Nor Any Manner of -Ites

Today in our Sunday School class we discussed experiences as members of the Church in Utah as opposed to living in a location with relatively few members nearby. Many feel that the experience is better when there aren’t many members and when one is forced to work harder to be a faithful Latter-day Saint.  For example, one sister spoke of having to travel many miles just to do visiting teaching or home teaching, and she suggested that performing sacrifices takes the gospel deeper in the heart.  On the other hand, in Utah even with such close proximity among ward members many still may not try very hard to minister to other ward members.     Also, living where there are few members of the Church around one may stand out more and have more opportunities to stand alone in defending the principles of the gospel.  And having lived several years outside of Utah but most of my life in the state, I can definitely appreciate the feeling that one is more needed in a ward where there are not many members and more callings than people willing to fill them.  And I think I understand the sentiment that it can feel different in a “Utah” ward with packed chapels and more people who are luke warm in their commitment to the Savior.   

               And yet, despite my recognition that there are some natural differences between a “Utah” ward and one outside the state, I think we do ourselves an injustice to speak so broadly about what kind of people members of the Church are in one place versus another.  The gospel is the gospel, and wherever we live we must determine that we will make an keep covenants with the Lord and hold fast to those.  I don’t believe it is easy anywhere to stay true in these latter days.  One sister expressed her frustration because her daughter, a missionary serving in the eastern United States, has told her how rejected she feels by members of the Church there who dismiss her for simply being from Utah.  I know the feeling—even in France when I would tell members I was from Utah it would feel that they would at times dismiss me as uninteresting or less capable because I was just another one from Utah.  But it is not where we are from that should define us, and I am convinced that you will find faithful Saints who love the Lord and serve Him with all their hearts no matter what ward or branch you are in across the world. 

               Some day in the future Saints will come from the four corners of the earth to return to Missouri and build up the waste places of Zion.  At that point we will seek to become a society just like that described in the Book of Mormon when the Nephites who were visited personally by the Savior: “And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.”  There in Zion we will work to become the Lord’s people, not divided into multiple factions but as one people who have made covenants with Him, united because of the love of God among all people.  Mormon described these Nephites in their Zion society in these terms: “There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God” (4 Nephi 1:15, 17).  That is the kind of church we must strive to be—no separate Utah or Idaho or “mission field” Latter-day Saints; rather, were are first and foremost followers of Jesus Christ.