In light of recent events which have led to some people leaving the church, I wish to warn my grandchildren of things that will surely come to pass.
A number of years ago a member of a stake presidency embezzled millions of dollars from some good friends and members of his ward. He was convicted and served 7 years in prison and has yet to repay the money that he stole.
The news is replete with episodes of a similar nature. In addition, the church will be mis-characterized as allowing and condoning inappropriate behavior as a recent article from the Associated Press which made headlines across the nation. I wrote this letter to my friends. It contains some points that you might consider in evaluating situations that may occur.
"My Dear Friends,
I have heard of your trials from afar. If it were possible, I would remove them from you. After some thought and contemplation I offer the following in hopes that it will in some way be a soothing balm and let you know that I still regard you as my friends and fellow travelers on the road to Christ.
There is adequate historical evidence that leaders in the church can go astray and cause pain to the flock of Christ. I have been recently rereading the New Testament and Jesus the Christ. Although Jesus personally chose his apostles, one closely associated with him, betrayed him, and it was over money.
In the time of Joseph Smith, Warren Parrish, Joseph's secretary misappropriated money entrusted to him and caused the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society and a great apostasy from the church in Kirtland and it was over money.
There are a few church members who do now and will in the future take advantage of their membership in the church and their positions of leadership to deceive and steal money, property, and possessions from unsuspecting fellow saints. Even the very elect may be led astray.
I recently heard of a family that came to America from a Scandinavian country to Utah in the early days. They sold all that they had and came to Ellis Island with some missionaries. When they disembarked the missionaries offered to exchange their money for them. The missionaries never returned and absconded with the family's money, their entire savings. Because of this many descendants left the church.
There are many trials to come to individual members of the church. Each and every member of the church will be tried and tested to see if they will stand firm in spite of all things that they will have thrown their way.
Christ said that the servant was no greater than the master. Thus we can expect to be betrayed and misunderstood from both within and without the church. Hopefully that will not happen often in our lives. We will be given individualized and customized challenges to bring us to Christ. For those like me we have to learn to rely solely upon the Lord and not on our own strength.
We must be like Job and say, “The Lord giveth and taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The promise to the faithful is that what we lose will be restored to us many fold if we maintain our integrity.
If we believe in the promise, we can go on with our life.
What do we do with those people who have wronged us? We forgive them. This is probably the most difficult thing to do. We would like to see justice done in this life. When we feel betrayed and taken advantage of, we want to see our sense of justice exercised. The hardest thing to do is leave things in the hand of the eternal lawgiver.
There are two scriptures that we need to remember. “I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.” The other is, “Let the Lord judge between thee and me and reward thee according to thy works.” We thus leave everything to the Lord and it takes the burden from our shoulders. He will judge righteous judgment. We want Him to be fair with us not only in our case, but he also will avenge us of our wrongs. You can be assured of that. I find that this is the most difficult test of our integrity. We cannot let the actions of others determine our eternal salvation.
I hope that you will not let the actions of one individual jeopardize your eternal salvation.
Sincerely,
Your friend in the gospel of Christ."
With my love,
Grandpa
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