its side. When we knocked on the door of a nearby house, the man who answered said he was not related to Brandeberrys and had just bought the farm, but he said that we might be very interested in what was under some nearby trees. There we found a family cemetery that began in 1812. There were dozens of names with birth and death dates. From this information I was able to have the ordinances of salvation performed in the temple for more than fifty people when I returned home. We would have never found the place without the help from the spirit world that I felt that day.

This last Wednesday Chrise and I were trying to help Magdalena find some of her ancestors so that she could be baptized and confirmed for them in the temple. We hit a brick wall. All of her parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts are dead and her older sister could remember no more than she could about when her grandparents were born or even where they were born. I felt a little discouraged until I felt an impression to do a search on Family Search for them. We had tried that before with zero success, but this time we searched on her paternal grandmother, who had a fairly unusual name of Maximina Jimenez. Three names down the search results she was listed, sourced from the Mexican National Census for 1930. When we went to the census we found enough information to do the ordinances for about ten people all from her paternal grandparent’s family. We were all ecstatic.

In my many years of doing genealogy work, I have felt help a number of times from my ancestors, reaching across the veil to help me find them or their family. If you want a testimony that there is life after death, genealogy is a great place to go.

Blindness

I had a long conversation with a man today. He was not a member of the Church, but had come with his daughter to attend our meetings.  One of the bishopric pointed him out to me as a potential investigator.  After the Gospel Essentials Class, I struck up a conversation with him. I learned that he is my age or sixty-five. From his blue eyes and fair complexion, I guessed that he was of European decent which he confirmed to be French, though he did not consider himself to be anything other than a Mexican. 

After talking to him for a while, it became very apparent that he had little interest in what I said in answer to his questions. He talked from a very worldly perspective about religion, saying that it was invented and that if there was a God he was the author of all the world’s religions from Buddhism to Muslim to Christianity. He considered Christ to be no more than a great philosopher and disbelieved the fact that he was the Son of God. Though much of his family had converted to the Church, he had no interest in reading the Book of Mormon or seeking any kind of ultimate truth. It was obvious that he was very content with his own perspective about our Father in Heaven. My testimony only caused him to reiterate points that he had already made. He did this many times in our discussion.

You need to understand that I never argued with the man nor strove to prove my points in an intellectual way. I very much wanted him to sense the truth and awaken his inner faculties, but he could not hear or understand the meaning of what I was offering him. We parted friendly, but with no meeting of spirits or minds. I had just witnessed free agency at work. I told him that we might have known each other in the preexistence and together looked forward to our short time on earth. We are of the same generation. He words reminded me of the philosophies I once used several decades ago until I found something so much better. 

Perspective

When I have some spare time I have been watching a group of videos on my IPAD called The Joseph Smith Papers. Taken from the writings of or about the first prophet of our modern dispensation, it talks about his life and revelations from an early age until his death. What is most apparent is the immediate and bitter persecution he endured from the time he began to relate his experiences and visions. Through time it grew worse and worse. The treatment of him and those who followed him, including some of my ancestors, in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois appalled me. Some were murdered others lost their property as they were driven repeatedly from their homes in the dead of winter. Joseph was imprisoned and falsely accused on several occasions. They found no one not even the President of the United States from whom they could receive support or redress for the crimes committed against them. It seemed so unreasonable and un-American. Even when Joseph knew he would be killed, he remained dedicated to building the Kingdom of God on earth, striving with every action to obey our Father in Heaven. He could have easily saved his life by stopping.

What strikes me about what happened to Joseph Smith as a modern day prophet is how similar it is to many stories in the Old and New Testaments, when prophets were rejected, persecuted and murdered. In almost every case, many of the words and works of those ancient prophets endured despite efforts to destroy them. Jesus Christ himself suffered severe and unending persecution seemingly for the great good he did, just as his servants, the prophets, had before him and as his servants would after him. Why are human beings so prone to hatred and bigotry? My feeling is that it is a terrible testimony of Satan his power over the hearts and minds of men.

Because of the dedication, suffering, and sacrifices that Joseph Smith and prophets before him willingly endured, I am here in Mexico on a mission. They prepared the way and opened the doors. Because of them my own life has been blessed. Through them I found enduring happiness. In my own lifetime I have seen the growth of the Kingdom of God on earth from a few million to nearly fifteen million. We serve the same God who brought Israel out of Egypt and who sacrificed himself as a willing lamb at the meridian of time. His hand has never slackened. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Calm and Hope in a Turbulent World

Today was Fast Sunday. For those of you who don’t know what that means, we fast once a month to strengthen the spirit and use the money from the two meals not eaten to pay into funds to help those in need. Fasting always draws me closer to my Father-in-Heaven and elevates my thoughts and feelings. We baptized a beautiful young woman last night. She looked so happy yesterday and today. The Spirit has deeply touched her. She is engaged to a returned missionary in our ward and they plan to wait until they can be sealed and married in the temple.

As I reflect on the smile and happy countenance of that young woman and her prospective husband, I feel hope. They have chosen a path which if they follow will lead them to happiness. Why do I feel that way? Because my wife and I found it when we were not much older than them. Life is not meant to be easy. That young couple will face many severe trials. The trials are part of the reason that we are here. I have seen those trials grind relationships both in and out of the Church into nothing. But if the couple are both equally committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that will see them through. I know that from personal experience. Our relationship has grown and blossomed over the years. We are more in love now than we have ever been.

The principle of commitment to our Savior and his Gospel is just as true in our personal lives as it is in marriage. There is a wonderful power in it. Forgive me for using personal experience again as an example. I do not hold myself out as some kind of perfect being. For me, the Gospel speaks peace into my soul. Though I worry sometimes about the turbulence around me, I know that in the end everything will be all right. The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives meaning to it all. It will end with good overcoming evil and all things being made right. Our faith will be justified. Our hope will grow eternal.