HELP, HELP ME RHONDA - BLACKS AND THE PRIESTHOOD

I had to work on Sunday.  I was heading out to do a fix on a 747 and bumped into Rhonda, one of the line QA people.  We got to chatting about uncertainty and the future.  She is a democrat (is African American and liked and voted for obummer) but does not like hitlery, nor Trump.  I told her I will probably write in Jesus - and the conversation changed to a religious tone.

She is Pentecostal and we talked about the good points of her faith (they believe in a practice gifts fo the Spirit) and I told her I am Mormon.  She had a ton of questions.  One of her goals is to move to Utah to study at the University of Utah as a physician's assistant (PA).  We talked about Spencer's book and I told her to get a witness for herself, but that this particular area might experience some rough times ahead.

She then confessed that she wants to live off grid and has kind of a survivalist bent in her thinking.  I already knew from a previous conversation that she is into naturopathic medicine.  We have a lot in common in our thinking, obama aside.  I actually had the guts to let her know that I did not like his marxist policies and that he is an anti-Christ.  The body language immediately closed up - but I gave her the whole spiel.  Our convo lasted three or four hours - it ended up being a 14 hour day for me - though I missed Church, the Spirit was there in our convo.

Her boyfriend is a former Mormon (who I think has struggled with the commandments - and, as my roomie pointed out this morning, if you leave Mormonism, you usually go athiest because why go for second best??  It is either the fulness or nothing......  There is no middle ground.  I had not thought of it like this before).  So, her perspective is more of curiosity than anything.  She took me to some sites on her computer where she was getting info from well-crafted anti-Mormon sites that appeared to be authoritative, but led the reader to just flat wrong conclusions. 

She likes that Mormons are strong on the family front.  I think she liked them because they are preparedness-minded.  BUT, she thinks we have a thing against blacks.  She talked about Cain and how we "think all blacks go to a lesser heaven".  Sheesh.  It took me an hour explaining about Hebrews 7 and our Priesthood and how the black race received the mark of Cain thru Egyptus, wife of Ham.  BUT, the mark was not the problem - it was the attempt by Ham to usurp the birthright from Shem (father of the Semitic peoples, including Abraham), when he sought the garment of Noah that had been passed down from Adam after the Patriarchal order.  Next stop, Shem.  Period. 

There have been a lot of sticky points in history where this birthright thing caused contention.  The coat of many colors of Joseph most likely had to do with this same thing.  Father places garment on son, other brothers (including the firstborn) are not happy.  Contention.  There are those who lead in birth order, but the precedent is quite clear, that if they give up their rightful place in spiritual ascendancy, then it goes to another more worthy.  This same principle has been repeated with the Chosen Seed from the beginning.  One giving up the privilege over almost nothing.  In some cases, it was wrested (or an attempt was made to wrest it) from the rightful heir, like in the case of Cain and Abel.  The father of all of this greed, jealousy and chaos, of course, being the father of all lies and murders and secret combinations, who attempted to de-trone the First Born of the Father.  It failed - and we are still dealing with the wreckage and the eternal shock waves of that event.  I have seen it in my own family and so many others.  People selling out their futures over a mess of pottage.

This last week, Randy Bachman's mansion went up for sale, and I could not help but think of his oldest son, my compadre who gave it all up to chase after his false notions and is now one of the greatest anti/detractors of the Church.  Two people - two paths - two drastically different outcomes.  Sad.  I don't know if Tal will ever pull out of his spiritual death spiral - before it is everlastingly too late.  I mourn for him.  He lost his family, he may lose his soul - and there is the wreckage of all those who followed him down the primrose path to their own demise.  All must be paid in full to the utmost farthing.  If the Atonement is not accepted in a life, it must be done alone without help.  Stubbornness of soul and bitterness never brought anyone to greatness.

So, back to Rhonda.  I assured her that there may have been some mis-steps by Brigham Young for some period of time (maybe over-stating some doctrines at the expenses of others), but that when the time was right, the thing that was set in motion right after the Flood, were set straight.  She was still not convinced, so I told her the story of my mission experience in California, before leaving for Brazil where we met a professional black couple that wanted to be baptized, but got stuck on the 1978 revelation.  I went home and fasted and prayed for the next couple of days and read the story of the cloth with the four corners and the unclean things being lowered out of heaven - and I had my answer, which I took back to them.  I am not a direct descendant of Judah or Aaron or possibly even Ephriam - so I would not have qualified for the gospel or baptism while Jesus was on the earth.  Yes, there was (and is) a hierarchy of those who receive the message and then have the privilege and burden to take the message to the rest of Father's children.  That is how it is in any large organization.  When I went into a two week intensive class to get my MRB, others who were more qualified and chosen by management, led the classes and training until the rest of the class could pass an exam at the end of the two weeks.  One group lifted another - until the whole pool passed (or did not, as the case was for a few).

This is the economy of heaven - and earth.  The same economy will exist in the Spirit World.  It should not be offensive to some whose time was later.

When I got my mission call in 1988, on the front of the personal letter from President Martins was a picture of a black man and his family.  I stared at that picture in shock.  I had only been around two black people in my life (a brother and sister at high school), neither of which I had spent much time with.  His son was one of the first people to receive the Priesthood in the Church after the 1978 revelation - and was sealed in the Sao Paulo Temple.  His father, a long-time member in Rio had served faithfully on the Temple Committee preparing for the temple that, at the time, he never knew if he would EVER walk within its walls (after the dedication).  He wept and spent many hours talking to President Kimball about this fact (humbly - not coercively) - and may have been a catalyst in Pres Kimball taking that conversation to the Lord.  I was serving as his assistant in the Mission Home when the call was extended for him to be the first black Seventy in this dispensation (or any that we know of?).  It was historic.  I helped him with his english on the first GC talk given by a black man.  He had a very thick Portuguese accent from the Rio area - so it was a formidable task.

I also mentioned to Rhonda about how Mormons got their arses handed to them in MO - and that it was mostly over the slavery question - MO was a swing state and a battleground for the whole slavery issue.  Pray for Rhonda - that her heart will be softened.  I spent three hours with her because I feel that she may yet join the Saints in the camps of Israel.  May it be so.

So, I dedicate this song to Rhonda:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raNGeq3_DtM

A fellow seeker of truth who feels like a foreigner in a strange land.