After having received his previous two messages I ended up writing a fairly lengthy one back.
________
Pastor S,
I am glad to hear that you have grown as a follower of God in the last
several years. That is always my hope for those who have faith in Jesus
Christ. We must always press forward with a steadfast faith in Christ and
keep his commandments in order that we may bless others and find true
happiness.
I'm glad that you have looked over the document I sent you. For fairness
sake I will tell you that I never liked the line "can ensure the salvation
of its members" in my paper because that is not what I believe a church
does. I believe salvation comes through the Atonement of Jesus Christ,
however my experience in Mississippi was that many people believe that a
particular faith (i.e. the Baptist Faith or the Pentecostal Faith) is what
ensures their salvation. This document was not written specifically for you
but rather to all who profess to believe the in the Bible.
Before I write any further I want you to know that one of the main reasons I
decided to write to you at all is because I felt it was my duty to do so.
See, while I served in the Columbia and Tylertown areas I had a
responsibility to testify of Jesus Christ and of his restored gospel upon
the earth. When I had occasion to meet you in person I was in a rush and
was not able to speak to you at length. It has always bothered me that this
was the case. Seeing how you are one of the great spiritual leaders of the
area I was always bothered that I was not able to bear my testimony of Jesus
Christ to you. I feel as though I short-changed both myself and you, and so
I want to do so now.
I have a testimony of Jesus Christ and I know that he is the son of the
everlasting God. I know that he came to the earth, that he suffered and
died for my pains and sins and that he was resurrected. I know that he
lives today. I know that he has revealed himself to prophets in our day and
that he leads the work that I spent two years of my life teaching. If it
were not for him then all life would be wasted. Without him we would never
have the opportunity to repent and find forgiveness of our sins and without
him there would be no resurrection from death. I owe all I have and all I
am to him, and I love him with all my heart. He is my friend and he is my
Savior.
I am saddened to see that you feel negatively about my faith, however I am
not angry with you for it. I believe that all men and women have the right
to believe in what they want to believe, and worship how they want to
worship, and it is never right to force anyone into principles that they do
not believe simply because we disagree with them. I did not write to you
expecting that you would be converted to my faith or to make you believe
exactly what I believe. That was not my goal. My intention was to let you
know of my testimony of Jesus Christ, because I was never able to do so when
I met you. I also wanted you to know that Mormons are not evil and that we
do not seek to force our religion on anyone. We ask people to bring all the
good and true principles that they have and then see if we can add to them.
We never ask anyone to deny the truth they already have. To be fair, some
of us are a bit overzealous and forceful at times, however you by your own
admission know that people are not perfect. We are simply doing the best we
have with the knowledge we have, and nobody should be faulted for being too
faithful.
Since you were able to figure out which faith I belong to based solely on
the Bible references I sent you, I am going to pass on expounding on the
different topics you asked about at this time. My guess is you probably
know what I believe. Honestly, the document I sent you answers all of your
questions to some degree. After studying that, if you still have questions,
I would be happy to answer them.
For now I will bid you farewell. I ask that you keep me in your prayers and
I will also keep you in mine.
Sincerely,
Hal Waldram
________
I tried to be a civil as possibly but I did not want to answer every question he had (at least not in its entirety) because I was pretty sure he knew my beliefs and was simply looking for a way to get me to say something amiss. I hope this wasn't the case, but I always work on the side of caution in cases like this.
I also sent him the following video in the next message to him. I sent him a YouTube link just in case he was worried about going to an official LDS website. I figured this video would provide the LDS outlook on the nature of God the Father and Jesus Christ better than any way I could explain it. Elder Holland has a profound way with words and speaks with the Spirit every time he speaks in a meeting.
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