Judgement Day Is Nothing Like An Ice Cream Sunday

We learned in yesterday's priesthood lesson about the degrees of glory we may receive when we are resurrected. The teacher asked if those who did not receive celestial glory would forever be in torment. I suggested they would not. I believe that everyone will receive the glory, and corresponding existence, they truly want. As Moroni said concerning those who did not believe in Christ, "Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in hell."

I believe we will receive the glory of the law we are willing to live.

It is true, we may torment ourselves in this life and in the next, as we prepare for judgement and consider the joys we may have attained and the Father we rejected. But come judgement, I believe everyone will be satisfied with their final lot.

In church, I gave a much shorter answer than that, but that was the gist.

Then another guy raised his hand, who likes ice cream a lot more than I.

"Hank," he asked. "What's your favorite ice cream?"

"I don't know. Maybe chocolate."

"With hot fudge?"

"I guess."

"How would you feel if I was sitting here eating chocolate ice cream with hot fudge, and you had plain old vanilla?"

And I thought to myself, "I wouldn't care, no, not one bit. But you shouldn't be eating ice cream in the primary room."

The judgement of God is not like ice cream. The atonement is not like a pickle.

My weakness is that I don't appreciate these types of simple analogies, while those who are newer to our faith and struggle with the concepts find them very helpful. While I was rolling my eyes, a gentleman at the front of the class said, "What that brother said, that was right on." And I knew he wasn't talking about me.

No such thing as a mustard tree?

In Matthew 13, Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed, "but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."

(Jesus also likened faith to a mustard seed, but didn't talk about it turning into a tree.)

So has anyone ever seen a mustard tree? A Google search turned up a number of Oak Trees, and this picture of a guy standing next to... a bush.

So why did Christ say the mustard seed grows into a tree?

One explanation is that the growth of the kingdom of heaven is miraculous, growing beyond what would be expected.

Another might be that Christ was talking about a large mustard bush that could handle birds.

I like the former explanation, but who knows for sure?

Let me know if you have a better idea.

Nurture vs. Nature

I'm not a big fan of bathroom humor. Most fart jokes, poo jokes, etc. etc. just make me groan. Mari, being the decent woman she is, has never passed gas in her life.

So we were very surprised the other day when Des passed gas then looked at us and laughed. I didn't teach him to laugh at farts-he just instinctively knew it was funny.

So why is bathroom humor instinctively funny? And if it is natural to find it funny, should we really be unlearning the funniness of it as we grow older? Should the rules of etiquette be revised to account for what seems to be a natural an irrevocable law that bathroom humor is funny from birth?

What does "Keep the Commandments" mean?

If Christ "fulfilled the law," and Christians no longer follow the law of Moses (e.g., circumcision is no longer necessary for membership in the kingdom, we eat pork, we pick up sticks on the sabbath, we don't raise up seed unto our brother, etc.), why do we still keep the Ten Commandments?

When we speak of keeping the commandments, why do we often cite the Ten, rather than the Two?

Or why don't we recite the Sermon on the Mount, for that matter?

(Side Note: I memorized the Sermon on the Mount when I was a teen-ager. I didn't stop to think that I couldn't do it because it was too long. I just memorized one verse at a time until I was done.)

What ever happened to the Perpetual Education Fund?

Why is it that all the information put out about the perpetual education fund seems to be between 3 years and 7 years old?

I think it's an exciting program, and would love to read stories of those who have benefitted from it, but the PEF website has stories from 2001 (when the program started).

From what I can find, there were a couple stories in a recent Church News.

Wikipedia has some potential statistics, but citations to the Deseret News are not archived, so you get today's stories, rather than PEF statistics.

A 2004 pdf sheet based on a meeting with Elder Richard Cook is informative.

Comments on a blog posted December 31, 2007 cite trouble with PEF in Peru.

Elder Carmack gave a speech at the BYU Kennedy Center that cites some success stories (see from 27:20 on).

And in the Deseret News, some goofball indignantly proclaims, "My wife and I agree: No more settlement meetings until we see some figures." I think he's trying to pass himself off as a Mormon. (The story he is commenting on is the one from the Church News, above.)

I'd love more information about the program. I'd love to hear of its successes and failures. I'd love to hear about trouble in Peru, success in Guatemala, entry into new countries, etc. I'd love to hear stories from participants, Bishops, and General Authorities. But mostly, I hear nothing. If I cannot get daily updates, how about monthly, or even yearly? Biannually?

At the very least, couldn't some intern just update the website with stories that are less than seven years old?!

Do I have Legolas in me?

Have you ever looked at an old coin and wondered where it had been?

Well today I ate an apple with a sticker that said, "product of New Zealand." And I thought, I have New Zealand carbon being assimilated into my body right now. Will some native New Zealander long dead and turned to dust be resurrected with carbon from my body because I ate an apple from a tree that grew on his grave?

Did Orlando Bloom's skin cells, lost during filming of Lord of the Rings, enter the earth that the tree used as nutrition, so that I have Legolas in me right now? I do feel like I can see farther. If there was snow nearby, I'd try walking on top of it, like Legolas did.

This is even better than travelling to New Zealand. Rather than travelling, I'll just eat something from every country I want to go to. That way, they'll be a part of me, and I won't have to travel! Why "see" a country when I can "be" a country?!

Would we have a United States if the early colonists had included Mormons?

Would Mormons have risen up to fight against England?

As Mormons, we believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law and being subject to earthly governments. We are anti-war, but support those who volunteer to serve the U.S. in the military.

Given our pro-government, anti-war positions, would Mormon settlers have advocated a peaceful resolution to any conflicts with King George, rather than violent revolution?