A light from heaven, a door unlocked,
The floodgates are open, for God has now spoken.
A map we’ve been given, the path Jesus walked,
Leads us and guides us, for He is beside us.
The silence is broken, the way is clear,
And through modern prophets we know He is near.
What do Mormons believe? It’s certainly difficult to summarize an entire religion in a single article, but I think it comes down to a central point: Jesus Christ.
We believe in Jesus Christ, that he was and is the Son of God. We believe he is our Savior, our Redeemer, and our Lord. And because we believe him, we believe that what he taught was true — that we came from God and will someday return to him if we do what’s right. Christ’s teachings are the way.
Beyond that, we also believe Christ when he says he can make us whole, that he can heal us. We can indeed become new creatures in Christ, casting our old, worldly ways aside and learning to enjoy a rich, deep existence full of life and light. His Atonement makes it possible.
We believe that Christ gave power to holy men to administer the affairs of his church. Prophets receive revelation from God and guide us as a body. Not only were there prophets back during the Old Testament and the days of the New Testament, but there are prophets today. We believe Joseph Smith did see God and Jesus Christ and that they called him as a prophet. Through him they restored the true church of Jesus Christ, complete with all the authority to officiate in the name of God — authority that had been lost after the original Twelve Apostles were slain. Also through Joseph, the Book of Mormon was brought to light. We believe it’s the word of God, and that it brings us closer to Christ. “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 25:26)
We believe in doing good, because that’s what Christ did. We believe in making the world a better place, because that’s what Christ did. We believe in love, compassion, kindness, peace, mercy, integrity, courage, forgiveness, and righteousness, because that’s what Christ taught.
We also take seriously Christ’s mandate at the end of the Gospel of Matthew: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” The light of the gospel makes life meaningful, turning it into a deep well of living waters from which we can drink happiness and joy. When you have something this good, this dependable, you naturally want to share it with others. We send missionaries out because the restored gospel of Jesus Christ truly will solve all the world’s ills. It’s not about us — it’s about Christ, about the things he taught.
To put it in a nutshell, we are servants and disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and his example and teachings are the reason for everything we do.
I’ve created the Pedigree Sandbox page as a testbed for various pedigree ideas. Right now it’s just a simple table-based layout for two and three generations, at various sizes. And the code for the two-generation one is at the bottom (you can view source for the rest, though there’s not much different about it).
In reading part of Neal A. Maxwell’s biography, I found this interesting little nugget:
“What was said of C.S. Lewis could aptly be said of Neal: ‘Behind a compulsive writer usually sits a compulsive reader.’ And Neal’s writing taste clearly reflects his reading taste. He’s had little interest in fiction, preferring ‘things concerned with the issues of the day.’ For years he has devoured biographies of political leaders, works of military and political history, and religious essays, especially those of such British ‘believers’ as George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, and C.S. Lewis. One senses a connection here in his curiosity about able leaders, their lives and their language. He has instinctively wanted to learn from and about people of influence who drew with good motives on the power of the word (see Alma 31:5). A leader’s biography should teach us how to be leaders, just as a disciple’s biography should teach us how to be followers of Christ.” (A Disciple’s Life, chapter 48.)
“What could you do better for your children and your children’s children than to record the story of your life, your triumphs over adversity, your recovery after a fall, your progress when all seemed black, your rejoicing when you had finally achieved? Some of what you write may be humdrum dates and places, but there will also be rich passages that will be quoted by your posterity.
“We hope you will begin as of this date. If you have not already commenced this important duty in your lives, get a good notebook, a good book that will last through time and into eternity for the angels to look upon. Begin today and write in it your goings and your comings, your deeper thoughts, your achievements, and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. We hope you will do this, our brothers and sisters, for this is what the Lord has commanded, and those who keep a personal journal are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives.”
For those doing research in older Germanic languages (Gothic, Old Icelandic/Norse, Middle/Old High German, Frisian, Old English, etc.), Sean Crist’s Germanic Lexicon Project is a great resource for old grammars and primers and dictionaries. He’s scanned several out-of-copyright books and put the images online, with a portion of those OCRed and/or in a nice text/HTML/XML format. My own digitization of Henry Sweet’s An Icelandic Primer is on the site as well (that’s where I originally got the images). I’m considering digitizing an early edition of Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Primer but haven’t made up my mind yet.
