Why Does the Church of Jesus Christ Rely on Revelation?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to “The Articles of Faith” in the Pearl of Great Price and Official Declarations 1 (Plural Marriage) and 2 (Priesthood) in the Doctrine and Covenants. The lesson was titled simply “We Believe.” 

Since Joseph Smith’s First Vision, God has continued to guide His Church by revelation. In some cases, that revelation has included changes to the policies and practices of the Church. Official Declarations 1 and 2 announced this kind of revelation—one led to the end of plural marriage, and the other made the blessings of the priesthood available to people of all races. Changes like these are part of what it means to have a “true and living church” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30), with a true and living prophet, led by a true and living God.

But eternal truth doesn’t change, though our understanding of it does. And sometimes revelation casts additional light on truth. The Articles of Faith serve this clarifying purpose. The Church is solidly founded on eternal truth yet can grow and change “according as the Lord will, suiting his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men” (Doctrine and Covenants 46:15). In other words, “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (Articles of Faith 1:9).

Some principles taught in this scripture block are (1) The Articles of Faith contain foundational truths of the restored gospel (The Articles of Faith); (2) The Church of Jesus Christ is guided by revelation (Articles of Faith 1:9; Official Declarations 1 and 2); (3) The work of God must move forward (Official Declaration 1), and (4) I can trust in the Lord, even when I do not have a perfect understanding (Official Declaration 2). This essay will discuss principle #2 about the Church of Jesus Christ being guided by revelation.

The Articles of Faith are thirteen statements of faith. Articles of Faith 1:9 states, “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”

Last week’s lesson and this week’s lesson were each about powerful revelations. Last week we studied two visions. The first was received by Joseph Smith and was about the Celestial Kingdom. The second was received by Joseph F. Smith and was about life after death. This week we studied two pieces of revelation, which are not classified as visions, but which had significant impact upon members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Official Declaration 1 ended plural marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was one of those cases where there would be problems whatever the decision, so the prophet of the Lord had to have revelation as to how to proceed. What did the Lord want him to do? The people believed that plural marriage was a commandment from God, and they had adjusted to living it. However, the U.S. Congress passed laws against plural marriage, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the laws as constitutional.

President Wilford Woodruff understood that the U.S. government would confiscate the Logan, Manti, and St. George Temples and put most or all the leaders of the Church into prison if the Church of Jesus Christ did not stop practicing plural marriage. If this were to happen, the work of the Lord’s Church would stop. Yet, President Woodruff was willing to allow all of that to happen if it was the will of the Lord. Now we know that it was not the will of the Lord for His work to stop, and He told His prophet what to write in the Manifesto.

I have numerous ancestors who practiced plural marriage. As I understand the situation, my ancestors accepted plural marriage when they were called to practice it, and they accepted it when they were told to end it.

Official Declaration 2 ended the ban on black males of African descent holding the priesthood.

Slavery was rampant in the southern part of the United States when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in 1830 and even when President Brigham Young officially announced the ban in 1852. We do not know if slavery was part of the issue, but it took a long time for slavery and its effects to end in the United States.

 President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, effective on January 1, 1863, freed all the slaves in Confederate-controlled areas – a significant percentage of all the slaves in America. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in December 1865. Congress passed more laws in the 1960s: Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. All of these acts show that the Lord was preparing the way for the ban to end.

For years, the Brethren felt that the time was close to end the ban and had been petitioning the Lord for some period of time. President Spencer W. Kimball felt strongly that this issue was affecting missionary work, and he made a practice of going to the Salt Lake Temple several times each day to pray about it. The revelation came on June 1, 1978, when the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were praying in the Salt Lake Temple about the matter. Each man received the revelation in their mind and heart. There was no doubt what the Lord wanted them to do.

No one today knows why there was a ban. From the time that I was a child, I heard that the ban would one day be lifted, but no one knew when it would happen. I remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard that the ban on priesthood had been lifted. I rejoiced that the time had come for priesthood and temple blessings to go to all worthy members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Why Should Immigrants Show Good Attitude and Gratitude for America?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns immigration. Illegal immigration should be non-existent, and legal immigration should lead to the betterment of America. According to Victor Davis Hanson, discussion about immigration should include the attitude of the immigrant towards America and their expression of appreciation or gratitude for the opportunity to come. Attitude and gratitude for the opportunity to immigrate can be shown in obedience to the laws of the land or actually expression of love for America. 

In his article published at The Daily Signal, Hanson explains how the above can be shown in a variety of context. In California, more than 17,000 illegal immigrants received licenses to drive, which led to “a lot of drunk driving incidents and violence” and murders by people who crossed the border illegally. Other areas had college students from the Middle East showing “support for Hamas, Hezbollah, antisemitic sloganeering.” In Minnesota, “the Somali community got a billion dollars or multibillion-dollar grants … supposedly to supply food and meals….”

There were a variety of state and local laws that were violated, but there were no prosecutions….

But this opened a larger question. If you were an immigrant and you came to the United States from a war-torn, impoverished, and dangerous place, like Somalia, shouldn’t you express gratitude?

Ilhan Omar came here, to take one example…. She came here at 13 and she was given every benefit of being a U.S. resident and then a U.S. citizen. She was given a generous scholarship to go to college. She was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. She was elected to Congress. I think she’s a four-term congresswoman.

She insisted, even though she was an American citizen, to wear the traditional Somali hijab, even though there was a rule in the House, an old rule, that people don’t wear headwear or gear or hats inside the Capitol chambers when Congress is in session. They made a special exception just for her.

But I mention this because she has a long line of indiscretions, and they form a pattern.

She said that the United States was a trashy country. She said that the dictatorship in America, i.e., the Trump administration, was not much different from the one that she left in Somalia. She said that Charlie Kirk, right after his death, was a scholastic terrorist….

She also said that it’s the Benjamins, baby, when she was making the argument that, as she put it, we in the Congress don’t have to have an allegiance to a foreign country and implying that Jewish members put Israel ahead of the United States.

And so, she’s been part of “the squad” and she’s had to apologize for some of her antisemitic rhetoric. She’s expressed overt criticism of the country that befriended her and allowed her to be educated at mostly at public cost, to be a representative of Congress, to write a book with a major New York publisher.

She’s also, she put on one of her financial disclosures that she almost had a zero net worth. Now, after her marriage to Tim Mynett … she now says that … their net worth may be as great as $30 million.

There’s also an accusation that, allegedly, allegedly, that she may have formalistically married her brother to ease his citizenship application, and then that marriage was legal and then it was dissolved as she married again….

My point is that, in this greater discussion about the fraud that goes on in Minnesota and our worry about immigrants on campus, behind the wheel of a semi-truck, administering a fraudulent food program, coming across the southern border, and then committing acts of violence, maybe, just maybe, we should ask of our immigrants a little gratitude….

And in this whole nexus, Ilhan Omar stands out as a person for two reasons. As an immigrant example, this country has lavished no more benefits on anyone than her….

And now she’s mysteriously a multimillionaire. And we still don’t know how the entire story of how citizenship was attained, from her brother….

And so, Ilhan Omar is an example of what’s wrong with legal and illegal immigration, that we allow people from countries that are … “Third World,” but are in chaos, in tumult, they come as refugees, they’re extended every benefit, and very soon they realize that their advance or their success politically hinges on the degree to which they express themselves as victims or as hard leftist or as ingrates. And she’s done all of that.

 

Why Is It Crucial to Understand History as It Really Happened?

It is good for us to understand history – the truth about what really happened and not revisionist history. Three days ago, we commemorated Pearl Harbor Day, the 84^th anniversary of the surprise attack on America. At 7:00 A.M. on December 7, 1941, Japanese planes flew over Pearl Harbor, destroyed American ships, killed American sailors, and plunged the United States into World War II. Historian Victor Davis Hanson taught a powerful history lesson in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

Hanson reminds his readers that America was not at war when the Japanese struck. Europe had been fighting for “almost two and a half years” – September 1, 1939, through December 7, 1941. The United States watched as the Germans invaded Western Europe and the Balkans and were at “the gates of Russia.” Meanwhile, the Japanese had invaded China and controlled nearly half of what is now China. Japan also controlled South Korea and North Korea.

And remember that the European colonial powers – the Netherlands and France – had ceased to exist as independent countries. So, their colonial possessions in the Pacific – specifically the breadbasket of Asia, in the Mekong Delta of Southeast Asia, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam – were no longer under independent French control. And the Japanese had absorbed them.

But more importantly, what is now Indonesia, then called the Dutch East Indies – the Dutch had control of these islands. They were very rich in oil. The Dutch Shell oil company had substantial oil wells there. And the Japanese wanted to absorb those.

It was [in] that context that they attacked us. We didn’t attack them. We knew that war was coming. We wanted to deter them by beefing up the Philippines and moving the headquarters of the Seventh Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, which President Franklin Roosevelt had done.

Why did they attack? They said that they did not want to attack. They were in the process of negotiating a peace settlement. They said that we had cut off their oil exports. And we had because we had no other mechanism to convince them to get out of China, it was not their territory, to get out of Korea, to get out of Southeast Asia, and to not absorb the Dutch East Indies.

They had refused on all of those accounts and said, yet, we will find a peaceful solution, as they planned the attack.

The attack happened at seven in the morning, deliberately, on a Sunday morning when people were either at church or still asleep from Saturday night partying. And they came out of the rising sun. Two waves. And they destroyed four battleships and … disabled four that sunk to the shallow bottom of Pearl Harbor.

The three carriers – the Saratoga, the Lexington, and the Enterprise – were not there. That was a gift because had they been, we would’ve had no naval air power in the Pacific.

The other thing to remember about this attack, they did not order a third strike. Had they done that, they could have wiped out the oil refinery tanks, aviation fuel, and naval fuel for a year. They did not hit the machine repair shops. And they didn’t mop up and completely destroy all of the aircraft or ships. And the battleships that they did take out were of World War I vintage.

So, in other words, these ships, had they steamed out of Pearl Harbor and met six carriers, over 300 planes on the high seas, they may have been sunk very easily on the high seas. And we would’ve lost 2,400 Americans, but perhaps 10,000.

So, it was a dramatic wake-up call to us. And we did declare war the next day on Japan. And then Germany and Italy and their allies declared war on us, as did Japan, on Dec. 11.

Hanson had a couple of other thoughts about Pear Harbor. (1) The U.S. did not provoke Japan, but Japan attacked America at a time of peace…. (2) Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto -- and sometimes Adm. Chuichi Nagumo – was said to attack Pearl Harbor “reluctantly” and was credited with saying: “I’ve awakened a sleeping dragon. And I can’t account for what he’ll do when he is active [mobilized].” The truth is different.

But Yamamoto had said to the military government in Tokyo, if you don’t let me attack Pearl Harbor, I’m gonna resign. And this is the only solution to our problem as a military one, to shock these Americans. And they’re weak and they’re decadent.

Yamamoto had been to the United States. Gen. Hideki Tojo had been to the United States. Their foreign minister had been an exchange student in Oregon. So, they thought that we … were decadent, coming out of the Depressio, and not a serious people. And they made a serious miscalculation.

[3] Another myth about Pearl Harbor is that the Japanese were somehow victimized, that they really didn’t wanna go to war. No, no, no, no, no. They were the most vicious of all the belligerents, in some sense.

If you use a simple calculation, what was the size of one of the belligerent armies? And how many people did they kill? And how many people did they lose? If you look at the Japanese Imperial Navy and Army, and given its size and given the number of belligerents, combatants had lost and civilians versus how many they killed, they were more lethal than either the Russians on our side or the Germans on the other side.

About 2.5 million Japanese were killed. They killed 16 to 20 million people in China, civilians and combatants. They killed probably another 3 million to 4 million people in Asia, whether that’s the Burma campaign or Southeast Asia or the Philippines. And then, in addition, in the Pacific, and Allied troops, Australians, British Americans, they probably killed another 300,000 to 400,000, minimum.

Japanese military was the most vicious and the most lethal force, in some sense, in World War II, in a strictly military sense. It was a vicious force, and only the bravery of the United States military stopped it. And that effort began at Pearl Harbor, when Japan, for no reason, attacked us, and we reacted accordingly and made them pay for one of the stupidest blunders in the history of the Japanese nation.

 

Is Trump Doctrine a Resurrection or Updating of the Monroe Doctrine?

New foreign policy documents of President Donald Trump have resurrected talk about the Monroe Doctrine. According to this site, President James Monroe announced the Monroe Doctrine on December 2, 1823, in an annual message to Congress.. It was “a cornerstone“ of Monroe’s foreign policy, and it declared that “the Old World and New World had different systems,” and should, therefore, “remain distinct spheres.” 

The Monroe Doctrine made four basic points: (1) the United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of or the wars between European powers; (2) the United States recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere; (3) the Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization; and (4) any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States….

The doctrine was an outgrowth of concern in both Britain and the United States that the Continental powers would attempt to restore Spain’s former colonies, in Latin America, many of which had become newly independent nations. The United States was also concerned about Russia’s territorial ambitions in the northwest coast of North America. As a consequence, George Canning, the British foreign minister, suggested a joint U.S.-British declaration forbidding future colonization in Latin America. Monroe was initially favorable to the idea, and former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison concurred. But Secretary of State John Quincy Adams argued that the United States should issue a statement of American policy exclusively, and his view ultimately prevailed.

In his article dated December 5, 2025, and updated on December 8, 2025, William Hartung reported the following on Trump’s new security/defense strategy. 

The Trump Administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS) last night. The NSS is a precursor to the National Defense Strategy (NDS) – a document that goes into greater specifics about U.S. military priorities and strategy. The NDS could be released as early as this weekend.

In some respects the new security document could have been written 200 years ago, given its highly favorable endorsement of the Monroe Doctrine, which warns adversaries against seeking a military foothold in the Western Hemisphere. Some pundits have taken to calling this renewed commitment to policing the hemisphere the “Donroe Doctrine” in honor of President Trump. The challenge posed by China, and the state of security relations in the Middle East and Europe also receive attention, but the Western Hemisphere is prioritized in the document.

The Hartung article, published at Forbes, states that the “most dangerous application of the administration’s hemispheric focus is the prospect of a full-scale military intervention in Venezuela,” calling such a move “an extremely risky move that could impose severe economic and human costs.”

Hartung obviously thinks such action would be “misguided,” and thoughts of regime change not worth the cost with such weak rationale as the current war on drugs going on with narco-terrorists. He is supported by a bipartisan group from Congress who introduced a War Powers Resolution to block a war with Venezuela. Several Democrat senators and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) lead the effort.

Hartung’s article calls for “a national security strategy grounded in the realities of the 21^st century, not a throwback to failed policies of the past.”

On the other hand, conservatives like it. According to an article by George Caldwell at The Daily Signal, Trump’s “new National Security Strategy is garnering support across the conservative movement.” In fact, some conservatives consider it to be “a 33-page crystallization of just how the Trump movement wants to rethink America’s role in the world.” 

The paper advocates a new idea of America’s regional priorities: domination of the Western Hemisphere, shifting away from foreign aid and ideological influence campaigns in Africa, restoring peace and socio-economic vitality to Europe, and ending the policies that have made America cower before China on the world stage.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told The Daily Signal it is a welcome pivot away from misguided strategies of the past.

“This strategy gets the priorities right. It reasserts American leadership in our own Hemisphere where border security, cartel violence, and foreign encroachment threaten our people, and it meets the China challenge with the strength and clarity we’ve lacked for decades,” Schmitt wrote in a statement to The Daily Signal….

Dan Caldwell, a former senior adviser in the Pentagon, appears to agree with Schmitt’s assessment that the Trump administration is seeking to abandon the failed foreign policy of prior administrations. The strategy “is a true break from the failed bipartisan post-Cold War foreign policy consensus – a consensus that drove us headlong into endless wars and enabled free-riding by our allies,” Caldwell told The Daily Signal in a statement.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also praised the paper’s emphasis on hemispheric hegemony in a statement to The Daily Signal.

“The Biden administration neglected our hemisphere to America’s detriment. Now we must contend with narco-terrorists, cartels, and Chinese influence. The NSS is an important first step in reasserting U.S. hegemony in our hemisphere and to make Americans safe and prosperous,” the Utah senator said.

In many ways, the paper proposes a resurrection of the nineteenth-century idea of America having a duty to dominate its neighborhood.

It explicitly calls for a “Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine,” wherein neighboring governments would cooperate with the United States to combat criminals, “hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets,” and “ensure our continued access to key strategic locations.”

Rob Greenway, director of the national security center at The Heritage Foundation and a former deputy assistant to Trump, told The Daily Signal in a statement that he believes the document provides “timely context to what has been a successful tenure, and the thinking that will guide the nation going forward.” …

What is clear is that the administration does not believe it can be everywhere at once – that some regions are simply more important than others when it comes to American national security.

 

Who Is Bernie Moreno?

My VIP for this week is Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) who understands the value of American citizenship. He has focused on immigration since becoming a U.S. senator in January 2025. Last week he introduced a bill to outlaw dual citizenship in the United States.

As Rebecca Downs reported at The Daily Signal, The Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025 “would require those who are citizens of the United States and a foreign country to choose a single citizenship rather than remain dual citizens.” The bill would make it impossible to be a U.S. citizen or national while at the same time “possessing any foreign citizenship.” 

It is currently possible for Americans to hold foreign citizenship, which could cause loyalty problems. A press release from Moreno’s office suggested that dual citizenship ‘could create conflicts of interest.”

Moreno’s bill outlines the process to renounce dual citizenship and allows “one year to submit to the Secretary of State their written renunciation of their foreign citizenship or to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security of their United States citizenship.” In addition, any U.S. citizen who voluntarily becomes a citizen of a foreign nation “shall be deemed to have relinquished United States citizenship,” according to the bill.

Moreno was born in Colombia, legally immigrated to the United States with his family when he was five years old, and became a naturalized American citizen at age 18.

“One of the greatest honors of my life was when I became an American citizen at 18, the first opportunity I could do so,” Moreno told Fox News Digital. “It was an honor to pledge an Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America and only to the United States of America. Being an American citizen is an honor and a privilege – and if you want to be an American – it’s all or nothing. It’s time to end dual citizenship for good.”

The bill’s text claims dual citizenship could lead to “divided loyalties,” and that “it is in the national interest of the United States to ensure that United States citizenship is held exclusively.” …

The Ohio senator appeared on Wednesday’s edition of “The Ingraham Angle” to discuss legal and illegal immigration. “You have to make certain that there’s some conditions to come here,” Moreno explained. This includes “learning the language,” which, the senator said, “unites us.”

“You have to understand that you coming here is a privilege and it’s an honor. You don’t have a right to come to America. It’s an honor and a privilege,” Moreno emphasized.

Who Is a Citizen of the United States?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is birthright citizenship. President Donald Trump caused a ruckus on his first day in office by an executive order revoking the automatic guarantee of American citizenship for any child born on U.S. soil. The citizenship of the parents did not matter – just the place of birth. Carlos Garcia at The Blaze shared the following information. 

Trump issued the Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship executive order on his first day in office of his second term. The order prohibits granting citizenship to persons born in the country to mothers illegally or temporarily in the U.S. and whose father is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.

Opponents of birthright citizenship say it stems from a false reading of the 14^th Amendment, which was intended to apply only to former slaves when it was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War.

A class-action lawsuit was almost immediately filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of children who would be affected by the policy. In July, a lower court struck down the restrictions, but the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments for and against Trump’s executive order.

Garcia continued by quoting Blaze TV host Mark Levin: “Congress has never passed a federal statute that confers birthright citizenship. So it’s not in the Constitution, it’s not in federal law, it’s not in the legislative history, and yet it is being used.”

According to Garcia, Levin continued by saying, “Birthright citizenship is the argument, is the position, is the policy the Democrat Party holds on to because they want monopoly power for all time, … and they don’t care if it’s foreigners or not.”

Garcia also shared the opposing viewpoint: “Supporters of the policy point to the longstanding precedent of automatically granting citizenship to babies born in America. ‘No president can change the 14^th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,’ said ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang. ‘We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.’”

The announcement that the Supreme Court would hear oral arguments on the birthright citizenship issue is big news in many corners. Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal reported on the circumstances as follows: 

Trump’s order has not gone into effect, since courts previously blocked it.

This has the potential to overturn a Supreme Court precedent going back to 1898, when the majority upheld birthright citizenship under the 14^th Amendment, which was enacted to grant citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil War.

Several left-leaning immigration groups, along with 22 states, sued to overturn Trump’s executive order that he signed on the first day of his second term.

In one sentence about the case, the court issued an order Friday saying, “Trump, president of the U.S. et all v. Barbara, et al. The petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment is granted.” …

The provision of the 14^th Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The point of contention in the case is the phrase, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which Solicitor General D. John Sauer has argued was misinterpreted by the court’s late 19^th century ruling.

More than 22 U.S. states and immigrants’ rights groups have sued the Trump administration to block the change to birthright citizenship, arguing in court filings that the executive order is both unconstitutional and “unprecedented.”

Long time readers know that I have been calling for an end of birthright citizenship since I began writing this blog in 2009. Those same readers know that I was shouting for joy when I learned of the executive order signed by Trump. Now I am shouting for joy again because the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship. The oral arguments will be heard next spring with a decision expected by summer.

I am not foolish enough to believe that birthright citizenship is dead. However, I am grateful to know that the issue will finally be debated in the Supreme Court. Will the justices allow only a narrow decision about the Trump executive order, or will they make a wider willing on birthright citizenship – for or against? Will the justices determine for the last time what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” really means. Only time will tell, but one way or another, we may have a final end to this discussion.

Does the Work of the Savior Continue in the Next Life?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Doctrine and Covenants 137-138 in a lesson titled “The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead.” The lesson was introduced by the following information. 

The revelations recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 137 and 138 are separated by more than 80 years and 1,500 miles (2,400 km). Section 137 was received by the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1836 in the Kirtland Temple, and section 138 was received by Joseph F. Smith, sixth President of the Church, in 1918 in Salt Lake City. But doctrinally, these two visions belong side by side. They both answer questions that many people—including God’s prophets—have about life after death. Joseph Smith wondered about the fate of his brother Alvin, who had died without being baptized. Joseph F. Smith, who had lost both of his parents and 13 children to untimely deaths, thought often about the spirit world and wondered about the preaching of the gospel there.

Section 137 casts some initial light on the destiny of God’s children in the next life, and section 138 opens the curtains even wider. Together, both revelations testify of “the great and wonderful love made manifest by the Father and the Son” (Doctrine and Covenants 138:3).

The scripture block contains the following principles: (1) All of Heavenly Father’s children will have the opportunity to choose eternal life (Doctrine and Covenants 137; 138:30-3, 57-60). (2) Reading and pondering the scriptures prepares me to receive revelation (Doctrine and Covenants 138:1-11, 25-30). (3) The Savior’s work continues on the other side of the veil (Doctrine and Covenants 138:25-60). This essay will discuss the third principle about the work of the Savior continuing in the next life.

The Savior’s “work” consists of teaching and preparing all people to return to the presence of Heavenly Father and to become like Him. During His earthly ministry, Jesus Christ taught His gospel for only three years and was able to teach His gospel to only a small group of people living in the Jerusalem area. After His death, His apostles took His gospel to a wider area. Now, His apostles and disciples take the gospel worldwide to every nation where allowed. Even with all this missionary work, only a few million people have been taught the gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth.

There are billions of people in the spirit world who have never been taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. The vision given to President Joseph F. Smith and known as Doctrine and Covenants section 138 shares God’s plan for the salvation of all His children. The plan is based on all – every single one – of God’s children to be taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each child of God has the gift of agency or freedom to choose for themselves, and each must use that agency to hear the gospel choose for themselves whether to accept the gospel or reject it.

This brings us to the billions of people who have lived on earth without being taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. During the time that His body lay in the tomb, the spirit of Jesus Christ went to the spirit world where righteous spirits have waited for years and even centuries for Him to set them free. There in the spirit world, Christ organized missionary work among His righteous spirits to go among the wicked spirits to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. Those who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ – have faith in Him and His Atonement, repent of their sins, are baptized by immersion for the remission of sins, and receive the Holy Ghost – are released from spirit prison and began to move forward with their eternal lives. Those who do not accept the gospel of Jesus Christ are “damned” or stopped in their spiritual progression until they do.

The spirit children of God can be taught and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ in the spirit world, but all ordinances must be completed in mortality. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints builds temples – more than 200 are scattered across the world. The work of eternity takes place in temples.

Mortals are baptized and confirmed in baptismal fonts located in meetinghouses or in lakes, ponds, rivers, or other available bodies of water. Baptisms and confirmations for people who have died are performed in temples by proxies. Other ordinances can also be completed for them by proxies in a temple. Once the ordinances are completed, the person can use their agency to accept or reject the work that has been completed for them. If they accept, they can move forward in their eternal lives. If they reject the work, they are stopped in their eternal progress. It is their choice. They can choose what they want.

President Russell M. Nelson taught: “Our message to the world is simple and sincere: we invite all of God’s children on both sides of the veil to come unto their Savior, receive the blessings of the holy temple, have enduring joy, and qualify for eternal life” (“Let Us All Press On,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2018, 118-19). Let Us All Press On

 

Is There a Way to Protect a Family from Suicide?

Suicide shatters families, and shattered families weaken communities, states, and nations. One of the things that hurt families the most – besides the death of a loved one – is a belief that “they missed signs leading up to the death.” Lois M. Collins at The Deseret News reported on a new study that shares interesting new data on suicide. 

A new study from the University of Utah offers both comforting and frustrating new evidence that there might not have been any traditional signals of a struggle. While a death by suicide for some is preceded by suicidal ideation and behavior, including survived attempts, about half of those who take their own lives have no documented suicidal thoughts or behaviors and no known mental health conditions linked to suicide risk, such as depression.

There were no clear indicators of risk.

Those are the findings of a genetic study in which university researchers teamed up with the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner to try to learn more about the drivers of suicide, using genotyping data from 2,769 de-identified electronic health records and clinical notes of individuals who died by suicide. They thoroughly analyzed the genetic data of those who died to analyze genetic risk….

The study showed that those who died by suicide without earlier suicidal behaviors had fewer psychiatric diagnoses and underlying genetic risk factors for mental health conditions than those who exhibited warning signs, according to Hilary Coon, a professor of psychiatry in the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine t the University of Utah and the study’s first author.

She told Deseret News that the sheer number of suicide deaths with no previous indicators, including depression diagnosis, suggests it’s not just a matter of many not having sought treatment or due to gaps in screening or care. It indicates that paying attention to mental health remains very important, but that emphasis alone is not likely to identify all who may ultimately end their own lives….

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2023, 49,000 individuals in the U.S. ended their own lives, making suicide the 11^th leading cause of death nationally.

Coon describes suicide as a complicated behavior. She noted that what’s going on with someone who is young and impulsive or dealing with significant depression is different from someone later in life who has chronic health conditions or other stressors, for instance. She spoke of suicide survivors who said they were not depressed or anxious, but rather were in situations that felt unmanageable.

She also noted that at some point everyone experiences traumas and events that are challenging and most don’t take their lives. But the difference between those who do and those who don’t is hard to untangle.

Traditional screening is likely ineffective in many cases, she said.

“Prior suicidality is the most robust estimator of suicide death, but the association with this estimator is imperfect, and many suicide deaths occur in its absence,” per the study.

Regarding clinical interventions, the study said “a focus solely on mental illness risk reduction may be less effective for individuals for whom this underlying liability may be substantially lower.” It added that “further understanding of clinical characteristics, underlying genetic liabilities, and external exposures” in those cases without known previous suicidal behaviors or mental health challenges “will be required to direct more targeted interventions.”

Clinicians do a good job of understanding people who have warning signs. The others, we don’t know who they are,” Coon said.

There are numerous reasons why clinicians do not know some of the interventions needed. Here are a few discovered by looking at the genetic data:

·         “Those without earlier suicidal ideation and behavior had fewer risk factors for a variety of psychiatric conditions – not just depression, but also anxiety, Alzheimer’s disease and post traumatic stress disorder. They appeared to have less genetic vulnerability to other conditions, like heart disease….

·         “The researchers note some limitations, including that some with previous suicidal notions may not have had those captured in the data.

·         “They also noted most of those in the data were of European ancestry, so findings might not be generalizable to all groups.

According to Coon, “future research will try to tease out some of the hidden risk factors. People in similar situations have different degrees of resilience.” She also pointed “out that genetic risk factors that may play a role still have a very small effect on risk overall and that none of them actually cause suicide….” 

Is College Necessary for Success?

Families are stronger when one parent or both has enough education and/or training to provide the basic necessities and some luxuries for their family, and stronger families strengthen their communities, states, and nations.

There is an ongoing debate about the importance of college in the lives of young people today. Charlie Kirk became famous for having said that a person can become successful without a college education. He enrolled at a university but dropped out after the first semester because he was bored. He became famous as well as success in his chosen career.

Charlie was correct to a degree: some people can become successful without the benefit of a college education. However, such people are extraordinary in their talents and capabilities. For example, Charlie Kirk was highly intelligent with effective communication skills and a likeable personality. His good looks and positive attitude were also helpful. He could have been successful in any number of fields.

Mike Rowe is another man who claims that a college degree is not necessary for success. However, he has a college degree, graduating in 1985 from Towson University with a degree in communication. He is now a successful television host and narrator. He became famous with his “Dirty Jobs” television program. His emphasis is on the fact that college is not the only route to success. 

A person can be extraordinarily successful in any number of careers without college. However, most people need some type of training. Alaska, and all of America, is highly in need of plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and many other skills, and such jobs pay good money and can be called successful.  

The bottom line is that college is not for everyone. Nevertheless, I advocate for gaining all the education that one can get. My long-time readers know that I invested ten years in obtaining a college degree at the age of 80 years. My degree is one that could help me to earn a good living, but it is mostly used as a stepping stone to a master’s degree in counseling.

I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to gain more education. Although my degree is in marriage and family studies, I also took classes in DNA, American studies, world studies, math for life, various religion classes, and even family history. My outlook on life changed because of my education, and I am well aware that it would have been extremely helpful throughout my life rather than as a capstone on my life.

This all brings me to a recent national poll finding that “A majority Americans no longer feel pursuing a college degree is worthwhile.” Indeed, “Almost two-thirds of registered voters say that a four-year college degree doesn’t justify the cost, according to an NBC News report.” 

There are ways to gain an education without spending two or three hundred thousand dollars. I earned my degree entirely online and probably paid less than $5,000 over the ten-year period. Community colleges or state universities are much less expensive than the large and famous universities, such as Harvard and Princeton.

In addition to seeking education at a less prestigious institution, a student who wants their degree to be worthwhile should seek education in a field that pays better. A degree in business or in the field of health will be more worthwhile than a degree in many other fields. Hint: If the degree develops political activists, it will not pay well enough to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans.

Wise parents will encourage their children to do well in education from the time they begin school until they graduate from university or other training programs. I remember the many times that I encouraged my own children to do well in school. I told them that it was their job to do well. I knew that my children were above average in intelligence, and I expected them to use their intelligence wisely. All of my children have college degrees, and most of them have post-graduate degrees. None of them have ever lived in poverty or been without a job because they were not adequately educated or experienced.

I belong to a church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – that teaches that education is commandment. We are taught that we should gain all the education that we can get. You may wonder about the reason for this commandment. Well, it is simple: We can take our knowledge into the next life and use it there for our benefit and the benefit of others.

Why Is Strength a Good Deterrent to Invasion or Attack?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday comes from President George Washington: “To be prepared for war is the most effectual means of preserving the peace.” Part of being prepared for war is having a Commander-in-Chief who will make the tough decisions. When there is a weak President of the United States, other nations take advantage of the weakness. The Ukraine-Russia war is one example of how a weak President in the Oval Office invites aggression.

Victor Davis Hanson shared his opinion as to why Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. 

So, why did Russian President Vladimir Putin invade? Why did he invade Ukraine?

Well, he invaded Ukraine because of two reasons. One, there was no deterrence. He had invaded Ossetia in 2008 during the weakened lame-duck Bush administration and Georgia. In 2014, he felt that President Barck Obama, especially after the hot mic exchange in Seoul, South Korea, in 2012, wouldn’t do anything. And he was right. So, he took Crimea and he took the Donbas.

And then in 2022, on Feb. 24, he invaded again. Why? Because there was still that lack of deterrence. President Joe Biden said his reaction would depend on whether it was a major or minor invasion. He’d been very weak on hacking. He said, if you’re gonna hack, do not hack particular humanitarian sites. So, Putin, again, correctly thought that the United States and the West in general would not attack.

Putin’s invasions are but one type of example of how foreign nations take advantage when Americans elect a weak president. Another illustration of this principle is the Iran Hostage Crisis. Gregory L. Schneider shared the following information. 

On November 4, 1979, militant Islamic fundamentalist Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran and took hostage the 66 Americans inside. For the next 444 days, until January 20, 1981, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president, the hostages’ captivity dominated the news, reminding Americans every day of their nation’s limited ability to do anything to free them. The crisis paralyzed the administration of President Jimmy Carter, who was unable to secure their release. He was already unpopular and perceived as weak because of the inflation that plagued the economy and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The hostages’ plight sealed his political fate and helped ensure the election of Ronald Reagan.

The war in Ukraine and the Iran Hostage Crisis have several things in common: (1) A Democrat was in the Oval Office in both situations. (2) The POTUS was weak and presented a weakened stature to the world. (3) Americans elected a Republican as POTUS to clean up the mess.

Iran released the hostages minutes after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Although Iranians were perfectly content to use the hostages during the Carter years, they were not willing to take chances with Reagan.

Although Putin has still not ended the war with Ukraine, Russia has been weakened in the eyes of the other nations. Sanctions from the United States and other nations are weakening Russia financially. Victor Davis Hanson answered the question as to why Russia continues to fight.

This has been going on for four years. We don’t know what the dead, wounded, and missing – that is, the total casualties – are. It could be over 1.5 million. Russia may have lost a million dead and wounded alone.

So, why is he doing this? He’s doing this because he feels that there is a magical DMZ line somewhere where the battlefront is today that he has to get beyond. Because if he

doesn’t  -- and every dictator doesn’t have sole power, he has to report to certain constituencies, public opinion. But in Putin’s case, the Russian military and the Russian oligarchic class.

And if he says to them, “I lost 1.2, 1.3 million Russians, wounded or dead. I destroyed the reputations of the Russian military, and I crashed the Russian economy. And all I got was 60 or 70 miles westward of where we were before February 24, 2022,” that’s not enough. So, he’s trying to push westward.

Most of the peace negotiations and the outlines are clear. We all know what they are. Putin can tell the Russians, his constituencies, “I institutionalized my theft of Crimea and Donbas. I moved westward somewhat. I ensured that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians would not be in NATO.”

And Zelenskyy is going to say, “I’m a hero. He wanted the whole country. He only got 10% more than he did when he invaded in 2022. We stopped him, and we’re gonna be in the EU. We may not be in NATO, but we stopped him, and he suffered four times the amount of casualties that we did.”

So, they each think they can win.

And what is the dispute left about?

Ukraine’s not gonna be in NATO. Putin knows that. All it is, where is the DMZ? Does Putin get to push areas westward that Ukraine, Ukrainians are currently in and fighting successfully and he can’t dislodge, or not? So, that’s what the dispute is over, and the security guarantees.

If Ukraine is not in NATO, how can it defend the next invasion from Russia? Well, it’s the greatest military in Europe right now. It’s battle-hardened. It’s got a huge army. It’s well supplied. Will that continue? Will the EU or NATO continue to arm it? Will the United States back them up in extremis?

That’s all. That’s the only two issues: security guarantees and where we draw the DMZ line.

President Donald Trump thought that he could negotiate an end to the Ukraine-Russia war on his first day back in office, and he has admitted that the task is more difficult than he expected. However, he has a right to his claim that Russia did not invade while Trump was in the Oval Office.

Like Iran’s release of hostages when Ronald Reagan became POTUS, Putin acts differently with Trump than he did with former President Joe Biden. If any American president can end the war, Trump will be the one. However, Putin is still trying to push further into Ukraine before the DMZ is drawn.

We have a strong Commander-in-Chief leading our military today. His willingness to “pull the trigger” was shown in the way that bombs were dropped on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It is also shown in Trump’s orders to take out all the boats carrying narcotics from Venezuela. He has shown patience in the Ukraine-Russia situation, but he will act when an action is required.

Why Is Capitalism Better Than Communism?

A comparison between the merits of capitalism and free enterprise and those of communism is ongoing in America and has grown more persistent after Zohran Mamdani, a self-identified socialist, was elected to lead New York City as its next mayor. Paul Atkins, Chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) spoke on this topic at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning. Jarrett Stepman reported on the speech – “Revitalizing American Markets” – in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

[Paraphrasing Atkins,] As America turns 250 years old, it’s important to remember that freedom, not top-down communism, created our prosperity….

“In seven months, [the American] story will reach a rare milestone when our Republic marks its 250^th year,” he said, noting that the creation of the U.S. was a special moment because the Founding Father’s stood for the idea that rights were “neither permissions to be earned nor privileges to be revoked.”

The attitudes of the Founders were shaped in part by what came before them in the Old World and the New World, Atkins said. The SEC chairman said that before the U.S. was a nation, it was an “investment.”

“The first English settlements in this hemisphere were financed through joint-stock enterprises that allowed people to pool together and share in the risk and the reward of a very uncertain venture,” he said.

He said that New York, once named “New Amsterdam,” also began as an investment project, foreshadowing its future as the major center of global finance.

Atkins noted that a long English legacy of restrained government power, the preservation of property rights, and predictable rules rather than “royal whim” allowed for market and human flourishing. The Founding Fathers inherited that worldview, he said, then “forged a more perfect union.”

The SEC chairman pointed to Alexander Hamilton … as a man who understood that “markets, structured properly, can unleash the might of American dynamism as no monarch or government ministry possibly could.”

It was the commercial nature of the American people, Atkins sad, quoting Hamilton in Federalist 11, that so greatly defines the country and creates an “inexhaustible mine of national wealth.”

Atkins said freedom and dynamism produced remarkable prosperity for the American people. In the 20^th century, other regimes tried to create a top-down model of growth, he said, but these proved disastrous in comparison to the free system of the United States.

“The Soviet and communist system of central planning, coercion, mass murder, seizing private property, and suppressing private enterprise, for example, collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions,” Atkins said. “While the American approach empowered its citizens to innovate, to invest, and to build wealth within predictable and enforceable frameworks.

The message from this larger set of historical examples is clear, Atkins said.

“Across this long sweep of innovation, a pattern emerges with clarity: The great leaps of American life were always produced by a willingness to tolerate and accept risks within a system that rewards those who take those risks,” he said. “Our prosperity is no accident of history – nor is our primacy assured in the future. The 20^th century was a triumph of economic freedom over doctrines that sought to constrain it.”

Atkins warned that “principles do not preserve themselves.” He said that freedom is not a “relic” that we inherit, but a responsibility we must assume. In recent years, “our regulatory frameworks have veered from the founding ideals that helped the United States to once stand without peer as the world’s destination for public companies,” the SEC chairman said….

“One of my priorities as chairman is to reform the SEC’s disclosure rules with two goals in mind,” he said. “First, the SEC must root its disclosure requirement in the concept of financial materiality. Second, these requirements must scale with a company’s size and maturity.”

With these changes, Atkins said he could set the SEC on a better path to fulfilling its original mission as a benign steward of financial markets.

“So as America’s 250^th anniversary approaches, the question before us is not whether our entrepreneurs have the capacity to reinvigorate our capital markets, but whether we, as regulators, have the will,” he concluded. “In this new day at the SEC, and under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, I am pleased to report that we do.”

What Should Be Done with All the Immigrants, Both Legal and Illegal?

According to a new report authored by Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo and published at City Journal, Democrats in Minnesota oversaw millions of taxpayer dollars in fraud. The authors reported that much of the fraud was allegedly perpetrated by members of the Somali community in Minnesota, which is “sizeable.” 

Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.

In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

Jarrett Stepman at The Daily Signal noted that the report by Thorpe and Rufo “set off a firestorm” as it brought the “outrageous scandal” into a “national conversation.” After quoting the above paragraph about Minnesota drowning in debt, Stepman explained as follows. 

The piece highlighted truly titanic fraud schemes involving various state welfare programs, including “Feeding Our Future,” a program that received hundreds of millions of dollars annually and was ultimately “being used to fund lavish lifestyles, purchase luxury vehicles, and buy real estate in the United States, Turkey, and Kenya.” …

Rufo was accused of being anti-immigrant and racist. Many on social media accused him of exaggerating the problem. But then The New York Times published a follow-up basically confirming that Minnesota’s social services were essentially eviscerated by Somali fraudsters under Walz’s watch.

There was a very important line in this piece provided by Ahmed Samatar, a professor at Macalester College. Samatar said, according to the Times, that “Somali refugees who came to the United States after their country’s civil war were raised in a culture in which stealing from the country’s dysfunctional and corrupt government was widespread.”

This sort of gets to the heart of why immigration policies have been so out of whack and destructive in Western countries for a generation, producing the current justified backlash.

It should be no surprise that in concentrated Somali communities, like the ones that exist in Minnesota, similar scams have taken place. One doesn’t need to be wholly against immigration to understand that. After all, Thomas Jefferson warned in his famed “Notes on the State of Virginia” about taking in too many people from “absolute monarchies” who will bring with them “the principles of the governments they leave imbibed in their early youth.”

“These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children,” Jefferson wrote. “In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us in legislation. Our laws and institutions must therefore be guarded with jealous attention; and in order to preserve them, we must incorporate our immigrants into the body of our people.”

He recommended essentially slowing our roll bringing in people form such places. That’s prudence, not nativism.

Former President Joe Biden was either senile or complicit, and Democrat governors – particularly Walz -- are either complicit or stupid in the way that they encouraged and orchestrated illegal immigration into the United States. All Americans should be grateful for President Donald Trump’s plan for the United States to permanently pause all immigration from Third World countries and discontinue all federal benefits and subsidies for noncitizens.

Trump encouraged all illegal immigrants to self-deport themselves back to their home countries and said that the United States would consider denaturalizing migrants who are not a “net asset” to the United States. Since he must act within constitutional law, Trump may not be able to accomplish all that he desires, but just stopping the influx of migrants into the United States should be helpful. 

  

Who Is Steve Lipscomb?

My VIP for this week is Steve Lipscomb – son, father, husband, Marine, man of faith, coal miner, and hero. Early in November, disaster struck when “Lipscomb and his crew encountered an unknown pocket of water when a ‘sudden and substantial’ flood sent millions of gallons into the Rolling Thunder Mine” [Kanawha County, West Virginia]. Lipscomb became a hero when he made sure that every member of his crew evacuated safely even though rising water in the shaft made it impossible for him – the last man -- to get out. 

After five days of round-the-clock, hazardous search efforts, a two-man crew found Lipscomb’s body in the mine at 7:37 a.m. Nov. 13.

Gov. Patric Morrisey (R-W.V.) announced his death outside the Rolling Thunder Mine. “This is really a very sad day in West Virginia,” Morrisey said. Lipscomb was the fifth coal miner to die this year in West Virginia….

Lipscomb’s tragic death marked the 29^th fatality in the mining industry this year, according to Coal Zoom, a mining trade organization with the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which details mining fatalities, nearly half of which are due to equipment failures. By state, West Virginia has the most mining fatalities this year at five.

Morrisey issued all flags flown at half-staff, not just for Lipscomb but for all five of the West Virginia coal miners who lost their lives on the job in 2025: Steven Fields, Billy Stalker, Eric Bartram, Joey Mitchell and Lipscomb.

Mitchell died last week in the Mettiki Mine in Grant County, marking the second mining fatality in November….

The history of coal in West Virginia dates back to the 1800s. Government and family records indicate that settlers of what was then Virginia (West Virginia seceded during the Civil War and became its own state) resided in a region rich in abundant reserves of bituminous coal. In fact, of the state’s 55 counties, only two do not have coal seams. It wasn’t until the railroads arrived that coal, previously used only for heat and fuel, became the backbone of a booming commercial industry in the 1880s….