So there I was on my knees, praying, in a dingy bathroom in a small house, in the sweltering heat of central Brazil. I had arrived on my mission several months before and things were... not going well. The branch of the church in the small, isolated town in which I was serving was in shambles – the recent branch president had been excommunicated and a missionary had been called to take his place. To make matters worse, the missionaries with whom I worked and lived were not working with the dedication that I thought that they should. But the worst of it was that I felt completely useless. All of the other missionaries could not speak English and my inability to speak or understand Portuguese meant that, despite by best intentions, I spent my days as an automaton, following my companion around and wishing that somehow I could make a difference. Around this time that we received a death threat (from the former branch president), and I had to look up the word death threat in a Portuguese-English dictionary to know what it meant. And so a deep depression had settled into my soul in a way which I had never experienced before. One day I just couldn't take it anymore, and so I went into our bathroom to pray, since that was the only place that I could be alone. And so there I am on my knees, praying, and the only thing that I can think to do is look up at the ceiling and say "God are you even there? Do you even know what is going on here?" Immediately, immediately, when I said those words I felt... embraced by God's love. As if I had been hugged by God. And that was it, that was the extent of the experience.
Now in the General Conference version of the story, this is where everything would get immediately better, and I would never doubt or waver again, but that just isn't true. The situation was just as I had left it, I still struggled with depression and feeling useless, and overall it was going to get worse before it would get better. But this experience was a beginning. It was an experience that I could turn to for strength to continue on. It indicated that I had a value as a child of heavenly parents. And it gave me hope that as a child of our heavenly parents, I could contribute to building the kingdom of God in that small part of the world. And so I began.
Today I have been asked to speak on how women and men can work together to build the kingdom of God. I am excited to speak on this topic, because I believe that it is both important and timely. I also hope that many of you will be asked to speak on a similar topic, so that I can hear your thoughts on the subject as well. My premise today is that before we can truly work together to build the kingdom, each of us needs to feel our own value in that kingdom. Each of us needs to feel that our contributions are wanted and needed.
Unfortunately, there are many ways in which we, often inadvertently, make it more difficult for some people to feel their value in Zion. And so I would like to focus my talk today on identifying some of those problems, suggesting how we might avoid them, and throughout asking the question, “what gives us value as women and men in Zion?”
Here's an example to begin with. The actual topic for my talk, taken from the title of a youth curriculum lesson, was "how women and the priesthood can work together to build the kingdom of God," so saying women and the priesthood instead of women and men. Now using men and the priesthood interchangeably is often done in the church colloquially but I think that it is problematic on at least two levels. For one, it seems to equate being a man with holding the priesthood, which I don't believe is actually true. I have been a man my entire life, but I have not always held the priesthood. Additionally, by equating men with the priesthood, the statement seems to suggest that womanhood is the counterbalance to priesthood. But as the endowment ceremony in the temple would suggest, priesthood is separate from either womanhood or manhood. Therefore, womanhood is not an appropriate parallel to the priesthood. Secondly, by using the term “the priesthood” instead of men, we might imply that men who don’t hold the priesthood don’t have a role in building the kingdom. Now the solution in this case, I think, is relatively simple. Just say women and men instead of women and the priesthood.
Before I go further, I first want to acknowledge the place I am speaking from. I cannot speak for the women in our church, because I am not a woman. Nor can I speak for all the men in our church, because I only represent a subset of LDS men. I am a straight, white guy who grew up in the church, in Utah. I received the Melchizedek priesthood, I went on a mission, I am married in the temple, and I have one son and a daughter on the way. Also I love pizza and yes, I do shop in the boys' section in department stores. So that is the specific place that I am speaking from, which is not the place you may be hearing me from, but what I hope to offer is a mini-brainstorming session: thoughts from others (women and men), as well as my own observations and insights. I also hope that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to each of you in the context of your own complexity.
So what gives us value as women or men in Zion? What does it even mean to be a woman or man in Zion? I'm not sure that I have a complete answer, but let me first discuss what I think it is not. Womanhood is not womanliness, neither is manhood manliness. In my mind manliness is the set of characteristics that the nebulous forces of culture have decided describe man as an entire group (either deserved or undeserved), whereas manhood is something more specific about being a man whether or not any of those characteristics actually describe you. And likewise for womanliness. Unfortunately, we sometimes use language that confuses the two, and this can marginalize the very people about whom we are speaking. Here is a hypothetical example. It is true, when we think of populations in general, that men on average are taller than women. Clearly however, there are some exceptions. Now suppose that we had talks in church on Father's Day, etc., in which men were repeatedly praised for how tall they are. "We are so grateful for our tall men who are able to reach things on top of high shelves and can easily find small children in large crowds.” That sort of thing. Now, if that were the case, I would imagine that those of us men who are shorter (I won't name any names) might end up feeling somewhat marginalized by this type of rhetoric, even though it was intended as praise. It probably wouldn't be a great offense, but over time it might create an atmosphere in which our contributions would seem to matter less.
Now for a real-world example. We sometimes hear talks in the church in which women are described as more nurturing than men. Now that is a very nice sentiment to express, and it may even be true on average – just as men are on average taller than women – although I'm not quite sure how someone would go about measuring “nurturing-ness” in the same way. But let's suppose that it is true. Even still, most women just like most men will have times that they are more or less nurturing. But by having such blanket statements said about women, it may only highlight their perceived inadequacies and the ways in which they don't live up to that expectation. In fact, this expectation may even reinforce problematic stereotypes about relationships between women and men. For example, “If Mom leaves for the weekend, she’ll come back and the kids will be starving and the house will be a mess...” This then promotes incorrect assumptions about the capabilities of men as caregivers and also sends the message that we only value women as nurturers. Now is there a way to avoid this problem of speaking about manliness or womanliness in such a way that it may cause some to feel less valuable in the kingdom? I don't know if there is an easy fix, but I think a good place to start is to speak more about individuals than about groups, and to avoid blanket statements wherever possible.
Here is another example from my wise and thoughtful sister-in-law Rebekka. She said, "If there is one thing that I could teach the men of the church, it would be to stop publicly calling their wives (and the women of the church in general), to stop calling them beautiful all the time." Now what did she mean by that? Certainly, she did not mean that the married men of the church should stop complimenting their wives, nor did she mean that we should not describe women as beautiful on occasion. Rather, her point is that by using the word beautiful as our default and most frequent adjective, we are implicitly communicating that we value women in our church primarily for their physical appearance. And that of course fuels all sorts of unhelpful stereotypes which are already projected at us by our culture at large. Now, some of us men might justifiably say that when we say beautiful, we really mean beautiful as an entire person, not just physical beauty. Her rejoinder is, “That is great, but instead of using the word beautiful, why don't we say what we really mean – that we admire a particular woman for her intellect or her eloquence or her decisiveness.” Furthermore, if we compliment the people that we love with specificity, we honor her or him in a deeper way than resorting to generic defaults. So thank you Rebekka for teaching me that important lesson, I am trying to be better.
Let’s discuss another misunderstood idea about what gives us worth as men and women in Zion: I don't believe that we have value exclusively because of the particular roles we may have. Again, unfortunately, there are several ways in which the opposite message may be communicated to some of us. The most obvious way I know is that there are many leadership roles which are unavailable to women because they do not hold the priesthood. I want to acknowledge that this is a serious issue for many people, including many LDS women and men I know. But I do not consider myself to be in a position to address this issue, and so instead I will focus on the ways in which we talk about different roles in the church. For instance, I have noticed that we often hear talks and lessons about how we can be better mothers or fathers or priesthood holders (which is actually one of the reasons that I love our church), but we rarely have lessons on how to be better friends or siblings or adult children or coworkers or neighbors or community members. However, I don't think many of us would want to live in Zion if it were made up of fantastic mothers and fathers, but terrible friends and neighbors. But, if we spend all of our time focusing on motherhood, fatherhood or priesthood, then the implicit message is that anyone who does not have one of those roles is not quite as valuable a member of our community. Again, I don't know that there is an easy fix to this, but maybe a good place to start is not to focus less on motherhood, fatherhood, or priesthood but simply to broaden the scope of the roles and relationships that we speak about to include roles that are not currently dependent on gender or hierarchy. By including friendship and community membership into our discourse, we include a wider swath of our church members. After all, if there is one thing that we are not running out of in this church, it is time spent in lessons and talks.
And I guess this is one of the main points that I'm trying to make today, that the language we use actually matters, and that the result of our words may be very different from what we intend. There are quite a few synapses and a vast ocean of culture in between the thoughts that I formulate and the words that you hear me speak. Even though King Benjamin was speaking in a different context, his words ring true in this one when he said that "we must watch ourselves, and our thoughts, and our words.”
But we still haven't really discussed the question of what does give us a value as women and men in the kingdom of God - we’ve only discussed things which do not. So what does give us value? What does give us worth? Why are our contributions wanted and needed in building the kingdom of God? Honestly, I'm not sure I really know the answer to those questions, but here's a thought. Maybe, the reason we have value in the kingdom is simply because we are the children of the King and Queen of that kingdom. We are the children of a Heavenly Father and Mother. And they love us, always. So in a way, maybe our value is inherent to us, a sort of noble birthright. We do not earn it or deserve it or ask for it; our value comes simply from being who we are. What’s more, we are all imperfect and broken in different ways. But through the grace of Christ we can change and improve. And maybe part of our value comes from that experience of being healed and mended through God’s grace.
Now what about womanhood or manhood? Is there something to celebrate in being a woman or being a man? Well, maybe that celebration comes from realizing that womanhood or manhood is simply an aspect of who we are, an aspect of our identity. And if we have value because we are children of heavenly parents and they love us, then maybe celebrating our womanhood or manhood is a way of celebrating that relationship and celebrating that love. And furthermore, if (as is suggested by the family proclamation) if some aspect of our maleness or femaleness is eternal in some way that I don't completely understand, then maybe celebrating our womanhood or manhood is a way of celebrating some aspect of us that is constant, just as the love of our heavenly parents is constant.
At this point I would like to make a little detour and say a word regarding the transgender members of our community – those who feel that the gender identity of their spirit does not match with the physical body into which that spirit has been placed. Honestly, I don't fully understand the why of your particular situation or how your experience fits in with many of the ideas that I've been discussing today. And I can only imagine what it might be like to experience the world in your shoes. But I do believe that our heavenly parents love you in the richness of your individual complexity. You have value too, and your contributions are also wanted and needed in building Zion.
Returning now - so how CAN we work together as women and men to build the kingdom of God? I have spoken today on the ways in which we might use language to both help and hinder the kingdom. But perhaps there is an even more important gesture. Neylan McBaine highlights this in her book Women at Church. She writes
"I'm convinced goodhearted male leaders are constantly asking
themselves, 'Am I telling women enough how much we love and appreciate them?' Many times the answer is yes...And yet, we are still having problems with women feeling sufficiently heard, respected, and involved. If we adjust the question just slightly, we might get closer to the heart of the problem: 'Are we showing women how much we love and appreciate them?' Better yet...'Are we seeing, hearing, and including women in church in a way that allows them to know we respect them and their ideas?' And there, I believe, is where we have finally asked the right question."
I also think that is the right question, and I think that her question can also serve as a great starting point in thinking how to address the needs of those who feel marginalized in our community, women or men. Here’s the question again: "Are we seeing, hearing, and including women in church in a way that allows them to know we respect them and their ideas?"
As a practical example, my perception has been that people who feel marginalized often do not feel comfortable sharing their ideas in lessons or in meetings. So we might think about restructuring the way we teach or conduct a meeting with that in mind. In that regard, I've been impressed with the way that many of you incorporate small-group work or other activities into your lessons, things which can encourage people who might not feel comfortable speaking out in a large group to express their thoughts and ideas and thereby enrich our community.
Let me conclude. How can we work together as women and men to build the kingdom of God? First, I think we must work to identify and embrace our own value in the kingdom, and then we must speak and listen and act in ways that will encourage others to feel their value and to know that their contributions are wanted and needed. Because at the end of the day, I believe we need everyone in this great venture of ours to build Zion. We need the women and men who are nurturers. We need the women and men who are providers. We need the stay at home mothers and the stay- at-home fathers. We need the women and men who are single or married or divorced or remarried or widowed or remarried again. We need the women and men who are straight or gay, those who are transgender or queer. We need the women and men who feel comfortable in our churches, and we especially need those who do not. We need the women and men who are tall. And yes, we even need the men who are short. And the reason we need everyone is that, to me, building Zion is less about recruiting or transforming people into those with specific characteristics or roles or even belief systems, but rather it is more about the relationship between those people, the way they take care of and respect and love each other, regardless of who that “other” is. Jesus himself said it, "by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love one to another." And I believe that it is only when each of us feels that love in our hearts, when we feel that value in our hearts, when we feel in our hearts that we can contribute, it is only then that the work of building Zion will be truly on its way. I think it is fitting that when the book of Moses describes the people of Zion, before it says that "there was no poor among them" and before it says that "they dwelt in righteousness" and even before it says that they were "of one mind," it says that the people of Zion were "of one heart."
I bear my witness that our Heavenly Parents love each and every one of us because I have felt that love myself. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Bob Rawle
Menlo Park Ward
Menlo Park, CA
July 25, 2015
Now in the General Conference version of the story, this is where everything would get immediately better, and I would never doubt or waver again, but that just isn't true. The situation was just as I had left it, I still struggled with depression and feeling useless, and overall it was going to get worse before it would get better. But this experience was a beginning. It was an experience that I could turn to for strength to continue on. It indicated that I had a value as a child of heavenly parents. And it gave me hope that as a child of our heavenly parents, I could contribute to building the kingdom of God in that small part of the world. And so I began.
Today I have been asked to speak on how women and men can work together to build the kingdom of God. I am excited to speak on this topic, because I believe that it is both important and timely. I also hope that many of you will be asked to speak on a similar topic, so that I can hear your thoughts on the subject as well. My premise today is that before we can truly work together to build the kingdom, each of us needs to feel our own value in that kingdom. Each of us needs to feel that our contributions are wanted and needed.
Unfortunately, there are many ways in which we, often inadvertently, make it more difficult for some people to feel their value in Zion. And so I would like to focus my talk today on identifying some of those problems, suggesting how we might avoid them, and throughout asking the question, “what gives us value as women and men in Zion?”
Here's an example to begin with. The actual topic for my talk, taken from the title of a youth curriculum lesson, was "how women and the priesthood can work together to build the kingdom of God," so saying women and the priesthood instead of women and men. Now using men and the priesthood interchangeably is often done in the church colloquially but I think that it is problematic on at least two levels. For one, it seems to equate being a man with holding the priesthood, which I don't believe is actually true. I have been a man my entire life, but I have not always held the priesthood. Additionally, by equating men with the priesthood, the statement seems to suggest that womanhood is the counterbalance to priesthood. But as the endowment ceremony in the temple would suggest, priesthood is separate from either womanhood or manhood. Therefore, womanhood is not an appropriate parallel to the priesthood. Secondly, by using the term “the priesthood” instead of men, we might imply that men who don’t hold the priesthood don’t have a role in building the kingdom. Now the solution in this case, I think, is relatively simple. Just say women and men instead of women and the priesthood.
Before I go further, I first want to acknowledge the place I am speaking from. I cannot speak for the women in our church, because I am not a woman. Nor can I speak for all the men in our church, because I only represent a subset of LDS men. I am a straight, white guy who grew up in the church, in Utah. I received the Melchizedek priesthood, I went on a mission, I am married in the temple, and I have one son and a daughter on the way. Also I love pizza and yes, I do shop in the boys' section in department stores. So that is the specific place that I am speaking from, which is not the place you may be hearing me from, but what I hope to offer is a mini-brainstorming session: thoughts from others (women and men), as well as my own observations and insights. I also hope that the Holy Spirit is able to speak to each of you in the context of your own complexity.
So what gives us value as women or men in Zion? What does it even mean to be a woman or man in Zion? I'm not sure that I have a complete answer, but let me first discuss what I think it is not. Womanhood is not womanliness, neither is manhood manliness. In my mind manliness is the set of characteristics that the nebulous forces of culture have decided describe man as an entire group (either deserved or undeserved), whereas manhood is something more specific about being a man whether or not any of those characteristics actually describe you. And likewise for womanliness. Unfortunately, we sometimes use language that confuses the two, and this can marginalize the very people about whom we are speaking. Here is a hypothetical example. It is true, when we think of populations in general, that men on average are taller than women. Clearly however, there are some exceptions. Now suppose that we had talks in church on Father's Day, etc., in which men were repeatedly praised for how tall they are. "We are so grateful for our tall men who are able to reach things on top of high shelves and can easily find small children in large crowds.” That sort of thing. Now, if that were the case, I would imagine that those of us men who are shorter (I won't name any names) might end up feeling somewhat marginalized by this type of rhetoric, even though it was intended as praise. It probably wouldn't be a great offense, but over time it might create an atmosphere in which our contributions would seem to matter less.
Now for a real-world example. We sometimes hear talks in the church in which women are described as more nurturing than men. Now that is a very nice sentiment to express, and it may even be true on average – just as men are on average taller than women – although I'm not quite sure how someone would go about measuring “nurturing-ness” in the same way. But let's suppose that it is true. Even still, most women just like most men will have times that they are more or less nurturing. But by having such blanket statements said about women, it may only highlight their perceived inadequacies and the ways in which they don't live up to that expectation. In fact, this expectation may even reinforce problematic stereotypes about relationships between women and men. For example, “If Mom leaves for the weekend, she’ll come back and the kids will be starving and the house will be a mess...” This then promotes incorrect assumptions about the capabilities of men as caregivers and also sends the message that we only value women as nurturers. Now is there a way to avoid this problem of speaking about manliness or womanliness in such a way that it may cause some to feel less valuable in the kingdom? I don't know if there is an easy fix, but I think a good place to start is to speak more about individuals than about groups, and to avoid blanket statements wherever possible.
Here is another example from my wise and thoughtful sister-in-law Rebekka. She said, "If there is one thing that I could teach the men of the church, it would be to stop publicly calling their wives (and the women of the church in general), to stop calling them beautiful all the time." Now what did she mean by that? Certainly, she did not mean that the married men of the church should stop complimenting their wives, nor did she mean that we should not describe women as beautiful on occasion. Rather, her point is that by using the word beautiful as our default and most frequent adjective, we are implicitly communicating that we value women in our church primarily for their physical appearance. And that of course fuels all sorts of unhelpful stereotypes which are already projected at us by our culture at large. Now, some of us men might justifiably say that when we say beautiful, we really mean beautiful as an entire person, not just physical beauty. Her rejoinder is, “That is great, but instead of using the word beautiful, why don't we say what we really mean – that we admire a particular woman for her intellect or her eloquence or her decisiveness.” Furthermore, if we compliment the people that we love with specificity, we honor her or him in a deeper way than resorting to generic defaults. So thank you Rebekka for teaching me that important lesson, I am trying to be better.
Let’s discuss another misunderstood idea about what gives us worth as men and women in Zion: I don't believe that we have value exclusively because of the particular roles we may have. Again, unfortunately, there are several ways in which the opposite message may be communicated to some of us. The most obvious way I know is that there are many leadership roles which are unavailable to women because they do not hold the priesthood. I want to acknowledge that this is a serious issue for many people, including many LDS women and men I know. But I do not consider myself to be in a position to address this issue, and so instead I will focus on the ways in which we talk about different roles in the church. For instance, I have noticed that we often hear talks and lessons about how we can be better mothers or fathers or priesthood holders (which is actually one of the reasons that I love our church), but we rarely have lessons on how to be better friends or siblings or adult children or coworkers or neighbors or community members. However, I don't think many of us would want to live in Zion if it were made up of fantastic mothers and fathers, but terrible friends and neighbors. But, if we spend all of our time focusing on motherhood, fatherhood or priesthood, then the implicit message is that anyone who does not have one of those roles is not quite as valuable a member of our community. Again, I don't know that there is an easy fix to this, but maybe a good place to start is not to focus less on motherhood, fatherhood, or priesthood but simply to broaden the scope of the roles and relationships that we speak about to include roles that are not currently dependent on gender or hierarchy. By including friendship and community membership into our discourse, we include a wider swath of our church members. After all, if there is one thing that we are not running out of in this church, it is time spent in lessons and talks.
And I guess this is one of the main points that I'm trying to make today, that the language we use actually matters, and that the result of our words may be very different from what we intend. There are quite a few synapses and a vast ocean of culture in between the thoughts that I formulate and the words that you hear me speak. Even though King Benjamin was speaking in a different context, his words ring true in this one when he said that "we must watch ourselves, and our thoughts, and our words.”
But we still haven't really discussed the question of what does give us a value as women and men in the kingdom of God - we’ve only discussed things which do not. So what does give us value? What does give us worth? Why are our contributions wanted and needed in building the kingdom of God? Honestly, I'm not sure I really know the answer to those questions, but here's a thought. Maybe, the reason we have value in the kingdom is simply because we are the children of the King and Queen of that kingdom. We are the children of a Heavenly Father and Mother. And they love us, always. So in a way, maybe our value is inherent to us, a sort of noble birthright. We do not earn it or deserve it or ask for it; our value comes simply from being who we are. What’s more, we are all imperfect and broken in different ways. But through the grace of Christ we can change and improve. And maybe part of our value comes from that experience of being healed and mended through God’s grace.
Now what about womanhood or manhood? Is there something to celebrate in being a woman or being a man? Well, maybe that celebration comes from realizing that womanhood or manhood is simply an aspect of who we are, an aspect of our identity. And if we have value because we are children of heavenly parents and they love us, then maybe celebrating our womanhood or manhood is a way of celebrating that relationship and celebrating that love. And furthermore, if (as is suggested by the family proclamation) if some aspect of our maleness or femaleness is eternal in some way that I don't completely understand, then maybe celebrating our womanhood or manhood is a way of celebrating some aspect of us that is constant, just as the love of our heavenly parents is constant.
At this point I would like to make a little detour and say a word regarding the transgender members of our community – those who feel that the gender identity of their spirit does not match with the physical body into which that spirit has been placed. Honestly, I don't fully understand the why of your particular situation or how your experience fits in with many of the ideas that I've been discussing today. And I can only imagine what it might be like to experience the world in your shoes. But I do believe that our heavenly parents love you in the richness of your individual complexity. You have value too, and your contributions are also wanted and needed in building Zion.
Returning now - so how CAN we work together as women and men to build the kingdom of God? I have spoken today on the ways in which we might use language to both help and hinder the kingdom. But perhaps there is an even more important gesture. Neylan McBaine highlights this in her book Women at Church. She writes
"I'm convinced goodhearted male leaders are constantly asking
themselves, 'Am I telling women enough how much we love and appreciate them?' Many times the answer is yes...And yet, we are still having problems with women feeling sufficiently heard, respected, and involved. If we adjust the question just slightly, we might get closer to the heart of the problem: 'Are we showing women how much we love and appreciate them?' Better yet...'Are we seeing, hearing, and including women in church in a way that allows them to know we respect them and their ideas?' And there, I believe, is where we have finally asked the right question."
I also think that is the right question, and I think that her question can also serve as a great starting point in thinking how to address the needs of those who feel marginalized in our community, women or men. Here’s the question again: "Are we seeing, hearing, and including women in church in a way that allows them to know we respect them and their ideas?"
As a practical example, my perception has been that people who feel marginalized often do not feel comfortable sharing their ideas in lessons or in meetings. So we might think about restructuring the way we teach or conduct a meeting with that in mind. In that regard, I've been impressed with the way that many of you incorporate small-group work or other activities into your lessons, things which can encourage people who might not feel comfortable speaking out in a large group to express their thoughts and ideas and thereby enrich our community.
Let me conclude. How can we work together as women and men to build the kingdom of God? First, I think we must work to identify and embrace our own value in the kingdom, and then we must speak and listen and act in ways that will encourage others to feel their value and to know that their contributions are wanted and needed. Because at the end of the day, I believe we need everyone in this great venture of ours to build Zion. We need the women and men who are nurturers. We need the women and men who are providers. We need the stay at home mothers and the stay- at-home fathers. We need the women and men who are single or married or divorced or remarried or widowed or remarried again. We need the women and men who are straight or gay, those who are transgender or queer. We need the women and men who feel comfortable in our churches, and we especially need those who do not. We need the women and men who are tall. And yes, we even need the men who are short. And the reason we need everyone is that, to me, building Zion is less about recruiting or transforming people into those with specific characteristics or roles or even belief systems, but rather it is more about the relationship between those people, the way they take care of and respect and love each other, regardless of who that “other” is. Jesus himself said it, "by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love one to another." And I believe that it is only when each of us feels that love in our hearts, when we feel that value in our hearts, when we feel in our hearts that we can contribute, it is only then that the work of building Zion will be truly on its way. I think it is fitting that when the book of Moses describes the people of Zion, before it says that "there was no poor among them" and before it says that "they dwelt in righteousness" and even before it says that they were "of one mind," it says that the people of Zion were "of one heart."
I bear my witness that our Heavenly Parents love each and every one of us because I have felt that love myself. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Bob Rawle
Menlo Park Ward
Menlo Park, CA
July 25, 2015
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