Brainwashed

Every year the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has a meeting called 'General Conference'. It is an opportunity for people around the world to hear from our leaders. A topic is not assigned to the speakers. They are asked to pray about what they feel God would want His people to know.

I grew up listening to General Conference. Sometimes we would go to the church where it was broadcast and watch it. Other times we would listen to it on the radio. It wasn't until I moved away from home and lived in an apartment where all of my roommates watched every session that I fully came to love 'General Conference'. It is rare that I miss a session, and I feel a loss when I do.

It also wasn't until I moved to UT that I saw the utter persecution of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints twice a year. Picket signs are made and evangelical shouters stand on the street corners that surround the conference building. Some even wrap our sacred garments around their heads and yell obscenities. We have taught our kids to look the other way. I have reminded myself to look the other way.

I don't typically take a lot of merit to the things that are said against the religion that I love. However, with the recent conference being just two short weeks ago, I read an online post from a distant relative stating that he had listened to General Conference this year and that he couldn't possibly believe that LDS people believe in a loving God and that we are all brainwashed. My mind has not strayed far from that post for several days. So, if I am brainwashed, here is what I have been brainwashed to believe:

• We lived with our Heavenly Father before we were born.
  
• We have come to earth to prove ourselves worthy to return to our Heavenly Father's presence.
  
• Just as in days of old, living prophets live on the earth today.
  
• Just as in days of old, temples have returned to the earth. In those temples we are given instruction. We have the opportunity to make binding sacred covenants with God. If we give strict heed to those covenants, we will receive the blessings of heaven, from a loving Heavenly Father.
  
• My family can and will be together forever. Death will not depart me from my husband or my children. When I think of the times in my life when one of my family members has knocked on heaven's door, or even when my sister was taken from this life early, I cannot fathom what it must feel like to have a belief that I will not be with those that I love after this life. It is too painful.
  
• We were not sent to earth to bear our burdens alone.
  
• Jesus Christ is the foundation of all. He is our Savior and the Redeemer of the world. It is by Him and through His matchless atonement that we, the natural men, can repent and be cleansed of our sins.

So, to my distant relative whom I am sure will never read this, if being with my family forever, and having a belief that God still wants to lead and guide His people on the earth today, and that we are not alone, that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and that God is our loving Heavenly Father is being brainwashed, then my dear loved one - scrub away.