Palmyra Impressions (Faith into Action)

This was my third time visiting Palmyra.  My first time was back in 1983 (30 years ago) as a 16-year-old teenager (the same age as Ben is now); the second time was 13 years ago.  With the intervening years, I can't recall what my feelings were 30 years ago.  Since I do know that my testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel was still 3 years away, I suspect visiting Palmyra helped me in my belief, but I cannot say for certain how other than visiting the sites made the accounts I had heard up to that time in my life more real.  Seventeen years later visiting as a young father with an entirely different perspective on the gospel message, I came to Palmyra thinking my visit would offer me some huge confirming epiphany.  We spent two days visiting the various sites and I kept waiting for it . . . but nothing came.  For roughly 30 minutes after leaving the Whitmer farmhouse on our drive back to Ringwood, Jennifer and I finally broke the contemplative silence in the car (the boys had promptly fallen asleep in the back seat) and began to talk about our experience.  It wasn't long before I realized she, as a convert of about 5 1/2 years, had been expecting much the same thing as I had.  We hadn't communicated this to each other, but in our own way, we had expected the heavens to open and angelic trumpets to sound a flourish offering us an overwhelming spiritual confirmation that everything we had seen in Palmyra was undeniably true.  The more we talked about it, however, the more we realized what we had felt instead of the "bells and whistles" was a quiet, calm, peaceful reassurance to our testimonies backing up what we had already come to spiritually believe.  What I was reminded that day is what the prophet Elijah was taught: the Spirit does not sound like "strong wind" or "an earthquake" or "a fire," but speaks in "a still, small voice" (1 Kings 19:11-12).

On this visit, I was struck by how the Lord had prepared the Palmyra area and the people in it to receive the restoration and help it to progress.  Over the last several years, my personal definition of the word coincidence has changed.  To me, a coincidence is when I arrive home from work and while preparing to open my front door a car backfires at the exact moment I'm sliding my key into the lock.  That, and other similar circumstances are "coincidences."  But when water is leaking into the kitchen and master bathroom of my home and I have a plumber cutting holes into the walls and telling me I have a slab leak that will cost thousands of dollars I don't have to repair and my home owner's insurance sends their repair team to check it out and the man who comes to my door turns out to be a high councilman in an adjoining stake who fixes the actual problem (a pipe leak just slightly below the concrete), repairs the damage done by the previous plumber and charges us only the amount of the deductible charged by the insurance; that is not a fortuitous happenstance or a coincidence, it is a blessing bestowed upon me and my family by a loving Father in Heaven: a tender mercy.  On the morning Bishop Meservy and I were to be released from the bishopric in our ward, he asked me a penetrating question: "What surprised you the most as you served as a counselor?"  I had to contemplate my answer for a few moments as I considered my 1 1/2 of service in that capacity.  My response: "I was surprised to learn how much the Lord really is involved in our lives."  I saw this everywhere we went in Palmyra (frankly, I saw it throughout our Church history tour).

I was reminded of the examples of people who lived in the area for years (such as Martin Harris) or came to the area at a crucial time (Oliver Cowdery).  Of all the places to set up a print shop with the latest version of printer that could churn out pages at a faster rate, E. B. Grandin choose Palmyra and his shop was in business when the Book of Mormon was ready for printing and publication.  Grandin's personal reasons probably made sense to him at the time (why do it otherwise), but I find the timing extremely interesting.  I also considered the circumstances that brought the Smith family to settle in an area only a few miles from where Moroni had hidden the gold plates roughly 1400 years earlier.  These are just a few "coincidences;" there are so many more.  When stacked up together, I see the Lord's hand in preparing to bring the gospel "out of obscurity and out of darkness" (D&C 1:30).  Someone may feel to contradict my conclusions and make whatever claim they might (and that is their right), but such a contradiction does not shake me from my own feelings--that God had the right people in the right place at the right time.  In no way did He take agency from His children as the time of the restoration approached, but His guidance was there and was followed (imperfectly, but followed) by those who became involved in the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth.  If we truly, sincerely, honestly look for His hand in our lives, we will find it; He is there because we are His children and we matter to Him.

The other impression I had was how important it is to put our faith into action.  Back in May, I was asked to give a talk on receiving personal revelation.  The approach I ended up taking was to use the First Vision as a pattern to follow to gain personal revelation.  Yes, there are more ways than this, but many times, the pattern Joseph used in his quest for truth (reading and pondering the scriptures and being obedient to God's commandments) interlinks with all other approaches.  The final piece of the pattern I discussed is to ask in faith with the intent to do.  To quote from that talk:

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Faith in Jesus Christ is the first principle of the gospel (see Articles of Faith 1:4), and faith is “the principle of action in all intelligent beings” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 1:9).  If you have been consistently reading and pondering the scriptures and doing all that you can to be obedient to the Lord’s commandments, you will not only use your faith to ask, but to do whatever is required of you. . . . Joseph was prepared to act upon the answer he received from his prayer: “My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right,” he wrote, “that I might know which to join” (JS-H 1:18).  Elder Bednar explained: “Joseph’s questions focused not just on what he needed to know but also on what was to be done!  His prayer was not simply, ‘Which church is right?’ His question was, ‘Which church should I join?’ Joseph went to the grove to ask in faith, and he was determined to act” (Ensign, May, 2008, 94-95, emphasis in original).  In this context, can you see why James also taught “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (2:17)?  Faith is not a passive principle, it is “the moving cause of all action” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 1:10).

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Sometimes I think we as Church members (and when I say "we," I definitely include myself) overlook this aspect of the First Vision.  Joseph didn't just want to know what church was "right," but he was prepared to join himself to that entity.  In other words, he wasn't just asking to satisfy his curiosity: "Oh, the Presbyterians are right and not the Methodists?  Thanks for the head's up."  He planned to take the information he sought and do something with it!  He had been leaning toward the Methodists (see JS-H 1:8), but the implication of his statement is he was prepared to join whatever church God directed him to join, regardless of which denomination it was.  Having faith is a great thing, but having faith and doing nothing with it isn't great in the sight of God (see James 2:14-20).  If we use our faith as a catalyst for action, then our faith truly becomes a power we can use to show our Father in Heaven our devotion to Him and our desire to follow Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Being mortal and struggling with our carnal natures, we will make mistakes along the way just as Joseph did.  If we repent, however, and do not allow those mistakes to consume us, we will continue to move toward Father and He will bless us for our efforts.

This pattern is very relevant to us living in this day and age.  With so many voices clamoring for our attention; with so much information (true, not so true, and completely distorted) at our fingertips; with Satan raging "in the hearts of the children of men" and stirring "them up to anger against that which is good" (2 Nephi 28:20), we need to have solid footing on the rock of Christ and use the pattern of the First Vision as a way to combat the constant assault we are under (for a great video example click here).  I noticed this principle at work time and again as we visited the different sites in Palmyra.  The culmination of the efforts of those first 10 years in the New York and Pennsylvania areas was the organization of the Church in the Peter Whitmer Sr. farmhouse on April 6, 1830.