My Dad

My Dad bore his testimony in church yesterday, and like always, it was a great testimony.  My Dad is such a great man!  I feel like he doesn't deserve half the things that get thrown his way.  Things are never easy for him but he keeps on going and is still as good and great as ever.

 

This is what he talked about.

 

He began by telling a story about his friends boy leaving the church.  This boy was the kind of boy that wouldn't kill a fly...he would shew it away, but he wouldn't kill it.  Well, at Scout camp, the boys found a rattle snake and wanted to kill it.  This boy asked them not to kill it and to just let it be.  Of course the boys went ahead and killed it and then treated him differently afterwards.

 

 

This boy was not good at sports but the boys always played basketball for scouts.  Like boys at that age, they would never pass him the ball.  He finally was fed up with it one night and said, "I hate this" and started to walk away from the game.  As he was leaving, a boy threw the ball at the back of his head.  The boy never walked back into the church again.

 

My Dad's friend then started talking about how in 3 Nephi that the Church was descending and after reading it over and over, he came to the realization that the Church wasn't descending because people were committing adultery or committing the "big" sins, they were being unkind to each other.  The unkindness was causing the Church to descend.

 

My Dad then talked about how no one wants to go to a church claiming to be the true church and then be treated unkindly.  That is not a true church.  He then talked about the many kind people in our ward and the things they did for our family in the last week while they were getting ready for my brothers wedding.  He named people by name who helped out.  He mentioned Sister Thompson who brought over dinner because she figured my mom didn't have time to make dinner for the family.  Sister Lewis who put the garbage cans in the garage during the wedding so they were out of site and didn't take away from the decorations.  She also brought snacks in during the reception.  Sister Keel offered numerous times to take kids or help with anything.  The Lewis's (the backyard neighbors) cleaned up their yard and did some landscaping to make their backyard nice for the wedding.  There were several others that did kind things.  My dad then said that whether the Book of Mormon was true or not, he wanted to be in a church wherever Marsha Thompson was. 

 

I can't tell it how my dad bore it but it was a very powerful testimony that really made me think about what our church is really about.  It is more than just the doctrine of the church, and really, the doctrine doesn't matter much if you don't live it.

 

I am grateful for my dads testimony, always have been.  I wish I could be as strong as he is.