Addison spoke in church on July 20th. Many members of our family as well as many friends came to support him on his special day. He spoke on the Restoration of the Church. He spoke very well and was very prepared. It was great to catch a glimpse of what the people in the Rochester New York area are going to witness. He is a true missionary and has been preparing himself for a long time. We can't wait to hear about his experiences along the way. There will be many good, and unfortunately some disappointing times. However, Addison is strong and we know that he will do the work and when it gets tough, he will get on his knees and pray just to get back up and get back to work. He will be AMAZING!!! He IS amazing!!! God Bless you Elder Daugs. We love you and we are going to pray for you always.
Thank you to all the family and friends that came to support Addison. Keep him in your prayers.
Below is the talk that Addison prepared and shared at his farewell.
The Restoration
For those of you that don’t know I was called to the New
York Rochester mission. It is the
western half of New York and contains the cities of Buffalo and Rochester. It also has many of the church history sights
such as Palmyra, the hill of Cummorah, and the sacred grove so Brother Atkin
thought it would be fitting that I talked about the restoration of the church
that happened in my mission.
Right
before Christ’s ministry on earth many people had stopped living according to
god’s commandments. When Christ came he
said in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth and the life.” It gave the people
someone to look up to as an example. In John 3:16-17 is says, “ For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son… that the world through him
might be saved.” Heavenly father sent
his son to the earth to atone for the sins of all mankind and overcome
death. He organized his church bringing
light back into the world and chose twelve men to serve as his apostles. In spite of his great influence and many
miracles he was rejected and crucified.
After his death his apostles carried on without him, spreading the
gospel.
Regardless
of the effort of Christ’s apostles and their followers the original church that
Christ established began to fade away.
The members of the church faced persecution and all but one of the
apostles were martyred. This period of
time was called the great apostasy when there was a “falling away” from the
church. The priesthood keys and the
power to receive revelation for the church were lost. Without direction in the church, there were
conflicting opinions on even the most basic teachings of the gospel. Without the gospel people’s ideas were taught
as truth. Essential doctrines like
faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost became distorted and
lost.
After
hundreds of years of spiritual confusion people were in need on Jesus Christ’s
original truths. People recognized this
and sought for greater spiritual light. This
resulted in the organization of many different churches. When the circumstances were right heavenly
father reached out to restore the gospel.
In 1820 God selected a 14-year-old
boy named Joseph Smith to be his messenger.
If the boy next door told us he was called by God to restore His true church
to the earth, we probably wouldn’t believe him.
But Joseph Smith wasn’t much different from Jesus Christ. People didn’t believe that their neighbor,
the carpenter was the Messiah either.
Joseph’s family was very religious and constantly was looking for the
truth. There were many different
churches and all with different teachings at this time. In Joseph Smith History 1:8,10 is says "So great were the confusion and
strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person
young as I was . . . to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who
was wrong. . . . In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I
often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right;
or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and
how shall I know it?"
So he turned to the bible for
guidance and he read James 1:5 which says “If any of you lack wisdom, let him
ask of god, that giveth all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be
given him” So he decided to do just that.
In the spring of 1820 he went to a grove of trees and knelt in
prayer. He described his experience “I
saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun,
which descended gradually until it fell upon me… When the light rested upon me
I saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing
above me in the air. One of them spake
unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is my Beloved
Son. Hear Him!”
In this vision God the father and
his son Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph telling him not to join any of the
churches. There were many good people
that believed in Christ and tried to understand and teach His gospel, but they
didn’t have the full truth or the authority to baptize and perform other saving
ordinances. This vision marked the
beginning of the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ to the earth, which
a wiser, more mature Joseph Smith would establish 10 years later.
The next step in the Restoration was
gaining the authority to lead the restored church. The authority to act in the name of God is
called the priesthood. Before the
organization of the Church, Joseph Smith received from the hands of John the
Baptist, Peter, James, and John who received that same power and authority from
Jesus Christ Himself. These men appeared
as angels and bestowed the priesthood upon Joseph Smith. Our prophet today, Thomas S. Monson and the
other apostles trace their priesthood authority back to Jesus Christ in an
unbroken chain of ordinations.
The next step in the restoration was
the Book of Mormon. In 1823, Joseph
Smith was visited by angel, Moroni just as angels appeared to apostles in the
New Testament. Moroni told Joseph that
an ancient record of the people of the Americas was buried in a nearby hill and
it contained the fullness of the gospel and was written on plates of gold. Through the power of God, Joseph Smith was
able to translate the plates into the Book of Mormon that we have now.
The book of Mormon tells us about
the struggles of the righteous people of that time who were trying to live gods
commandments but just like sometimes happens today they struggled and were
persecuted for their beliefs. The book
of Mormon testifies that Jesus Christ lived on the earth and still lives today
as our savior. It is a second witness of
Jesus Christ confirming the truth of the bible.
In preach my gospel the restoration
is the first lesson that I will be teaching as a mission and in that lesson it
tells about three of the things that separate our restored church from other
churches.
First, that God is our loving heavenly father and we are all his
children. God has a body of flesh and
bones that is glorified and perfected. We
are created in the image of God and have a body just like him. He loves and cares for us. He weeps when we suffer and rejoices when we
choose to do what is right. Also that
our Heavenly Father has provided a way that we can talk to him through sincere
prayer. Our purpose here on earth is to
learn and grow and we can do this by keeping the commandments. Just like it says in John 14:15 says, “If ye
love me keep my commandments.” We have been taught that our heavenly father
provides us with a way to return to live him by being obedient, staying pure
and clean and through the use of Jesus Christ’s atonement.
The next step in teaching about the
restored gospel is that the gospel blesses families. Families are ordained of god and are the most
important social unit. God has
established families to bring happiness to his children and prepare them for
eternal life. We believe that the home
is the best place to learn, teach, and a place where the spirit can be.
Our Heavenly
Father reveals his gospel in every dispensation. God shows his love for us by giving us
prophets who can lead and guide us in this day.
This comes because of that priesthood power that was restored by Joseph
Smith. We believe in both ancient and
modern prophecy and this is a sign of the true church and it continues to set
us apart from many other religions.
Many people in this world say, they believe in god, they go to church
and they are good people. They ask, “Why
did the church need to be restored?”
Elder Charles Didier of the seventy answers this question by saying
this, “A testimony of the Book of Mormon helps people answer why church needed
to be restored, and why we need a living prophet today.
In Moroni 10: 3-5 it talks about how
we can now the truthfulness of the book of Mormon and it says, “ Behold, I
would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God
that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the lord hath
been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the
time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
And when ye shall receive these
things, I would exhort you that ye would ask of God, the Eternal Father, in the
name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a
sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the
truth of it unto you, by the power of the holy ghost.
And by the power of the Holy Ghost
ye may know the truth of all things.”
I have read the book of Mormon and I
know that it is true and that it helps me with my everyday struggles. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet
and he did restore this great gospel to this earth. I know that my heavenly father loves mw and
watches over me. I know that he sent his
son, Jesus Christ to die for me. I am
grateful for the opportunity to be able to serve a mission, and I cant wait to
go serve the people of New York and to serve my heavenly father and I say these
things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
