This is a guest post by Hanna Seariac, who recently graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in Classical Studies. She is a MA student at BYU in Comparative Studies and seeks to become a religious author and an apologist for the Church. 

Ex-Mormons often get much wrong about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but something they get right is that the progressive movement in the Church does not reflect the teachings and doctrines of the Church. Progressive Mormonism, not to be confused with members of the Church who happen to identify as liberal or progressive politically, represents a small section of the Church who often do not uphold the doctrinal sexual ethics that exist.

These Progressive Mormons often attack and denounce The Family: A Proclamation to the World, but ignore that it qualifies as doctrine. Proclamations exist to reaffirm doctrine and act as documents to regulate the Church. Not upholding these documents is in direct conflict with the temple recommend interview questions, which ask us if we sustain the leaders of the Church as well as the doctrine that the Church teaches.

Clearly, a document signed by the free will and choice of every member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and First Presidency (including Elder Holland and Elder Uchtdorf) represents doctrine not just because the Church simply states that it does on their website, but it is the unanimous voice of the Lord’s Church.

While the Church can potentially err on policy, asserting that the Church errs on doctrine (i.e. eternal truths) is antithetical to its nature and structure.

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As we ponder the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are dying worldwide from COVID-19, there is one bit of good news from this historically pivotal event:  many of the most pernicious leftist narratives are being destroyed right in front of our eyes.   I always try to see the positive in negative events, and in the long run, there will be positives to take away from this dark and dreary time.

With that in mind, here is a partial list of left-wing narratives that have been completely destroyed in the last few months.

1)The left cares about working people.  The United States is approaching 40 million jobs lost during the pandemic, and the vast majority of people who have lost their jobs are working class and middle class people.   Most of the managerial class and the professional class (and of course government workers) have been able to keep their jobs.  And yet left-wing commentators and politicians want to continue the lockdown indefinitely.  They can barely muster any concern for the unemployed during this period – everything is based on the childish claim that if you want people to be employed you somehow care about the stock market more than lives.

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The scriptures urge us to make our hearts soft, warning of those who are hard hearted.

How is this done?

It might be useful to think of the humble roll, which starts off deliciously soft right out of the oven, but which can become unacceptably hard all too soon.

The secret to soft rolls is simple, yet little practiced.

It turns out flour absorbs and retains moisture much better if the flour is mixed with an equal weight of boiling water. This liquid/flour mix[ref]This mix is referred to as a “water roux” or by the Asian terms tangzhong or yu-dane (湯種) .[/ref] is created using liquid and flour already intended for the recipe.

In the case of the roll, softening part of the flour in this manner will allow the roll to remain soft much longer than rolls created using traditional recipes.

In our lives, we can remain soft-hearted no matter our prosperity if we earnestly seek to serve God and keep God’s commandments. [ref]c.f. Mosiah 18:10, also Mosiah 21: 31-32.[/ref] This will involve serving others, mourning with those who mourn, and comforting those who stand in need of comfort.[ref]c.f. Mosiah 18:9.[/ref]

But there are times when it is easier to bask in our prosperity, with foreseeable results. We become callous and cruel, yet still imagine that we are somehow right with God.

When we, like bits of flour, are immersed in the spiritual/emotional/social equivalent of boiling water, it is an opportunity for us to absorb from these trials a more profound softening of our hearts.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell spoke of this, describing how suffering from leukemia affected him. He wrote, “The Spirit whispered, ‘I have given you leukemia that you might teach my people with authenticity.'”[ref]Neal A. Maxwell, A Disciple’s Life, p. 562.[/ref]

These are trying times for all of us. May we emerge from this time better able to make and honor a covenant to serve God and keep God’s commandments.

My blog post on Come Follow Me: Mosiah 18-24

https://joelsmonastery.blogspot.com/2020/05/come-follow-me-mosiah-18-24.html

7 May 2020 – Salt Lake City News Release

First Presidency Announces Limited Reopening of Temples

In a letter to all Church members, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expressed their gratitude for the efforts of all those who have worked to address the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“With profound gratitude to our Heavenly Father that He has heard our prayers, we rejoice in announcing a careful, phased reopening of temples,” the First Presidency said. “Beginning Monday, May 11, 2020, living husband-and-wife sealing ordinances will be performed in selected temples for members who have been previously endowed.”

Sealings at Selected Temples

In the first phase of temple reopening, temple ordinances will be limited to husband-and-wife living sealings (marriages) for members who are already endowed. This will begin at selected temples in Idaho and Utah (USA) and Germany and Sweden (see list of temples opening at the end of this article). The current status of individual temples can be viewed on each individual temple’s page on Temples.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

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