Dear Reader,
This excerpt is one of 13 stories from my second book. It is my testimony of Christ and his church. It is now out of print but will become a Kindle book soon. If you would like to read the other stories and the four preceeding chapters outlining the life and times of the Savior, please email me at: marlenatanya@gmail.com and I will let you know when the Kindle is available. Marlena
I was born into a family of Jews, descendants of Russian and western European stock who, in the early years of this century left their homeland and traveled with great hope in their hearts to this wondrous land of America, there to make a new life for themselves and their heirs.
Growing up, I heard of the wonders of God; how he had saved our people from Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman, German and Russian tyranny, bringing them through the anguish of slavery, through their great wanderings in the deserts of Judea and out of the shivering darkness of the shtetls of western Europe. I heard in the prayers of the elders of the synagogue their gratitude for deliverance from the hands of ancient mortal enemies. I heard Elohim praised for remembering the Jews in their dispersion throughout the world, and for His great mercy during their awful trials at the hands of Hitler and his legions. I was taught that the greatest events in human history were the creation of man by God and then the freeing of the Hebrew people from Egyptian and Babylonian rule. Through the prayers of the faithful I learned to love and to fear our immortal Father who lives in Heaven and who, I was taught, we cannot really know.
In a broad sense a congregation is missionary to its members. I was easily converted to the knowledge that my heritage was special above all others. My mother told me to be proud that I was the latest in my family of a long line of Hebrew women, part of the eternal covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that the Jewish people were special to Him because of their willingness to live His Law. I was not learned in scripture but I read with great interest the Old Testament’s first five books and the book of Judges, together making up the text of the sacred Pentateuch or Torah.
The Talmud, a collection of complex commentaries of the learned rabbis of past ages, was also a part of my study. Since Jews do not read the New Testament or believe that a Savior and Redeemer named Jesus Christ has come to them, I knew nothing of the Christ. My Lord was God, and my promised land was Israel. But I loved and believed in the stories of the prophets. These wondrous men were heroes to me because of their passionate relationship with God and their religious fervor to learn and to spread the word of God among their followers. All of them prophesied and testified of the Mashiach who would one day save the Jewish people and return them to their homeland of Israel. Prophets could always be counted upon to speak the truth and in those times many of them were sent by God to counsel the masses who were stiffnecked even then.
But there was no prophet in my life and times. We were all adrift to wander as the wind moved us, tribes of Jews torn away from their precious homeland and still at odds in a new society, we became pioneers of private destinies. It seemed a long and lonely road, but any desires I had about a personal God who would help me with the increasing complexity of my life I hid away within my deepest self. With the rest of my people I waited and watched for the Mashiach to arrive.
As I grew to be a woman, however, my feelings about my religion became more conflicting. Though I loved to hear the cantor sing during services, listening to the ritualized prayers offered by the rabbi increasingly left me with feelings of abandonment and loneliness. Friday night services and Sunday School were times of friendship and feeling part of a special congregation, but at the same time many of the services were of ancient origin, unchanging, impersonalized. I felt overlooked, uninspired, unfulfilled. There was more to know, I was sure, before I could give my full heart to God or begin to understand His design for me. Somehow, that was of prime importance even in my youth. I began to resent the People Israel concept that was a subject of reverence in every synagogue because little emphasis was placed upon situations of the present time and the conflicts which weave themselves inextricably into our lives.
Eventually, by the time I had turned fourteen I wandered away from the services, feeling that something was wrong, untrue, not right, though I could not then name the doubts that pulled at my mind. I understand now that I was seeking a way to know for sure that which I suspected… My spirit longed to know its Maker and to be at peace. I wanted to know of life before life and after death, for that would give me clues as to the purposes of God concerning the human soul. I wanted God to speak to me alone as His child, separate from Israel. But I didn’t know how to bring that about. Prayer, my only recourse, seemed without fruit. It took most of half a century before I was made aware that the truth was all around me, waiting only for my discovery.
That wondrous time came unexpectedly after many years of unhappy living and as much soul searching. During that time I was to be married and divorced but never blessed with children. My childhood had been abusive, my teenage years were spent trying to disprove many of the lessons on morality my strict Jewish parents had taught me. I was quite unready for the responsibilities of adulthood and marriage. Personal unhappiness caused job failures. Lack of a healthy self respect caused me to make poorly thought out decisions regarding a marriage partner. I seemed headed for mental breakdown at times and had to seek counseling more than once. Eventually, career relocations, readjustments after divorce and a few liaisons resulted in serious personality problems. There were many moves through many states, once even to Mexico for a year where I nearly died of a virus I contracted after drinking a single glass of contaminated water. I arrived in my forties a much sadder and quieter woman, sure of very little and longing for more than I could understand.
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger…that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. Deuteronomy 8:3
It was not really by accident that I first experienced Christian doctrine. My brother had been the first of our Jewish family to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shortly after marrying a Tongan woman who was strong in that Church. On a rare visit he presented me with a Book of Mormon, thereby laying the groundwork for visits by Mormon missionaries in the months to come. Though I did not comprehend the beauty of the Book of Mormon then or feel that I was able to accept Jesus Christ, I was moved by the things they taught me. Their information about the pre-mortal existence of mankind, about humanity’s purpose on earth and especially revealed doctrine concerning eternal life and exaltation through Jesus Christ fascinated me. They taught me a lot I could never have learned through my Jewish experience. I attended church with them after Sunday services on two occasions, out of curiosity, really, to learn what I would feel in that rarified air. I was amazed to discover myself touched so strongly by emotions I did not understand that I broke into tears touching the chapel door! But when, eventually, the missionaries wanted me to be baptized I told them honestly that I couldn’t, because I had to be true to Judaic teachings which forbade baptism in the name of, or in any way associated with Jesus Christ. Though I was no longer active in my faith I retained strong loyalties to the past.
On my own, I did find my way back into that chapel from time to time after everyone had left the Sunday service there. Something told me I would be listened to. I would enter the chapel on Sunday afternoons after everyone else was gone so as not to be recognized as a Jew attending a Christian church. It sounds silly now, but I actually thought I would be ostracized and made to leave if I were found in a church!
With great reservation and not a little fear, I sat in the pews and prayed. So many times I strongly felt a presence close behind me, but when I turned around I could see no one. It was mystifying, a new experience, a beginning. Even stranger, after every prayer I offered I found within the following week true relief and help. Soon it became a regular practice. I attended Friday night services in the local synagogue, and on Sunday afternoons when the Church chapel was empty I stole my way in to ask God for help. Unfailingly, time after time my needs were met! I didn’t understand, but it was great. I was on a roll!
The Lord wanted me in his flock, I believe, because fate again caused me to move, this time to Oregon where my brother lived with his family. His wife, just thirty-four and sick now with cancer, was dying. Their four sweet children were frightened for her. I came to help in any way I could and once there found the kindness of the Latter-day Saint community something I could not ignore. They did not try to change me. They loved and cared for me more than my own people had done in many years. I came to respect them for the intensity of their love for Jesus Christ and their watchful care of and service to others.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Psalm 23:1,2
Eventually, I became close to some stake missionaries who told me again that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was true. To test that concept I would have to have faith in God. They said that I would not have to give up anything I already knew was true, but only add to what I knew. They told me that all people on the earth today were descendants of the twelve original tribes or families of ancient Israel through the biblical Joseph who, in the Old Testament, was the owner of the coat of many colors. Joseph was the son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of the great prophet Abraham. (Through a blessing after joining the Church I later learned that I was a direct descendant of the ancient tribe of Judah.)
The stake missionaries were descendents of another of Joseph’s sons, Ephraim , as are a great many gentiles (people of non-Israelite lineage and those without the Gospel), entitled to the ancient blessings which he received from his father. I looked up the references they gave me in Genesis 48, where it states that the seed of Ephraim will become a multitude of nations, again in Genesis 49, when the sons of Joseph are blessed, Judah among them, as the lineage which would welcome the Savior’s return in glory. These promises were made by our Father in Heaven who loves the Jewish people as His first chosen. He will not let them perish but one day will bring them together again, ready for the Savior’s appearance in their midst. I was overcome by this knowledge. What a great joy to know that the Jews will be restored to Israel to again occupy their homeland! In 2Nephi in the Book of Mormon God reveals His plan to gather the Jewish remnants to Israel where they will live in peace with their Mashiach. This prophecy is the fulfillment of the dream of all generations of displaced Jews throughout the world. How grateful I am for this great gift!
The missionaries had taught me that this Joseph of the coat of many colors was a “fruitful bough…by a well whose branches run over the wall,” (Gen 49:22). He was blessed that through his loins would come a modern prophet into a new country across the wall and well of the sea whose name would be as his and through whose unselfish and tireless efforts the waiting world would hear the true and full Gospel of Jesus Christ restored to the earth after many hundreds of years of spiritual darkness. This marvelous prediction was made a couple of thousand years before its occurrence in 1820 when the boy Joseph Smith was led to the golden plates that through revelation from God became the Book of Mormon, so that we in these last days can have the truth restored to us.
…the Prophet Joseph Smith said: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book. Introduction, Book Of Mormon
Through all the many lonely years of my life, hearing and reading these things gradually had a profound impact on me. I listened. I wanted to hear more, though years earlier the young missionaries had told me the same things. Not being ready to hear their message then, I had forgotten much, but hearing it now my soul was stirred. I found myself taking it in. There were many conflicts between what I remembered from my past and what I was now being told. Why do we need a Savior? Could the Jews have been wrong about Christ’s divinity all these years? Isn’t our Heavenly Father enough to save us? Is it true that Christ saved us from sin and the terror of spiritual death and also wants us to have exaltation in the kingdom of God? If there is a Holy Ghost, where is the biblical Old Testament reference to him and to the divinity of Christ? I knew nothing of Jesus Christ or Christianity. Christianity was a concept I had always thought was inferior to Judaism, an entirely secular world that was confusing (and unnecessary).
I also had many questions about the story of the buried golden plates of early American prophets and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Was he really a latter day prophet of God? How important is revelation? How could I know for sure if this Christian faith was more correct than all others? Why was it important enough to study?
The most important question, as I look back, was how it all fit together in my mind and heart.
Eventually, working part time as a nurse aide I offered to help my new found friends build a room on their barn so I could move into it. “I will study your books and my books,” I told them. “And I will stay in that room, except for work, until I solve this problem.” I was forty-seven, divorced, childless, not knowing how to further map my course. What did I have to lose?
We built the room in a month and I moved most of my belongings into their barn loft. I moved myself beneath it in my new room, just across from the goats. (They made sweet but restless and noisy neighbors.) My new sanctuary had no toilet and no running water but the main house was only twenty five feet away. I had electric lights, a bed, my television, my typewriter, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, the Torah and the Talmud. As if to keep me literally on my toes or on my bed, a family of field mice took up shelter beneath the bed frame. I could hear their chirping and chewing while I read. It made me shudder. I remember praying to God to keep them from jumping into bed with me while I slept! In self defense I sometimes read aloud to them from the scriptures while they scurried and mewed beneath me.
Finally I set traps for the mice and for the following five months I worked, read, studied and prayed that the knowledge I sought be revealed to me through the scriptures. I prayed for a harvest, and like a desperate detective I hunted among the thin pages of ancient knowledge hoping to excavate the great truths that waited there. I spread out the volumes on my bed like the precious fragments of recorded time they are and let my mind and heart scan the centuries, from Genesis through the Exodus, from the Davidic kings through the advent of Christ to the prophecies of John in the book of Revelation. Concentrating especially on the prophets I came to understand their great missions and how they always could be counted on to speak the truth.
In that little room I read, prayed, slept, read some more. I was starved to know everything those books could teach me. After a long time, I began to discern the ways of God as separate from mankind, to see how His mighty hand adjudicated in the affairs of men. From Old Testament writings to the life mission, death and resurrection of Jesus, from the Revelation to the ancient record of the forerunners of the Indians of America, where Christ appeared after his resurrection to visit his “other sheep” to establish His Church among the earliest ancestors of this continent. I discovered that the Book of Mormon is a marvelous record of that visit and of those early civilizations. Inscribed on gold plates during the period from 600 b.c. through a.d. 421, it truly is a companion to the Bible, giving further prophecy of Jesus as the Savior of the world. I found it to be an undeniable second witness of Christ.
I learned of Joseph Smith, chosen to bring about the Gospel’s restoration after many hundreds of years when no one holding that sacred priesthood authority was on the earth. He told all who would hearken that he had been called of God to restore that ancient authority, that he was a modern mouthpiece for the Almighty. He came as a servant, a conduit for the word of God to bring that enlightenment promised in the scriptural canon, to support and augment what the Bible teaches.
I began to believe that the Doctrine and Covenants, a book of the revelations of Christ to the Prophet Joseph Smith and others, was an inspired record revealing in present day language the ways of God among men, instructing through revelation the building up of the restored Church of Jesus Christ upon the earth, outlining “the purpose of mortality, the necessity for obedience, the need for repentance, the workings of the Holy Spirit, the ordinances and performances that pertain to salvation, the destiny of the earth, the future condition of man after the resurrection…” (See Explanatory Introduction, the Doctrine and Covenants) and many other wondrous ideas that no man or group of men could have conceived. I realized that no human intelligence could be so profound or boast such broad scope as I found in those pages. This truly was the work of that great author, the Word of God.
And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased… Doctrine and Covenants 1:30
But the fundamental problem begged solving. I prayed to know how all of this could all be true if Jesus was not the Christ. The blinders I wore came from centuries of secular programming. Should I erase that from my past? Could I actually make the change? My very identity had always seemed to depend upon my allegiance to the teachings of the Torah and the rabbis in the synagogue. I was a Jew. Jews do not believe that the Mashiach has come. For a Jew to say that Jesus is the Christ is to declare oneself as dead to Judaism. Jewish families have held funerals for members who crossed to that side of the barbed wire. They were turncoats. They became amongst fellow Jews a hiss and a byword, unwelcome in the streets and in synagogues. They were unwelcome even in their own homes.
Though I was now faced with evidence I could no longer deny, where would permission come from so that I might finally accept the fact that long ago in Palestine there was a man who came to speak to those from whose loins all modern Jews have descended. Carrying that banner of the covenant with Abraham this humble, gentle and loving man truly was and is the Messiah of this world, through his own choice he had come to lead humankind toward their eternal home and inheritance: eternal life leading to exaltation in the Kingdom of God.
One day I was driving alone into town. At a stop sign a voice went through my mind: Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I started. What was that? Again the same words came to me. I remember staring at the red light, watching it turn green and red again. No cars were behind me, so I just sat there trying to understand what I had heard. The voice was still, but I was amazed at its message, amazed that I had heard something that didn’t come from myself. I began to think about those words. Slowly I reasoned that if Jesus were just some teacher of long ago there would be no churches erected to his name, nor would he be worshipped as the Messiah throughout all these centuries. If he were the Messiah, then of course it made sense that Christians would follow him and look forward to his Millennial reign, as they have done since his resurrection. Without any warning, without any emotion, it was like a problem solved. It made sense.
That Sunday I attended the Sacrament meeting at the local LDS Church and stayed for classes afterward. There the Plan of Salvation was clearly and simply explained to me, as I had heard it years before but now it bore its truth to me. Now I opened my heart to that great message. If this was all true, then I wanted for the rest of my life to follow the Savior. I vowed to seriously consider baptism. I prayed to be led and to know the truth. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that somewhere beneath my own knowing I had, since my first encounter with the missionaries been building a new infrastructure inside the old barricades, a lighter, cleaner spirituality, in half-conscious anticipation of a newly emerging self.
When I was reminded that Jesus Christ died for me that I might be free of death and sin, that through my faithfulness and works I could realize my spiritual potential, I didn’t know what to feel. I wondered why God would do that for us, and why He would send His son to be sacrificed. I knew I was unworthy of such an act, even genuinely embarrassed by it. But gradually, as though I had always suspected it I realized that Jesus, if he were the Mashiach, was the Jews’ truest hero; the mightiest, bravest of them all and merciful beyond human understanding, someone who, through his supreme act was able to save not only the Jewish people from physical and spiritual bondage, but even all mankind. His gracious and profound message to those he saved, his wondrous miracles and great courage among those who were enemies, his love for all of us proved that he could do anything he chose to do.
Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who created the heavens and the earth, a light which cannot be hid in darkness; Doctrine and Covenants 14:9.
Growing within me now was a new feeling, gentle but insistent, a discovery that seemed to have finally persuaded my body’s every cell of the answer to my lonely quest: Here at long last was a flesh and blood gift from God to each mortal soul. My Father in Heaven had shown His great love for me in a way I could not any longer ignore. I was becoming sure that I could also gladly serve and adore His Son. Here at last, I felt, was someone who truly understood my deepest need for love and acceptance. Here was a Perfect One through whom I could realize my potential for faith and trust in God and learn His plan for my sojourn on earth and throughout eternity. I was rapidly learning that in Christ I had found the one for whom I would willingly give up my sins, even my life.
And then a funny thing happened. I waited. And waited. I attended Church but didn’t ask for the missionary discussions, which must precede baptism. I worked and thought about what I had discovered but did nothing about it. When my Mormon friends asked me for a commitment, I demurred. It was as if the knowledge was itself enough, but in my most private moments I knew I was still afraid to make through baptism the essential Christian covenant: to follow Christ, to live the full gospel.
Soon after my discovery I was chosen to meet a friend at the hospital and bring her home following a minor surgery. I was late and hurriedly left my little room in the barn. Standing outside it I adjusted my coat. No one else was on the property.
Suddenly there was a Presence at my right side. He was taller than I, though I didn’t see him with my natural eyes. I saw him with spiritual eyes. I know he had a definite body because I felt it was there, felt the weight of it next to me. I was aware of the perimeters of his body. He said only “You need to understand that it’s all in how you look at it. This is God’s Church.” Profound words from an angel of God.
How can I describe my reaction? He had simply imparted a bit of knowledge to me, but it hit me like an explosion! It was as if the thought came from me! I looked upward as he spoke. The sky was suddenly a vast, gateless field of air. It seemed to expand for me and I realized that now for the first time I was free. Truly, completely, without apology, free! I felt wonderful, a prisoner released. As if the words he uttered had been my thoughts! Aloud I said suddenly “If that is true I want to become a Mormon.” It was the release of an unrealized wish. That’s when a miracle happened.
Sometimes in a life it is as though all moments meet, all hours suddenly account for their time and direction. It was so then and there. My heart swelled and pounded until I felt it was bursting! My body was tingling from bottom to top. I felt joyous for the first time in my life. In that moment I was changed forever. I felt a new certainty. With sudden and great force of heart and mind, I knew – standing there filling full of light – that Jesus is the Christ and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the restored Church of Jesus Christ on the earth and that there is a living prophet of God on the earth today. I knew of the power of revelation. I knew that every prayer I had begged an answer for was at that moment being answered. God has never stopped speaking to us. All the roads of my life coalesced at that moment of perfect unity. I was free to choose and I had just received heavenly permission. It is all true. And it was all mine.
I was baptized April 6, 1988 a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a happy Jewish woman from the ancient tribe of Judah, certain for the first time in my life of what I was doing. To be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ is no small thing for one who has followed only the teachings of Torah and Talmud to the exclusion of all further light and knowledge. That moment in the water was truly the burial of my sins, the cleansing of my soul, the lifting of the terrible weights of conscience that life had brought me. I received the second baptism; the laying on of hands for the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost, in accordance with the revelation given the Prophet Joseph Smith. The LDS Church is the only one which baptizes in this way, following Christ’s example.
Is it crazy to say that the conversion of a Jewish soul is the culmination of the wanderings of ancient Jews who followed Abraham and Moses out of hellish Egypt? My own family’s ancestors lived as hunted animals in the wartime ghettos of Europe. They came looking for freedom but ended being herded like cattle across Germany in the killing boxcars. They endured bravely the stuffy, overloaded boats that bore them on the last leg of their Diaspora and brought them to a waiting America that they might worship in freedom.
They came here also for me, that I, too, might worship in freedom. I carried with me their darkness, their unrelieved yearning for the light the full Gospel brings. My future would now be filled with the bright light of Christ and the further assurance that I was finally in his Church. In the sacred moments of baptism by one having true authority, then the laying on of hands for the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost, it was made known to me that I had learned the ways of God at Jesus’ feet! As a new Christian I would be required to follow him in all things as one of the many thousands of missionaries of the Restoration, to progress in my life’s journey until that day when I should hopefully meet him again at that Bar of eternal judgment.
Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. 3Ne 14:7-8
A year after my baptism I received a cherished Recommend permitting me to enter one of the temples of the Lord. These holy houses of the Lord have been reestablished in these latter days throughout the world in increasing numbers of countries. (At this writing there are nearly seventy operating, under construction and in planning stages in more than thirty countries.) I participated in temple ordinances and blessings which are authorized by the sacred sealing and binding power of that Melchizedek priesthood which Jesus and his apostles held. It has been my great joy to be a part of these saving administrations for the living and the dead which Jesus instituted (1Cor 15:22-58), that my family, indeed that each of us, may be forever together, not only with our present but also our ancestral families through eternal and sacred covenants, if we prove our faithfulness through righteous living.
I know that marriage can be forever. Families separated in life can be reunited after their earthly sojourns have ended. Grieving for the departed does not have to be traumatic because of the revelation to latter day prophets that we have always lived and will continue throughout eternity to live, to be further taught those sacred truths that will help us to progress in our understanding of God’s kingdom. Knowing the full Gospel of Jesus Christ truly has made me see how perfect is the Plan of Salvation of our Heavenly Father. He wants us to return to Him, to continue to progress toward perfection after our time on earth. He has promised his children that they can eventually inherit all He has and realize their spiritual potential. How truly grateful I am for this great knowledge.
How I love my Savior! When I read the marvelous revelations given by him to the Prophet Joseph Smith I am filled with awe at Christ’s great love for mankind. I am humbled by his love for me. Through latter day scripture which tells of his visit to the American continent where he reestablished his Gospel following his resurrection I found a great treasure of knowledge and wisdom. I eagerly listen to his unceasing communication through his living prophets today. I know that God’s mercy toward us is unfailing. I know that after my death, if I am worthy I shall see Him again and renew our friendship.
Jesus the Christ is my example of all things good. He is my brother. He helps me to leave a legacy to all the world through my testimony that he is the Christ who shed his blood for us that death and sin would be forever overcome. Through him I have learned that baptism by one having proper authority is the gateway to eternal life through the ancient covenant between God and His great prophets Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Noah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, and those who have come after him.
I have, finally, the knowledge of where I came from, why I am here and where I am going. Our Heavenly Father and our Redeemer have prepared many blessings and gifts of the spirit for each of us. If we will but come to Him with a humble heart, a repentant spirit and a love of discovery we can all find those bestowals waiting for us to claim.
There are souls who love the Lord with only a part of their being, seemingly in little need of spiritual nourishment. But to a Jew who loves God more than life and longs for the saving grace of a personal Savior and the guiding ministrations of the great Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the coming home, the bringing forward out of silent darkness into brilliant light truths that are saving and eternal. To me, this is the fulfillment of any life. The full Gospel contains all that anyone needs to know of Christ and his truth at the current time because Christ is its living head. It is a table spread before the faithful searcher, filled with survival food for the soul. It is, simply, the perfect feast.
Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. 2NE 31:20 (emphasis mine)
I know that my Savior lives, that he sits on the right hand of the Father, and that the Holy Ghost teaches and testifies of all truth. I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the restored Church of Christ upon the earth today and that we have a living prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, who receives revelation for all mankind. He is President of that Church. I solemnly testify by the power of the Holy Ghost that these things are true, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Marlena Tanya Muchnick
www.jewishconvert-lds.com
www.peopleofthebook-judaica.com
check out my other blogsites and see my books = http://judaicaworld.blogspot.com
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