Alma 33

(April 11, 2015)

                These past several months have been enlightening to me, to be certain.  I really feel an empathy with Zenos and Zenock and the poor people of Ammonihah in a way that I did not before.  I can understand what it is to be isolated from the Church – something so very important and yet, at the same time, something vulnerable to human frailty.  I can understand that pain, and that under those circumstances the alternatives are to abandon hope or to cling closer to Christ.

                I am very grateful to the Church, and to my leaders within the Church.  They are good (though imperfect) people, and I appreciate the many things that they do for me.  But I have learned that while the Church is the Kingdom of God on the Earth and the rightful home of the keys of Priesthood authority, ultimately it is possible to be separated from the Church (even based upon falsehoods) and to at the same time grow closer to Christ.  I might have understood that intellectually at one point, but these months have taught me that lesson spiritually.