Marvelous Work and a Wonder® Testimonials

My Story

This is the first time I have tried to pen important parts of my life story online. Geez I almost started with a classic BOM line of “Behold I was born of goodly parents “…. I think a better beginning would be to introduce myself and who/what I have identified myself to be in this mortal sojourn. My name is Fuarosa Pauline Lillian (Taue-married name) (Tongi-maiden name). I was born in Christchurch NZ during one of my mom’s visits to her family there. However, I grew up in Tonga where my dad is Tongan and my mom Samoan. I was born into five generations of lds church members on my father’s side. In fact, it was my great great grandfather who started the first lds branch in our village many years ago. It has grown since into 6 large wards and one whole stake. Needless to say my roots are deep in the lds church. Growing up in the church in Tonga, I realized and noticed how devoted Tongans are as Christians and that religion was the unifying factor of public life as well as family life. My family life growing up was filled with fun, challenges, turmoil, hard work, adventures, family dysfunction, dynamics and family functions. It was filled with sweet loving moments as well as heart wrenching experiences. I think as a family we have experienced all the range of emotions on the spectrum of emotions. I could write a whole book on our experiences as a family growing up. This is not the place for it. It suffice me to say that our family was doing whatever we can to live the standards and principles that the lds church taught. Although we knew that we were living it imperfectly and falling short more times than we can count, yet we still held on to our hope that God will forgive and grant us salvation with our families if we try our best and are faithful to his church on earth which we believed to be the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many a times we knew our efforts weren’t our best even. And so feelings of inadequacies, Insecurities and low self esteem was the norm. I had thought that this was characteristic of the humility that we were taught to acquire to be right with God since the scriptures say that God’s requirements are a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

When I was yet a small child I had recollected from my earliest memories of how my parents used to say that I was a smart kid. I’m not really sure how or why they thought so and discussed this around me. Even my siblings would tell others that I was the smartest person in our family. I do have a good memory but that’s about it. I don’t even know If they just randomly decided that I should be their smart child. Because they thought this way of me they had expectations of my excelling In school. I did well sometimes but not all the time as expected of me. I remember having a conversation in my head as a child. It was as if someone asked me in my head, ‘what would you choose- wisdom or wealth?’ By then I had been taught the saying that money cannot buy you happiness. So I answered, ’wisdom of course!’. In a way I have felt that through out my life I have been given wisdom through all of my experiences and awareness and readings. Every year and every stage of life has taught me about myself, life and others around me that I hadn’t learned before or needed to experience to really know. A part of me wished I answered, ‘ both’. I have always been curious and being labeled smart wasn’t always positive. My nana called it nosy, the Samoans called it fiepoko and Tongans called it kaimumu’a. They all mean arrogance. I was an avid reader as a child and all through out my life up to now. I feel like because my parents thought I was smart they let me get away with slacking from chores to reading and exploring on my own. I wanted to learn all about life and what life’s meanings are. Our family life was built around our memberships and fellowship In the church and so I was taught life’s meanings from the Lds church doctrines, principles and explanations. I didn’t know any other perspective. My understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ grew from Primary to Youth to Young Adults and finally to Relief Society. Each of these auxiliary programs taught me new and deepened understanding of the church and it’s doctrines. And because our church claimed to be the only true church of Christ on the earth today, it never occurred to me that It could be false. It could be where my innate feeling of being In the absolute right comes from. I always feel like I’m right and the other is wrong. This work is the only place that taught me that ‘Everyone’s right therefore everyone’s wrong!’

Looking back I can see how I was led line upon line precept upon precept until I found this work. In my youth I was easily impressed by the Sunday talks that priesthood leaders gave at church. They sounded powerful and sure of their testimonies and convictions of the gospel. I felt that they must be awesome as humans and as disciples of Jesus Christ. I thought they must be leaders In examples of Christ’s love and attributes. I held them in high regard to say the very least. Their heartfelt testimonies created in me a faith and hope that our church was right and that Jesus Christ was the head of it and that we’re being led by him as a church. And then my parents took us joyriding through out our main island and we ended up riding past the most impoverished parts of the island where the poor people lived in primitive conditions and where the nation’s garbage was being dumped. I saw dirty little girls scavenge the rubbish being dumped for anything useful. I saw houses that looked flimsy and some were made out of cardboards and thin boards with tyres on the roof. I saw the area muddy and dirty and the people likewise. I had a few thoughts about this. It touched me deeply to the core and the first seeds of doubt began their planting in my mind. How could my local church leaders speak of God’s love, grace and mercy while these people live in these sad conditions? I reflected on prominent church leaders in my area and how well they lived and how publicly respected they are. I also reflected on the king and how he lived in a palace with his family by about 8 to 10 minutes drive away and how extravagantly he’s living. It was a strikingly stark contrast. My thoughts were…..do the king or religious leaders care about these people and their specific needs? I guess I judged the king because he rules the country and I judged prominent religious leaders who claimed to be Christ’s representatives here on earth because they are the role models for what Christ would do If he was here. So my real question was for my church. So if Jesus Christ was here, would he lead the church the way my church was currently being led? Would he direct the tithes of his people to build church buildings and temples and focus our efforts solely on ordinances that are deemed to be of eternal significance? What would he do and say about the poor people of the world? Would he pay any attention to them? What would he say about those who have to walk for miles to drink water that is brown and muddy? But wait a minute…..the Bible does say his general attitude about them. Was it not he who said…’for in as much as ye have done it unto the least of these…ye have done it unto me? I knew this because that Is what I had been taught In Seminary, primary and youth. They sang of the unconditional love and kindness of Jesus Christ every week at church. So I could not reconcile why there are people suffering and dying from poverty when there are a lot of Christians who claim allegiance to him and his cause and examples. I came to two possible conclusions – either the lds church is right In the way they run their organizations and that God has a purpose for those people being in poverty or that the lds church is wrong and that we’re supposed to help the world not have poverty In it. This was my thought pattern surrounding this. I could not understand that If people could not take humane care of themselves and their extended family have also failed them…..who’s responsible for them then? Is Society then responsible? I was a teenager when I had this realization. It was in the back of my mind. It’s not like I could do anything about it right then. Life moved on and I had my own set of personal challenges typical of adolescence. I was always an eager partaker of learning new things, new understandings and I was hoping to ‘crack the code’ for how to gain all of the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To me church seemed to be an endless teaching of if you keep these commandments you’ll get these blessings. After high school, I chose to go to NZ for my tertiary Education. One of my favorite attribute In my parents was that they let us choose where to go to school. They wisely determined that there are some things that we could only learn on our own. My siblings and I did our tertiary education away from home. I thought since I was a NZ citizen by birth, I may as well go there and also be with my mum’s mom and siblings. I secretly wanted to convert them to the lds church. I did try to bear my testimony to them. But they had serious reservations about the lds church. Needless to say that they thought It was a cult, that they were arrogant In their claims to be the only true church and one of my uncles told me that all churches were corrupted and set up only to benefit their leaders. I didn’t believe them. I thought that their claims were true of other churches but not of mine. I was like….but my church is perfect! Little did I know! Even when they brought up the proof of polygamy, my mind was very convinced that there was a very essential reason for It and that my church was right and everyone else was wrong. These differences in perspectives estranged me from them. I felt uncomfortable around them and they probably felt the same around me. I began to be more involved in my lds church community and it felt wonderful to associate with people of the same beliefs. I delved Into studying the scriptures and words of the lds apostles and prophets with fervor. I once asked my institute teacher about the impoverished people of Africa and I kid you not this was his explanation…. he said that only the members and the converts to the church are the people in the premortal existence who were valiant followers of Jesus Christ. The others who came in the impoverished nations and all others weren’t really followers of Jesus Christ and just got sent here because they didn’t exactly follow Satan either but has the opportunity here to convert and follow Jesus Christ and join his fold(the lds church). I prayed deeply on a regular basis. At one point, I felt a warm comforting confirmation in one of my prayers. It was as if someone who loved me and knew me personally was giving me a hug. It was a powerful experience! Of course I Interpreted it through my religious perspective that it was Heavenly Father showing me that he’s aware of me and that he loved me. I had my patriarchal blessing given. Some of the blessings mentioned was that I had a special endowment of intelligence from God and that the more I drew close to Him, the more God will reveal to me and use me in positions of authority far greater than I could comprehend at this time. It was very close to what my parents said about me. I was even more convinced that this lds church was the real deal. Furthermore, I decided to read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover. It was hard at first because it seemed extremely tedious. There seemed to be a lot of ‘And it came to pass’ passages. I decided to push through with the prophet’s challenge to read even though I didn’t understand a lot of it. And then somewhere in the middle I had my absolute witness of it’s truthfulness. The witness I experienced was the feeling that everyone is equal In God’s eyes and presence. I felt strong emotions when I read about how the anti-nephi-Lehis buried their weapons of war and were killed when the Lamanites came upon them. I felt equally as emotional when I read king Benjamin’s sermon in Mosaiah chapter 4 & 5. Especially chapter 4 verse 16 – 28. It answered my questions that I had as a teenager about poverty when I saw the impoverished people in my Island. I felt that it was the most straightforward answer to who’s responsible for those who cannot care for themselves. The following verses are and will always be gold to me.

16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—

18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?

20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.

21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another.

22 And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

23 I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who are rich as pertaining to the things of this world.

24 And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.

25 And now, if ye say this in your hearts ye remain guiltless, otherwise ye are condemned; and your condemnation is just for ye covet that which ye have not received.

26 And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.

27 And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.

28 And I would that ye should remember, that whosoever among you borroweth of his neighbor should return the thing that he borroweth, according as he doth agree, or else thou shalt commit sin; and perhaps thou shalt cause thy neighbor to commit sin also.

This solidified my testimony that I was in God’s true church for this was surely his message for his children and since the Book of Mormon came from them. I was super converted. And so I bore my testimony of the church to anyone who would listen. I was not ashamed of my conversion and I happily shared it with people. Even the stake president approached me and asked me to put in my application to go on a mission for the church. When I told him I had no money, he told me that he was going to pay for it. He promised me that If I did the Lord would prepare a priesthood holder for me to marry when I got back. Well, my parents disagreed when I asked them because they wanted to pay for my mission if I did go and they had already retired and didn’t have the money to send me on one. They instead encouraged me to finish my tertiary education studies. So I ended up doing just that. I was active In the church community and in the Institute program. I met and spent a lot of time with senior couple missionaries who came from the U.S.A and worked with the Young Single Adults program In the area. I loved them and they loved me. Some of the young single adults complained that they favored me above all the others. On one of these occasions I met and spent time with one of my favorite couple missionaries of all time. This couple was different from all the others, especially in the way they taught the gospel. Their focus was on having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and that only he can grant personal salvation. He supported the idea of spending huge amounts of time in personal prayers, meditation and studying the scriptures. He quoted from past lds prophets the idea that Jesus Christ appears in holy places to lds members of the church. This was new to my understanding and I believed and was intrigued and wanted so much to have this experience myself. Oh, how I spent many hours on my knees searching for my own personal revelation and for even a glimpse. He gave an analogy that the lds church is just a vehicle taking us to the destination of eternal life. As beautiful as the vehicle is, it is not the destination or the goal. He gave me the Idea that the church exists to help exalt the people, the people do not exist to exalt the church. I was so inspired by his message. His way of teaching also emphasized the worth of souls and how important any soul is to God no matter who they are and what they have done. I saw with my own eyes this elderly missionary hugged a homeless looking man and confirmed his worth to him by telling him that he loved him. The following week, this man showed up at the institute building showered, groomed and dressed to be with us. I was amazed at how a loving encounter can make such a difference in someone’s life and pick them up in an amazing way. The spirit of the message that this couple gives is that Jesus Christ can become personally involved with you in such a way that you can be led on a daily basis by him through out your life. I held on to that Idea like nothing else. It made perfect sense to me. Where the prophets and church leader’s revelation ends, personal revelation fills up the rest. My prayers became lengthy and my scripture study endless. I fasted many times and 2 – 3 days at a time. I wrote a lot of journal entries analyzing the scriptures and reflections that came to my mind about them. At this time, I was following my Patriarchal blessing ‘timeline’. It seemed to predict that I was going to have a husband and children and that we were going to go on a couple’s mission together. And so I was active in church and praying & fasting mightily for a direction in choosing an eternal companion. Long story short, I married the man whom I felt led to marry. No one could understand my choice, especially my family. He came from a broken family of separated parents. He didn’t really have a home and lived with his mom on his brother’s property. He didn’t even have electricity at the time we got married. My perspective of people and life was still heavily influenced by the Book of Mormon In which I saw all people as equal value no matter their circumstances. Looking back I realize I was a serious person about religion. I was always kind of a try hard in religion. I always trusted in the lds church and was deeply loyal to it. I would always defend it and was pretty sure that It was God’s church on earth. I would read books that church leaders wrote, as many as I could find. The main reason I suppose was that my hope for salvation and exaltation was foundationalized In religion since I thought of myself as corrupted, sinful and imperfect.

Once I got married, my older sister helped me and my husband move to the United States to live with her. We had our 3 children and was waiting for my husband to apply for u.s citizenship so he can file for my green card. My husband was a u.s non-citizen national from being born In American Samoa. He needed to become a u.s citizen to file for my permanent residency but he needed to live in the United States for 5 years in order to establish residency. So we were waiting for that with my husband and children having legal status while I had no status in the u.s. We had every confidence that this would happen since the lds church taught that the United States of America was the promised land to the faithful. Why shouldn’t we be there? We moved from my sister for employment and ended up in Utah. My general attitude was wherever I was in the world, the church and Its people were my family. I was even more excited to be in Utah where the prophets and apostles were and to be where the church headquarters were. My expectations were high. I thought the people of the church were angelic and ‘special’ to be living near the prophet.

At some point In my life living in Utah, I was obsessed with the second coming and read a lot of books that lds members wrote regarding their visions and revelations of the second coming. I even read the Visions of glory book. I was ready to move to the mountains with my family. At this time I was taking care of my father and my mother had passed away shortly before We moved to Utah. I was a bit depressed and reached out for support from my Relief Society President. It was during this sad period that I randomly stumbled across Ida Smith’s interview about the sealed portion on YouTube. I recognized her immediately as one who was director of the Women’s studies at BYU Provo. The title said something about her being excommunicated, so that piqued my interests to say the very least. I wanted to know why a prominent lds woman leader was excommunicated so I watched her Interview. She introduced the Sealed Portion and I looked for it online and read it together with the rest of the mwaw books. It answered most of my questions about the church and life. The new amazing information I read healed my sore feelings toward others and I began to love those around me.

I had a question for the longest time about my favorite senior couple missionaries. They were from Utah and had 12 children. I heard and read this about them. In their younger years prior to their couple mission services, the husband was a professor of religion at BYU Provo – one of the most popular at that time. He had written a book on having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. His book was called, “what it means to know Christ”. His book was very popular and selling like hot cakes. He was also a stake president of one of the student wards at BYU Provo. Bruce R McConkie who was an apostle was the guest speaker at one of the BYU conferences. The following was what happened: In his sermon, McConkie did not mention Pace or his book by name though he excerpted a quote which he called “plain sectarian nonsense”, and warned against developing a special spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ, apart from the Holy Ghost and God the Father. McConkie felt this was a “gospel hobby” that could lead to “an unwholesome holier-than-thou attitude” or “despondence”. McConkie said he didn’t intend to “downgrade” Jesus, but to teach true doctrine and warn his audience. McConkie later claimed he wasn’t singling out or specifically thinking of Pace, but was warning against a general trend of “extreme behavior” of born-again type experiences.

According to his son, Pace was personally devastated and saw this as a public condemnation and rebuke. He removed his book from the market, lost his church position as stake president, and had a dramatic drop in class enrollment. Pace issued a formal apology in which he stated that his opinions may be misinterpreted, and he was glad that McConkie had clarified the issues. Pace wanted “to stay in the mainstream of the Church” and remain loyal to its leadership. In contrast, Pace’s son cited the controversy as disillusioning him toward his religious leaders and motivating him to leave the LDS Church.

I wanted to know why an apostle who is deemed to be a special witness of Christ would publicly condemn a book that bears testimony of him and also cut down a stake president – another leader. I thought a special witness of Jesus Christ would be as kind as possible to others – especially another faithful servant of Jesus Christ. Even if he was correcting him. Should not it be done privately? To me he broke the golden rule of doing unto others as you want done unto you. I mean he wrote many books and he thought he has the authority to rebuke one book written by another servant of the Lord. And I couldn’t understand why other leaders were the ‘abrahamic test’ for other leaders. By that time, I thought that there’s no need for Satan to work on us, we’re already sinking each other from eternal life. My friend stayed loyal to the church and I was proud of him but I felt deeply sorry for him. He gave this advice to me – that even though the general authorities were special witnesses of Christ they were still human and had weaknesses. I even had a problem with this advice. How do you know when a prophet is leading the church by revelation or with his weaknesses? Anyhow after reading the Sealed Portion, I thought I could understand that situation better and made my peace with it. Perhaps my friend was too popular and his book became too popular that he was probably drawing away the attention of the people from the general authority leaders to him. I understand now that you cannot ‘outshine’ the ‘higher’ leaders of an organization or church. Because now I understand that a church is instituted by men and not by God. You will be cut down. My poor friend and his family probably thought they were suffering some abrahamic test that even they couldn’t understand. Reading the revealed truth thru the mwaw set me free and helped me to understand the questions I had that nobody else could answer. It was like golden oil poured into my soul.

From the time I started reading the Sealed Portion, other mwaw books and followed the writings of Christopher Nemelka, I was Intrigued and overjoyed and filled with even more love and affection for all people. I became even more generous than people could understand. I could see that people were confused that I treated others like how family treated each other. I was happy and lost weight naturally without much effort. My new belief system was centering around treating others the way they wanted to be treated. I made sure I was as kind as I possibly could and as merciful and generous as I could. As I followed the writings of Christopher in the MWAW website I started to share it with my husband. He amazingly agreed with the ideas as true but hated Christopher as he thought his goal was to draw people away from the church. He thought Christopher was just an offended x-member of the church who hated the church and wanted revenge on the church for excommunicating him by writing things against the church to turn people against it. I implored my husband to read the books but he would not. However different our opinions became I still was very much in love with my husband and he loved me. He just began to hate Christopher. I stayed in the church because of my husband but it was hard to hear things I no longer believed and harder still to teach doctrines I felt was false. In the end, I just went for my husband. Once my dad passed away, I was ready to move because immigration denied my husband’s citizenship application. We had prayed and fasted as a family and kept the commandments as best we could including paying our full tithing and offerings. We served with all our hearts. We applied and it took immigration 3 years to tell us that they denied his application based on immigration no longer accepting documents from outside of the u.s including American Samoa as valid. My husband was livid! He didn’t know what else to do. I was angry too because It took 3 years for them to say that, when we have been corresponding back and forth in those 3 years. I thought, screw this!, I can take my family to NZ and file for their permanent residency since I am a citizen. Since immigration denied his application, I saw my husband walk around as if he carried the world on his shoulders. Initially, our family’s plan was for me to become a permanent resident and work when I can to meet the needs of our family. Once It became apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to do that, my husband was so disheartened he lost weight and began to be sick. I was losing weight, enjoying life, exercising, playing volleyball and enjoying social relationships that church life offered while my husband’s body was deteriorating. I felt that it was no use for me to be generous and loving toward others when my husband needed this love and generosity himself. I knew that both of us being able to help each other in bread winning would make him feel like we were on equal footing. Not only that but I wanted to work as well for myself and for my family. It was no surprise to me when we decided to move to NZ and his medical tests showed that he had an undiagnosed illness. We knew he was sick, we just didn’t know what it was. That was our cue to leave. Besides, Christopher was starting to prophesy about America’s impending doom, it sounded less and less like a promised land and more and more like Armageddon. I felt free from the ties of America. I wanted to travel and check out the happenings in Tonga and NZ. I missed the food in NZ and it’s beauty. America is beautiful but we could never afford to explore it and we were afraid of snakes so we didn’t get out much in nature except to the stores and malls. I wanted us to enjoy the beauty of other countries as a family and experience life from other people’s perspectives. I am a firm believer in the idea that traveling is the antedote to ignorance. Looking back…..what if I didn’t travel to the impoverished parts of my island, would I have thought about poor people in such a way? What if I never moved to Utah, would I have found out about my church from other perspectives? Would I have had the opportunity to consider and experience the perspectives of my relatives in Christchurch and see as they see? I’m not sure. I believe that if I never moved out of NZ after my so called conversion, my perspective would be something like that primary song…’All things bright and beautiful all creatures great and small. All things wise and wonderful the Lord God made them all’…. I think I would be still staunch and faithful and ever loyal to the lds church. I am grateful for all that has been revealed to me in terms of experiences, studies and readings. Anyways, we ended up In NZ and I gave my husband a choice. Because my perspective has changed about the church I didn’t want my children to be indoctrinated into the lds church doctrines and explanations about life and my husband wanted his children to be raised in the church. I told him that it’s not fair that he hasn’t been exposed to the readings that changed my mind about the church. I wanted him to read it and understand my current perspectives. I promised him that if he would at least read it and understand where I’m coming from then I’ll let him make the decision regarding the children of how they are to be raised. And because my husband wasn’t working, he actually had time to read. Once he started reading he could not only understand my feelings but agreed with the Information as common sense.

The absolute proof for me that this work Is the truth is not only in the logic of it all but it’s the first platform that makes it it’s goal to serve all of the human race equitably without regard to status, nationality, wealth or personal beliefs. All can be served according to basic needs and all can be truly free to exercise free agency in the pursuit of individual happiness. I saw that the problems with charities Is that they never really solve poverty. There seem to be a forever legacy of struggling to meet basic needs everyday for most of the people on the earth with the majority not having their basic needs met. I remember discussing this with my kid’s dentist on one of his appointments. He told me that our hands are tied as humans and that there’s pretty much nothing we can do about it. I asked him who or what is tying our hands as humans. I told him that if we have tied our hands ourselves then we could free ourselves by uniting ourselves as humans and change our situations and circumstances. After reading the humanity party’s proposals and Ideas, I came to the conclusion that nothing in the history of humankind ever felt more like love than this. This is the manna I have been waiting for. Even though I was a deeply committed religious person half my life, it always bothered me that there was someone else somewhere In the world who didn’t have enough food to eat, clean water to drink and a safe place to stay.

In the end, if I wasn’t much of a reader, I wouldn’t have found this amazing information and work. It takes me back to a popular poem by Emilie Poulsson:

Books are keys to wisdom’s treasures;
Books are gates to lands of pleasure;
Books are paths that upward lead;
Books are friends. Come, let us read.

What’s ironic Is that the only time I’ve ever heard this poem was when Thomas S Monson read it in a YSA devotional address back in 2001 or 2002. It was one of my favorite talks called the three gates. All in all, I would have to say that all the times that I have ever felt the ‘Spirit’ touch my heart and warm my soul was when any of the ideas or experiences presented before me were about loving others, forgiving and patience, mercy and generosity, Equality and kindness. As if some internal compass was whispering ‘that is the right path!’

Fuarosa T

tauefuarosa@gmail.com