Unity

Interfaith Round Table at LDS North Stake Center, Tucson

This week our Stake hosted an interfaith community service. The theme was "Together we journey in Love, Mercy, and Peace".

The following participated:

St. Odilia Catholic Community
Third Church of Christ Scientist (Christian Science)
Muslim Community Center  of Tucson
Tucson North Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Casas Adobes Congregational United Church of Christ

Reformed Jewish Congregation Or Chadash

I volunteered​ to usher at the meeting. Most attending were LDS but there were some from the other congregations. They promoted this by having interfaith community choirs perform. Apparently Pres. Broadbent has lunch once per month with the leaders of these groups. There are different beliefs but also common beliefs and common goals of promoting moral righteousness in the community. 

Pres Broadbent conducted the meeting and the minister of each of the congregations above was given a word from the theme to talk about. The Rabbi was given the word "Journey". He spoke about the journey of Abraham from Ur, then the journey of Moses to the promised land, then the journey of Christ from Nazareth to Jerusalem to Calvary, then he spoke of Muhammad's journey starting in 619 AD with his followers from Mecca to Medina and the back again to Mecca in 628 AD. The rabbi then said that in 1827 Joseph Smith was directed by an angel to buried book, the Book of Mormon. He then journeyed from New York to Ohio then to Missouri and then to Illinois. From there, under Brigham Young, the Mormons journeyed to the western United States. He said all of these are journeys of faith. It was interesting to hear the different perspectives with all emphasizing the common ground. All of the faiths had their version of the golden rule. 

The opening song was our "Love One Another". The interfaith children's choir sang "I am a Child of God". The closing hymn was from some other faith and was sung rather tentatively since most did not know it. The closing prayer was by the Imam and included Arabic musical chanting. He had a good voice but I couldn't understand any of it except the last word that resembled "amen".

It was a good experience. A lady came up to me while I was ushering and asked if I had a son that played clarinet for the CDO band. I said yes and I thought she looked kind of familiar. She was the mother of a girl that hosted sectional practices at her house and I had dropped Gordon off there a few times.

Mission Memories

After challenging Frau Knoepfli from Olten to seriously study, she really did start reading the Book of Mormon. She also started reading the other stuff from other religions and an evangelical neighbor gave her Anti-Mormon stuff to read. We worked through all those questions and always challenged her to pray to know what is right. She always refused to say the prayer with us. She said she would only pray in her closet and she kept saying that she didn't get an answer to her prayer. Finally, on a visit where we brought Sister Aernt (a member who's husband was not a member) I decided I say the closing prayer and ask if the church was true. When I asked the Lord to let us know if the Church was true, the spirit was very strong. We told Frau Knoepfli that the feeling was the Holy Spirit telling her the Church was true. She acknowledged the feeling but said," What is a feeling? You can't just join a church because you have a feeling". I told her that she also needs to study it out, but she should continue to pray and the feeling will guide her. I told her that she should never again say they Lord didn't answer her prayer. She agreed to set a baptism goal one month away. She had a smoking and coffee problem to work through as well as strengthening her testimony. She and her husband were having marriage problems. We didn't know how that would play out so pray and faith were needed. More later.