Thoughts on The Restoration

I found this blog entry that I had written months ago, I had originally wanted to write it and leave it as a draft for myself only, but today I feel like I want to share it:

My friend Holly taught a church lesson today on The Restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She did a really excellent job and I just wanted to share some thoughts about the event here on this blog.

We watched a movie about Joseph Smith and how he was struggling to find the one church that was right. As stated in the movie, there is only one true God and one true church. Joseph was having a hard time knowing which one was the true church. So he prayed. And he received a personal witness from God and Jesus Christ that it was time to set up the one true church on the Earth again. It had been taken from the Earth shortly after Christ's crucifixion.

Heavenly Father entrusted this task to a humble boy of 14. I had friends in high school that thought that was pretty weird. A boy of 14, started the church? Yes, but with much help and guidance from Heavenly Father. Of all the traits that Christ exemplified while he was on the Earth, I think there is one trait that Joseph Smith captured during his lifetime, and this is humility.

This is why he was chosen to establish the church during these days.

I was especially impressed with one part of the movie we watched at church today. As Joseph was explaining the vision that he had to one of the preachers from another faith, that preacher told Joseph, "Don't speak of this again...to any one." It would have been so easy for Joseph to deny what he had saw, and go on living his life. But he could not deny what he saw, and because he was a boy with conviction and virtue, he pressed on.

I am forever indebted to him for what he did.

The Sacred Grove