"When your soul was full of sorrow"[i]
It has been a tough few days for Latter-day Saints,
including me.
I heard the news of the passing of our beloved prophet
President Russell M. Nelson just before I went to bed late Saturday night. It
was about two hours after he died. He was 101, and while we will greatly miss
him, it’s hard to feel sorrow when we already had a great many bonus years with
him. But we will be mourning his loss.
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| President Nelson image found here; Grand Blanc image found here |
So my heart was heavy as I got up Sunday morning. And then I
heard about the attack on the church in Grand Blanc (pronounced Grand Blank),
Michigan, which is horrifying. At this point, several days later, the only
known motive is anti-Mormon hatred.
Latter-day Saints are a tightly connected people. We are
typically just two or three degrees of separation from anyone we meet. We will
know a missionary who served in an area, or know someone who used to live there,
or moved there from where we are. I don’t know those connections yet for Grand
Blanc, but I have seen others online that are connected.
The sense of unsafety while going to church is unsettling. Our ancestors went through some serious
persecution. The state of Missouri had an extermination order, legalizing the murder
of Latter-day Saints back in the 1830s, which wasn’t removed from the books
until a few decades ago. The Saints had been driven from New York, Ohio,
Missouri, and Illinois before crossing the plains to get some peace and safety
in the Rocky Mountains, in a desert region with a huge salt lake, where no one
else had wanted to settle.
This week, the vast majority of responses have been
supportive of us. But there have been the occasional hurtful comments, like,
“It’s good they’re dead; they were going to hell anyway.” Since Jesus Christ is
the only judge, and “he employeth no servant there,” (2
Nephi 9:41) for He cannot be deceived—then to be glad for the death of
people who were worshipping Him on a Sunday is something those commenters will
have to answer to Him for.
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