David Archuleta, the pop star who became world famous after coming in second on American Idol, made a surprising announcement during a Christmas concert in Utah. He is putting his career on hold for two years to become a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of this church are sometimes nicknamed Mormons, and David is a Mormon.

The audience cheered for him as he made his announcement. He explained that no one had asked him to serve a mission. He had felt strongly that this is something he needed to do and he had learned to listen to these types of promptings when they happened. He did not announce where he was going but did say he’d be leaving after the first of the year.

Mormon missions are voluntary. They aren’t required, but many young adult men and women serve them. Men can serve for two years at age 19, and women serve for eighteen months when they are twenty-one. They pay their own way and serve wherever they are needed. Some serve in their own countries, but others go to foreign lands. During their time, they learn the language of their mission and live as the natives do, which means they sometimes live very primitively. They follow very strict rules, going to bed early, getting up early, and living on a tight budget. There is no dating and music and books are limited to a strict list of religious media. They spend nearly all their time teaching about religion, finding people to teach, studying their religion, or serving others in need. The men wear suits and the women wear dresses.

Why would any young adult want to live like this—and pay for the privilege—at a time most young people are dating, going to school, starting careers, or just having fun? They do it because they love Jesus Christ and want to share what they know about Him. They understand how God has blessed them and how being a Mormon has affected their lives and they want others to have those same blessings.

Although they aren’t paid for their work in money, there are other rewards for serving as a missionary. Missionaries develop a great deal of self-discipline because of the very strict rules they follow. Because they are assigned to a companion they room with and spend all their time with, and because those companions are regularly rotated, they learn to get along with all sorts of people and to adjust to being with another person all the time, a skill that is great preparation for marriage and parenthood. They learn to budget and to live inexpensively, as well as to take care of themselves and their homes. They develop leadership skills and learn to be comfortable meeting and talking to strangers. All these things make them valuable students, employees, and spouses when they return.

Spiritually, having a few years to focus exclusively on God and Jesus Christ is an amazing opportunity. Very few of them will ever again be able to give so much attention to their spiritual development. They learn the gospel extremely well, memorize scriptures, learn how to explain their beliefs, and strengthen their testimonies. They become comfortable talking about Jesus Christ.

How would it affect your life if you were to—at your own expense—spend two years teaching others about Jesus Christ or doing volunteer work under very strict rules. How would it make you different from your peers? David Archuleta is about to find out.

by Jessica

Let us here observe, that three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation:

First, the idea that he actually exists.

Secondly, a correct idea of his character, perfections, and attributes.

Thirdly, an actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing is according to his will.

For without an acquaintance with these three important facts, the faith of every rational being  must be imperfect and unproductive; but with this understanding it can become perfect and  fruitful, abounding in righteousness, unto the praise and glory of God the Father, and the Lord  Jesus Christ (Lecture 3 of Lectures on Faith).

Faith is the most important thing that a man or woman can have in life. A faith in themselves, in mankind’s ability to do what’s right, and more importantly in the Lord Jesus Christ and his church.

Most of the articles I write come from experiences that I have had in my life. The reason is I feel that my experiences have taught me a lot and I want to share those experiences, in hopes that the reader can relate to them. The most profound experience of my life is when I was in 11th grade. I have a strong love for the theater, so even though I did not become a cast member, I often worked with the stage hands. That year’s main production was a show called “Children of Eden.” It’s a basic reenactment of different stories in the Bible, starting from the time of Adam, to the story of Noah and his Ark.

After I had opened the curtain for the beginning act, I hung around on the side of the stage and watched the play from there. The first story that they reenacted was the story of Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel were two sons of Adam and Eve, who were born after they left the Garden of Eden. Cain was a worshiper of Satan, while Abel had a strong love of God. As they reenacted in the play, Cain and Abel were out in the fields alone. Cain was jealous of Abel, and hated him. The more they talked, the more that Cain grew angry towards Abel, to the point where Cain slew his brother.

When they acted this out, I was on the side of the stage watching it all play out. After Cain slew his brother, the Lord appeared.

And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground (Genesis 4:8–10).

The actor who was playing the Lord spoke that line and had such a sad and disappointed look on his face, that it was hard not to be hit emotionally. I began to think about the Lord, and about  how hurt he must feel when He sees us doing things that hurt ourselves or others. It was then, in that moment that I thought of the Lord as a Father in pain, and not just a person that I’d read about in the scriptures, that I realized how strongly my belief in Him was.

As I stood there, shaking and crying quietly to myself, I thought more and more about the Lord. My faith in him grew so much, in that short amount of time, because I thought of him as a Father whom I knew and loved. From that point on, I strive to think of him as that, as a loving Father that I can talk to whenever I need him.

Living up in a cabin on my own, can be scary some nights. But on those nights, when I feel scared and alone, I lie in my bed and talk to the Lord, like I’m talking into a cell phone. I tell him about my day, about my worries, about how I feel and what I need help with. Having a personal relationship with the Lord means seeing him as a Father, not as an incomprehensible spirit in the clouds. We need to know that we can turn to him whenever we are in need.

I’m reading a popular book for older kids and teens right now to review and it’s a great book except that the author uses God’s sacred name as a swear word over and over again. It isn’t essential to the story or even the character. She could just as easily use another term to show she’s upset.

There are a couple of things I have in mind as I’m reading and dealing with this author’s decision. First, using swear words is lazy. I’m a writer, which means words are my business. I feel that if I can’t think of a more interesting word than one any six-year-old could blurt out to show strong emotion, I’m not much of a writer. A wordsmith, which is what a writer is, should be able to show those emotions in more creative ways.

In your own life, this is also true. Using a swear word is just lazy. I was teaching a group of children about why we shouldn’t swear one day and one child said swearing made him feel all grown up. Another child, though, pointed out that the other day his two-year-old brother said a swear word. Swearing isn’t grown-up. The truth is that it’s childish. Kids first say swear words because of the shock value. They like getting people all excited because they said a bad word. Well, that’s understandable if you’re six years old, but it’s pretty sad to get it from a teenager. Teenagers know there are better ways to get attention. In the long run, swearing never helps, but it can hurt. It becomes a habit that is hard to break and it can keep you from getting jobs or cause some people to be uncomfortable around you, the same way some people won’t read an author who uses swear words—they’ve lost money for no good reason. It’s so much better to get your attention for your talents or character than to get it for saying a word a baby can say. In the eternal scheme of things, that swear word won’t do anything good.

Of course, a more important reason is that it’s incredible mean to use the name of someone you love as a swear word. Would you want your name turned into a swear word people yelled when they were mad? It’s disrespectful. If you love God and Jesus Christ, don’t treat their names disrespectfully. Names are important. They become a part of who we are. The way we use another person’s name tells others what we think of them. When we change someone’s name a little bit to make it an insulting term, we tell people we don’t love or respect that person. When we turn the name into a swear word, we do the same.

God deserves better from us. He’s given us everything we have that is worth having. He’s there when no one else is, He listens when no one else will, and He loves us when no one else is willing to. He’s more than earned our love and our respect and that includes using His name in a loving and respectful way.

Jesus Christ has also done more for us than we can ever imagine. So much pain and suffering and sacrifice just for us! He deserves to have His name spoken with sacredness and love, not with anger or casualness.

If you’ve gotten addicted to swearing, how do you stop? Some teenagers pick a new word—something silly and creative—and say it over and over. I knew one who used to yell “watermelon rinds” when he got mad. It was such a silly term it even lightened his anger because people would giggle when he said it. That made him laugh, too and improved his mood.

Ask your friends to help you stop swearing. They can remind you every time you do it, and while that’s annoying, it does help. Another method some teens use is to put a dime into a jar every time they swear. It gets expensive after a while, so they stop. On the plus side, when you’re over swearing, you have some money saved up to do something that is more fun than swearing—but don’t spend it until you are sure you don’t swear anymore.

Here’s a video about a teen who started a club for people who don’t swear. A support group can really help when you’re trying to overcome a bad habit.

Sometimes, teenagers who have been taught that God expects us to live by high standards and to condemn sins wonder how they should react to people who live in different ways. What about tolerance?

Mormon leaders have talked about this a lot. Mormon is an informal nickname some people use when they’re talking about members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most Mormons actually call themselves LDS (Latter-day Saints), not Mormons, although the Church has accepted that Mormon is more popular among people who aren’t Mormon. It refers to the Book of Mormon, which Mormons use along with the Bible.

One Mormon leader, Russell M. Nelson, explains that there is a difference between tolerance and tolerating. Knowing that difference can help us figure out how to live in a very diverse world. He suggests we look at Jesus’ life to help us understand how we should react to people who live lives we know are immoral.

When I read the New Testament, one of the things I notice is that Jesus didn’t just hang out with other Christians. He had a lot of friends and he spent a lot of time with people who didn’t live the commandments or who were considered inferior by others. I notice that he treated these people with respect.

For instance, most people in his time wanted nothing to do with Samarians. But Jesus intentionally traveled through Samaria and stopped to share the gospel with a Samarian woman at a well. He treated her with dignity and she responded by becoming a missionary for the gospel.

We can strengthen others by standing for truth and rigteousness.

You might remember the story about the woman everyone wanted to stone because she had sinned. They brought her to Jesus, hoping, no doubt, He would be shocked and horrified by her sin and maybe even help with—or at least approve—the stoning. What did He do instead? He suggested that the person in the group who had never sinned throw the first stone. Of course, He was the only person who fit that description, but He had no desire to stone her. Once the others, embarrassed, had left, Jesus spoke to her kindly, telling her He was not going to pass final judgment on her.

Even though He sent her on her way, it is really important to notice what else He did. He told her not to sin anymore. He didn’t say, “It’s her life. I need to be tolerant of how she chooses to live it.” What she had done was a sin and He made sure she understood that. However, He wasn’t willing to kill her over it or decide how she would be judged at the end of her life. By telling he she had sinned, but sending her away with a commandment to stop, He gave her a chance to repent, to change her life before she died and faced final judgment.

Jesus never did just accept sin because it was the politically correct thing to do. When He saw sin, He put a stop to it. He cleared the temple. He spoke up even to political leaders and powerful community people. He did not tolerate sin. But He was tolerant, in that He treated people who sinned with dignity. He could love them as people without accepting their sins. He didn’t say “You have a right to live any way you want, even if it hurts you and even if it hurts others.”

There is a difference between the sin and the sinner. You’ve probably heard people say we must condemn the sin, but love the sinner. This is what Jesus did.

Some sins hurt other people and some only hurt the sinner directly (although all of society suffers when sin is in the world) but we know we can’t just let people do whatever they want to do because it’s “their life.” The reason we have laws is because we understand our country works better when we set standards and make people live by them. The reason parents have rules is because it is their job to set standards and to protect their children.

When you were little, your parents didn’t let you cross the street alone because they knew it would put you into physical danger. Today, they might have rules about coming home at a certain time or even about what kinds of friends you can have. They aren’t trying to ruin your fun. They are trying to keep you safe. Sometimes they are keeping you physically safe, but other times, they are keeping you morally safe. God is that kind of parent.

The thing is that this life is only a small part of your entire life. The longest parts of your life happened before you were born, when you lived with God and started becoming who you are now, and the time after you die. After you die, you’ll live forever, and how you live depends a lot on the choices you make today. Jesus taught over and over that there will be a judgment day when the sins we don’t’ repent of will be punished. He said that only people who kept His commandments would get to be with God after death. Your parents are trying their best to help you live in a way that will allow you to live with God someday. That means they sometimes make rules that are protecting your eternal life.

So how do you apply all this when you’re out in the world surrounded by people who are living lives you know are wrong? Let’s look at a few examples and wonder how Jesus would handle it.

One thing Mormons do is to make it clear that temptations and behavior aren’t the same thing. We can’t choose what we are tempted by or inclined towards. We can choose how we act. An alcoholic who is still drinking is committing a sin. If he stops drinking, but still craves alcohol, he is not sinning—as long as he doesn’t take a drink. He can control the actions, not the cravings. Homosexual tendencies are not a sin; homosexual behavior is. We can be kind and respectful when we are with people who are homosexuals because they are God’s children and therefore deserving of respect. We don’t have to respect their sins, however, nor do we have to encourage them. Jesus didn’t and so we shouldn’t. We may have friends who smoke and we will love them and treat them kindly, but we don’t have to let them smoke around us. We can love our friends who drink, but we don’t have to—and must not—serve alcohol at our parties just to “prove” we are tolerant.

If you had friends who were doing things you knew was very dangerous—dating an abusive boyfriend, for instance, or drinking, or going into dangerous neighborhoods–you would try your best to stop them. Spiritual danger is more serious than physical danger. You can show love to a person and treat him or her with respect while not respecting those dangerous choices.

At school and in your daily activities, you will meet a lot of people who live in ways you know are wrong. You don’t have to stay at a party where teens are drinking just to show you are tolerant. You don’t even have to tell them they are welcome to live that way. You do have to treat them kindly, help them when they are in trouble, and be respectful of them as people—but you don’t have to respect their sins.

Next time, we’re going to talk about tolerance in terms of religion—how do we live in a religiously diverse world?

There are a lot of people trying to convince Mormons the Book of Mormon Musical on Broadway is actually very nice to Mormons and very sweet. If you’ve read any reviews, you probably realized that is not true. Not only is it not nice to Mormons, it is also not nice to Mormon missionaries or religious missionaries of any religion. What’s more, it’s not very nice to young people.

Mormon missionaries are usually 19-21 years old. By treating them as stupid and incompetent, it leaves the idea that young adults aren’t mature enough to do anything important, to be smart, or to make a contribution in the world.

In the musical, two young missionaries are sent to Uganda, in Africa, to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, they learn their training is no help when they face the poverty and hardships there. One of them doesn’t even really know anything about his religion, so he just makes up things, using Star Wars and Lord of the Rings mythology as if it were the Book of Mormon teachings.

Now, here’s where they show they don’t know how to do their homework. Mormons probably have the best youth education program around. Studies show Mormon teens can intelligently discuss their religion better than kids from any other religion. If you’ve ever gone to church with a Mormon friend, you can probably guess why that is. Not only do they attend a basic worship service aimed mostly at adults, so it isn’t watered down into feel-good religious teachings, but they also speak in those meetings. Anyone twelve and older can be asked to give a sermon, which Mormons call talks. You see, Mormons are a lay church. That means everyone is a volunteer. Since the bishop (like a lay pastor) has a family and a regular non-church job, he doesn’t give a sermon every week. Instead, two adults give talks, and the teenagers also speak once a year or more. If there are enough teens, there are teen speakers every week. If not, they are assigned periodically throughout the year.

Giving a talk means the teens have to study the assigned topic in order to write their own talk. In addition, they are often asked to teach their youth classes, which requires a lot of study and preparation.

Then there are the classes. Every Sunday, teens attend the basic worship service, a Sunday School class that focuses on the scriptures in a four year rotation (two years are spent on the Bible, one on the Book of Mormon, and one on Church History and the Doctrine and Covenants) and one Young Men or Young Women class. This last class is often more focused on practical application of Christian living.

Every weekday morning during the school year, Mormon teens study the gospel in an academic-style religion class, usually held very early in the morning before school. In addition, they have a weeknight activity where they put gospel principles into actual practice. For instance, if they learned about service on Sunday, they might do a service project on Wednesday. If they learned to dress modestly on Sunday, Wednesday might be devoted to learning how to sew modest skirts. Then there are weekend activities, youth conferences, and spiritual camps.

If that isn’t enough, each family teaches the gospel on Monday nights to their own families, with family members taking turns doing the teaching. They have a daily scripture study as a family and regular prayers.

Once they finish high school they attend the academic-style seminary, where they study the gospel in great depth most days. These are often held on or near college campuses.

Before leaving on a mission, a young man or woman must be interviewed and shown to know his religion and to be living it. He attends training before he goes.

Does it seem likely to you a Mormon nineteen-year-old is going to get to Africa not knowing the difference between the Book of Mormon or Bible and Star Wars? Just a few minutes of homework would have told the creators of the show that they were on the wrong track. Very few religions put their children, teens, and young adults through such rigorous training. Not only do they have to have read their scriptures all the way through multiple times, but they spend more time studying and practicing their religion than do most people.

Mormons trust their young adults with the very important work of teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even a three-year-old can be asked to give a talk to other children and by the time they are in college, they are considered mature and responsible enough to do the most important work there is–testifying of Jesus to the world. The creators of the musical seem to think young adults are only silly kids who can’t do important work properly, can’t know what they believe, and can’t be trusted to share Christ’s gospel. Othewise, they wouldn’t have portrayed them as people who know nothing. Whether you’re Mormon or not, if you’re a teenager or young adult, you should be offended by this attitude.

The musical gets a whole lot more wrong than just the missionaries or even the Mormons. Next article we’ll talk about how they get Christianity wrong in general.

The other day we talked about the thirteenth Article of Faith. This is one of thirteen things Mormons believe. The list was written by Joseph Smith, the first Mormon prophet. Here is the entire thirteenth Article of Faith:

“We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

Mormon teens have a theme this year and this year’s theme is I Believe. It’s focus is on this Article of Faith. Since it’s the longest one, it gives the teens a lot to work on. In the last article we talked about honesty, being true to yourself and your beliefs, and being chaste. The next item in the list is to be benevolent.

We don’t talk a lot about benevolence these days. You might find the word on a vocabulary test, but we don’t use it much. It means to be kind, compassionate, and caring. Benevolence is talked about in another part of this Article of Faith, where it says we believe in doing good to all men.

As a teenager, you have a lot of chances to do good to the people around you and to be benevolent. You’re surrounded by teenagers who are lonely or who have difficult lives. There are teenagers in your world who are hungry, or scared, or struggling to get through their classes. There are teenagers who don’t know Jesus Christ and teenagers who long for someone to listen and understand when they talk about their confusion over the world.

No one teenager can fix all the problems or help all the people who need help, but one teenager can make a huge difference. By choosing a few people, you can change that person’s world. When that person’s world is changed, it often changes other lives, too. You can’t tell how many lives will be changed because you made a small change in someone else’s life.

It isn’t just teenagers who need your help, either. Do you know a younger child who needs a mentor—someone to be a good example and to make sure they don’t grow up and land on a dangerous path? Do you know an elderly person who needs a cheerful young friend to drop by for a visit every now and then? Do you have a teacher at school, home, or church who could use a compliment about her teaching?

What about your own family? Could your parents benefit from a little benevolence? Without a doubt, they can. Parents do a lot of things teens don’t see or appreciate until they’re adults. It’s a tough job, but one kind word or act of service from their child can make everything so much easier. Why wait until you’re an adult to thank your parents for something they’ve done? It will mean even more if you do it today.

The next belief Mormon teens are working on in this Article of Faith is virtue. Virtue is another word that doesn’t get talked about much. Being virtuous, in a religious sense, means to live the way Jesus Christ taught us to live. It covers all the other things in this Article of Faith. A virtuous person won’t watch immoral movies or listen to music that has inappropriate words. A virtuous person puts down a book and gets rid of it as soon as she realizes it is not morally clean. Being virtuous requires us to be kind to others and to keep the commandments of God. Really, it means acting the way you’d act if Jesus were in the room watching you—which He is.

In the next article, we’ll talk about the last part, based on something Paul said in the New Testament of the Bible.

Last post, we talked about a teenager named Joseph Smith, who prayed to find out which church to join and to know what was true. He got a rather unexpected response—God and Jesus came in person to answer his prayer.

The Bible promises us that if we ask God for wisdom, God will tell us what we want to know. That scripture, found in James 1:5, is the one that prompted Joseph Smith to pray for an answer, but the promise is for all of us. Anyone can go to God and ask which church to join and to find out what is true. However, we probably won’t get a personal visit from God or Jesus Christ. So how do we pray and what will probably happen when we do?

When I was young, I was taught to recite prayers that were written by someone else. When I started looking into Mormonism, the teachers, my new friends, and the missionaries taught me that prayer should be a conversation from my heart. They suggested I just talk to God. They did offer a pattern for prayer that I should follow, but the exact words of the body of my prayer were to be what was in my heart.

The basic pattern is very simple. You begin as you would begin any conversation—greet God by name and title. “Dear Heavenly Father” or “My beloved Father in Heaven” or some other respectful greeting will do just fine.

Next, take some time to think about all the blessings God has given you. Thank him for those things, naming them specifically. This is not only courteous and thoughtful but it helps us realize God is really in our lives, involved and paying attention to our needs.

Now it’s time to ask your questions or to request help, if you have any questions or requests. (If not, just skip this step.) It’s here that you will ask God about which church to join. There are some things you need to do first though. God likes us to take some responsibility for the things we need. So in your first prayer, you might want to instead ask God to help you find resources for the information you need or to be led to the right churches to research. Then, after you’ve researched some churches, regularly praying to be alert to truth, choose one you think might be right. Explain to God why you’ve chosen that church and ask Him to confirm or correct your choice.

When you close your prayer, end by saying, “I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.” Prayers come to God through Jesus.

Okay, now is the hard part. Most people finish up their prayer and then jump up and go to bed or run off to do something else. What’s wrong with that? When you talk to someone, how do you feel if they talk and talk and then run off without letting you say a single word? You get pretty mad, right? It’s rude and, if they were asking you a question, it is pretty silly not to stop and listen for your answer.

You don’t want to be rude to God and if you want Him to answer your prayer, you have to wait for His answer. You have to act like a person who has faith, who trusts God to answer. Not waiting for an answer suggests you didn’t really expect one. Some people think they can ask that question and then a member of the true church will immediately walk up to them and start telling them about their church and they can accept that as their answer.

That does happen sometimes, but usually it doesn’t. Instead, you have to stay on your knees and wait for an answer.

What will the answer look like? There are several ways an answer might come to you. Most of the time, if you offered God the correct choice, you’ll feel peace and security, perhaps a warmth in your heart, a feeling of rightness. Some people will try to tell you that you can’t pray to know what is true because you won’t know who answered you—God or Satan. But remember, God promised He would answer our prayers. I trust God to keep His promises. I also believe God can do anything at all, so I believe He can answer my prayers in a way I can recognize.

Satan cannot bring true peace or joy, so if you’re feeling those things, you know they are from God. If you pray and you feel confused or uneasy, it is likely you are on the wrong track and should keep looking for the true church.

Another way you might get an answer is to feel an answer in your mind. Thoughts will come clearly in your mind and you will understand they are from the Holy Ghost and not from yourself. This can be harder to recognize and it can take time and practice to know the difference between your own thoughts and the teachings of the Holy Ghost. The more often you pray and the more often you try to listen for promptings from the Holy Ghost, the better you will get at recognizing the Holy Ghost’s “voice.” (Remember, this is not an actual voice, just an impression in your mind.)

Finally, once in a great while, you’ll hear an actual voice. Usually this is because it’s an emergency. For instance, once I was driving my children to a class when a voice said, “Pull off the road right now.” I immediately pulled over and at that moment a semi truck swerved into my lane without warning, right where I would have been. A voice was needed then to make sure I paid attention, since there was no time for me to decide it was the Holy Ghost. Normally, however, it is the feeling or the thought that gives us our answer.

Why doesn’t God just use a regular voice so we’d be sure of the answer? The Old Testament shows us it isn’t how God does it. He wants us to be quiet and listen. Read the story of Elijah, who needed to listen to God:

“11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” (See 1 Kings 19.)

So what you’re listening for is that still, small voice, because that’s where Elijah found God.

God loves you with all His heart. He wants you to find the truth—it is part of the quest He sent you on when He sent you to earth. While you have to do the legwork yourself, He is standing by waiting for you to come to Him with your decision and to tell you if you’re on the right track or if you need to switch to a new path. He is ready to guide you during the search.

So, as you start your quest, take some time to explain to God what you’re doing and why. Ask Him to help you out so the true church comes into your path during the quest. While you’re searching, ask Him to keep the Holy Spirit with you so you’ll know whether or not you’re hearing truth.

To have the Holy Spirit with you, you must be living a moral life. He can’t be where sin is. It’s true, of course, that you may not entirely know what is moral and what isn’t yet, but the Holy Spirit can even help you with that. When you do something, take a moment to see how things feel. If you feel a sense of evil or immorality around you, stop or leave. If you feel peaceful and spiritual, even in a fun secular setting, you’re on the right track.

Listen to good music. Wear modest clothing. Don’t get into immoral situations with your dates. Obey your parents. Be kind and don’t listen to hate-filled speech from others. All these things can help you to keep the spirit around you.

Next, we’ll find out how to investigate a religion you’re interested in. Then we’ll talk about what to do if you pray and don’t get an answer right away. In the meantime, start talking to God and getting to know Him better.

In the last article we pretended we had a chance to enter a game show that assigned you a special quest. You could guess the quest or you could be told what it was and how to solve it but the prize was the same. Obviously, you’d want to be told what to do.

Finding a church to join is like a quest. You can just guess which church is true, but that’s pretty dangerous. If you’re going to commit to a religion, you want to be sure it’s the right one. The only way to know for sure which church is the true church is to ask God.

Today, we’re going to learn about a  teenager who did just that. We’ve talked about him before, but we’re talking about him today as an ordinary teenager who wanted some answers. He was fourteen when he started to worry about which church to join. He wasn’t alone in this, though. All around him, people were worrying about which church they ought to join. His area was suddenly filled with ministers and pastors holding revivals and competing for new converts. Everyone was talking about religion, arguing about it, worrying about it. People went from one revival to another, trying to figure out which church they liked best.

Joseph Smith, the teenager in our story, was just like the others. His mother and siblings were all attending these revivals and he went with them. His father didn’t attend, not believing that was the best way to choose a church. He preferred to study quietly at home for now.

Joseph went and his family seemed to be deciding on one particular religion, but Joseph just couldn’t be sure. He thought that religion sounded pretty good, but he felt like it was such an important decision and he didn’t want to make the wrong choice.

The problem was that every minister said he was teaching God’s truth and yet, each minister taught something different. Sometimes it was just little differences, but sometimes they were big differences. Joseph Smith felt that God would have one set of truths, not lots of conflicting ones. After all, the Bible says, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14:33, King James translation of the Holy Bible.) Conflicting information was confusing.

But how was a person, especially a teenager, supposed to figure out who was right? While he was trying to decide, he started reading the Bible. One day he found a verse that caused him to stop what he was doing and to think about the problem in a whole new way. This verse was in the New Testament and was written by James, whom some people think is Jesus’ half-brother. The verse says:

5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.  

 6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed (James 1:5-6.)

This made complete sense to Joseph Smith. People might lie to him or they might be mistaken, but God knew what was true and he wouldn’t lie. Joseph Smith had been raised to trust God, so he felt this was the solution to his problem.

He decided to go into the woods near his home and put this promise to the test. He wanted to be alone and he lived in a typical small home filled with parents and siblings. He also wanted to pray aloud, something he’d never done before. He went into the woods and knelt down and prayed.

Now, if you decide to put this to the test yourself, you probably aren’t going to get the results he did, but this was a special situation because God had plans for Joseph, so His answer had to be bigger than usual. First I’ll tell you what happened to Joseph. Then I’ll tell you what you will probably experience when you give your own prayer.

When Joseph prayed, Satan tried to stop him from continuing. Satan, like God, knew the plan and didn’t want it to happen. Once that ended, a light appeared in the air above Joseph. He saw two personages in the light. One was God and one was Jesus. He knew this only because God pointed to the other personage and said it was His Son, Jesus Christ, and that Joseph must listen to Him.

Jesus explained that Joseph Smith must not join any of the churches then in existence because none of them completely taught the truth. They had pieces of the truth, but none of them had the entire truth or the authority to carry out the complete program.

Why not? After Jesus died, His apostles ran the Church, but they eventually died or were killed. Because most of the people were more anxious to kill Jesus’ leaders than to listen to them, God withdrew His authority from the earth for a time. The small number of Christians remaining were very brave and did their best to keep things going but it’s hard to keep things going in a straight line without a prophet.

Even before the apostles died, various church groups were falling into apostasy. The apostles wrote many letters trying to straighten out false doctrine that developed. When they were gone, there was no one with that authority. And to make it worse, sometimes new issues came up and there was no way to find out what God wanted them to do about those things, so they had to guess. Over time, people didn’t agree on those guesses and they’d break away and start a new Christian church. Eventually there were a lot of churches all teaching different things and none of them held the whole truth because they’d all pieced together doctrine from other religions or what they thought the Bible meant.

God told Joseph to wait, so he did. Eventually, an angel named Moroni was sent to help prepare Joseph to restore the Church to what Jesus had established.

In the meantime, though, Joseph was a teenager trying to decide what church to join. The solution he chose is the same one you can choose, because that promise from James wasn’t just for Joseph. It was also for you.

Next post, I’ll tell you how to pray, in case you don’t yet know how, and what to expect from your prayer, since God and Jesus probably won’t come visit you in person.

You’re a nice person and you like to respect the standards and beliefs of all your friends. So now you have a Mormon friend and you can see she belongs to a strict religion, but you’re not sure what the rules are. Christmas is coming and you’re wondering if you can invite her to your Christmas party, give her a gift or ask if she wants to go caroling.

Mormon teens celebrate the birth of

Yes, Mormons celebrate Christmas. Mormon beliefs include accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and so they celebrate His birth. They do a lot of spiritual things to celebrate, but most Mormon families also do the fun stuff associated with the more secular celebration. They’re just asked not to let that part become more important than the spiritual parts.

This means if you’re having a Christmas party, you can invite your Mormon friend. Mormons do go to parties—in fact, most of them are pretty big fans of parties, but they do have a few rules about the kinds of parties they will go to, especially if they’re teenagers. Here are the rules so you’ll know how to prepare:

Refreshments:

Mormon teens don’t drink alcohol, use drugs, or smoke. They don’t go to teen parties where people are doing those things, either, especially since it’s illegal, but also because they aren’t comfortable in that environment. If that’s the kind of party you have, don’t invite your Mormon friend because you’ll put her in an awkward position—but you might ask her to show you how to plan a different type of party one day so you can decide if her kind is more fun. You might be surprised.

Mormon teens don’t drink coffee or regular tea. (Herbal teas are okay, as long as there is no real tea in it.) They do drink sodas. Some Mormons choose not to drink sodas with caffeine, so ask your friend if you’re not sure. They can also drink other things, like juice or milk.

Music and Dancing:

Mormon teens are careful about the kinds of music they listen to. They can listen to most of the popular music but they try to avoid music with lyrics that send a bad message or music that stirs up the wrong kinds of feelings.

Your Mormon friend probably has a booklet called For the Strength of Youth. This book explains the moral standards Mormon teenagers try to live up to. You can ask your friend for a copy or read it online.

Read For the Strength of Youth.

This booklet will help you figure out what your friend is comfortable with at a party. The booklet talks about music and says:

“Choose carefully the music you listen to. Pay attention to how you feel when you are listening. Don’t listen to music that drives away the Spirit, encourages immorality, glorifies violence, uses foul or offensive language, or promotes Satanism or other evil practices.”

Give some thought to the music you’ll be playing at your party. There are a lot of great songs that meet those standards. Your Mormon friend doesn’t expect you to only play Christian music, but do listen to the words of the songs you are planning to play to see what they’re really saying. Then choose the ones that won’t offend anyone. There are so many choices you won’t have trouble finding moral music that is fun for everyone else. Your friend will probably have some you can borrow, as well.

Mormons are allowed to dance. In fact, most congregations hold regular free dances for their teens and their teenagers’ friends. Before going to them, you have to meet with a church leader for a few minutes and learn the rules. You’ll have to agree to obey them and you’ll get a little card that says you’ve promised to do that. The card lets you into the dances. If you attend a few, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what kind of party Mormons like. Just like everything else, though, there are standards for the dancing your Mormon friend will do. Here’s what For the Strength of Youth says:

“Dancing can be fun and can provide an opportunity to meet new people. However, it too can be misused. When dancing, avoid full body contact with your partner. Do not use positions or moves that are suggestive of sexual behavior. Plan and attend dances where dress, grooming, lighting, lyrics, and music contribute to a wholesome atmosphere where the Spirit of the Lord may be present.”

The secret, then, is to imagine God or Jesus at your dance as a chaperone. If you think your friend would still be willing to be there with God in the room, it’s probably okay. After all, Mormons believe the Holy Ghost is always with them as long as they are where the Holy Spirit is comfortable being. If the Holy Ghost flees, they do, too.

And speaking of chaperones…your Mormon teen will expect a chaperone to be present. It’s likely her parents will call your parents to make sure your parents will be monitoring the party.

It really makes a party easier when responsible adults are watching. How many times have you found yourself in an awkward situation at a party and wished there was an adult to stop it so you wouldn’t have to? When a parent is around, kids are not likely to drink, be destructive, or try to put you in an uncomfortable moral situation. You will be free to have fun without worrying that someone will get carried away and ruin everything.

Mormon teens have high moral standards, so they aren’t going to want to go to a party where most people are kissing. They prefer to keep things light—dance, eat, talk, play games…it’s safer and really, it’s more fun. You get to know a lot more people when you don’t pair off in a dark corner all night. The best way to keep that from happening is to have a plan for the evening. Keep things moving along and when people start wandering off on their own, get them back into the mix by announcing a new game or activity.

If you’ve never had the kind of party we’re talking about here, gather up a few Mormon friends, or other kids with high standards, and ask them to teach you how to do it. The planning is more fun in a group and the party will be more fun, too. Your friends can help you co-host it and watch for problems.

Now for the other parts of Christmas:

It’s perfectly okay to give your Mormon friend a Christmas gift, but don’t spend a lot of money on it. A lot of Mormon teens like simple gifts or even gift certificates—not to a store, but for time with you or a service from you. Be creative. Offer to do a little sewing if she can’t sew and you can. Give a book of coupons for help with algebra or a special outing in which you let her choose the activity,

You could even give her a gift certificate that says you will go to church with her three times. She’d rather have that than anything else, and it won’t cost you a dime. (Mormons don’t pass a collection plate, even.) You wouldn’t have to join or commit to anything but a chance to learn more about her beliefs and an important part of her life you might not know too much about.

So, Christmas is coming and your Mormon friend is celebrating with a  mixture of hymns, uplifting stories, scripture reading…and parties and gifts. Enjoy the season with her.

Kenda Creasy Dean, author of a book on teens and religion, is not a Mormon, but she found, while interviewing hundreds of teens, that Mormon teens had something other teens did not. One thing she found is that Mormonism gives its teenagers hope for the future.

Mormon teens were able to explain to her that the purpose of life was to grow spiritually and to be tested, with the eventual ability to return to Heavenly Father if they keep the commandments. Other teens, she felt, were more vague about the purpose of life, which tended to be that they were supposed to be happy and feel good about themselves.

The difference between those things is part of the secret to why Mormon teens did better in the interviews. If the purpose of life is to be happy and have good self-esteem, it creates a very self-centered focus on life. Life turns out to be all about you, which is why some people are calling young people part of the Me generation. Mormon teens are taught it isn’t all about them and it isn’t all about this life. They have an eternal goal that requires hard work, sacrifice, and a focus on other people. Now, it just so happens that when you’re working hard, sacrificing, and focusing on other, you will be happy most of the time and you will have good self-esteem, but those are not the only focus.

Yes, God wanted us to be happy, but not in a worldly way. Happiness in a worldly way might mean you get to spend your teen years playing video games and hanging out at the mall. What Mormons are after is joy. They have a scripture that says that man is that he might have joy. Joy is different than plain old happiness. It is the feeling that comes when we make Jesus Christ the center of our world and let our love for Him determine how we will live.

Mormons believe we are saved by grace. Grace came to us because Jesus took on Himself our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to pay any price for our sins; it just made it possible for us to be forgiven for them if we repent. He also died on the cross for us and then was resurrected. Because He overcame death, we can too. So grace allows us to live forever, to choose to repent of our sins, and to return to live with God if we are worthy. This gift of grace is given to everyone who has ever lived on the earth and there are no requirements and there are no actions required, not even believing in God. It is a free gift.

However, what’s free is pretty much never as amazing as what we can get when we’re willing to work for it. So, although living forever is a free gift, we can upgrade our eternal status by keeping the commandments. You can’t just work your way back into heaven, though. This is a little tricky. The truth is that when we love someone we want to make them happy and we want to be what they want us to be. Because we love God and Jesus Christ, we want to do what They’ve asked us to do and to be what they’ve asked us to be. The more we love Them, the more we want this and the easier obedience becomes. So our actions must come from love for God, not for the mere desire for rewards. If we do all the right things on the outside, but our hearts are wrong, we get nothing for it. If we love God and we’re doing what we’re supposed to do because we love Him, that’s when the rewards come.

God said that everyone who says “Lord, Lord” won’t get into Heaven (Matthew 7:21).To get into Heaven, you have to keep the commandments. This is because believing isn’t enough. Jesus also taught even the devils believe in Jesus. It does no good to believe in Him if you aren’t also willing to obey Him and if you don’t love Him.

All of this is part of a great plan of salvation God taught us and that we agreed to before we were born. Mormon teens know they lived with God before they were born. They were spirits there, but they were themselves. After living there and learning and deciding what kind of person they were going to be God taught them it was time to grow up and leave home for a while—just as you will someday. The place we’d be going was called Earth and we’d be born into families and get bodies. But we’d also be tested  here. We’d have trials and be expected to learn how to resolve them and overcome them.

This means Mormon teens don’t expect life to be always easy and fun. They know God won’t always step in to keep us from experiencing hardships because we wouldn’t  learn anything that way. They do know He is listening when they pray, and they know He will answer their prayers, but He won’t always answer them the way we ask Him to. God is in charge and knows what is best for us. He can see much further into the future than we can. Sometimes what we think we want is all wrong. Still, if He makes us suffer for a while or gives us something different than we asked for, He will be there to comfort and guide us. Mormon teens trust God.

Trusting God gives them hope. They know what He promised them—eternal happiness in His presence and the privilege of being with their families forever. They want this and they believe they are capable of getting it. It might be hard work, but Mormon teens aren’t afraid of hard work. They’ve grown up with it.

Can you see how all of this gives them hope? They are in charge of their eternal futures. That doesn’t mean everything on earth will happen just the way they want it, but if they do God’s will, serving God and serving others, they will get the very best God has to offer. It’s entirely up to them. No other person can keep them out of Heaven. God has told them exactly how to get there and they’ve confirmed it through personal prayer, not the promises of men. They’re in charge because they know God is in charge and will always keep His promises.

God makes covenants with His children. He sets the terms but if we do our part, He always does His part. This brings Mormon teens an extraordinary sense of stability, comfort, and hope for the future. It’s even more than just hope…it’s knowledge that their eternal life can be perfect.