Why Don't You Drink Coffee? - Share the 1st vision

 

Three Reasons We Teach Others about the First Vision

By Mark A. Mathews

Seminaries and Institutes

1. The First Vision lays the foundation of all that we believe.

One reason we teach the First Vision early in our missionary lessons is that it quickly introduces our unique belief that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, speak today through modern revelation to living prophets. So much of what we believe grows out of that basic doctrine. Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared an experience he had that beautifully illustrates this point:

“My wife and I once visited a university in Athens, Greece. As part of that visit, we were taken on a sightseeing tour. While we were actually inside the Parthenon, our hostess, a graduate student in archaeology, said, ‘Next, I would like to take you to my favorite coffee house in all of Athens.’

“My wife said that we would love to go with her, but she said, ‘Please don’t be offended if we don’t drink the coffee.’

“Our hostess asked, ‘You don’t drink coffee?’

“‘No,’ we answered.

“‘Why not?’ she asked.

“As I was formulating a response, my wife said, ‘The short answer is this: In 1820, a young man by the name of Joseph Smith went into a grove in upstate New York to pray. He wanted to know which church he should join. There he saw God, our Heavenly Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ. Joseph was told he should join none of the churches. But he was told that through him, the Church Jesus had established while He was on the earth would be restored. The restoration would be through a process of revelation. And it is through revelation that we know that we shouldn’t drink coffee. My husband will now explain it to you further.’

“How do we really explain ourselves? How do we explain anything that we do or believe if we do not go back to the Sacred Grove and establish the principle of revelation, that God reveals His will to prophets in this day and age? We obey because we have understood through the Holy Ghost something of eternal import. The reason you and I observe the Word of Wisdom, obey the law of chastity, and keep other commandments is because of revelation.”

This story shows why sharing the First Vision with others lays a foundation to help them understand all of our other beliefs and teachings. So much of what we believe that is unique and interesting to others comes from modern revelation, beginning with the First Vision....

The story of my wife’s friend reminds us of another reason we should strive to share the First Vision at every opportunity—it brings the Spirit.

Not Perfect Health

"The word of wisdom does not promise you perfect health, but it teaches how to keep the body you were born with in the best condition and your mind alert to delicate spiritual promptings... surely the word of wisdom was given so that you may keep the delicate, sensitive, spiritual part of your nature on proper alert. Learn to 'listen' to your feelings. You will be guided and warned and taught and blessed."

Boyd K. Packer

Fashionable, Sophisticated, and Fun? Nope

The statistics today with respect to cigarette smoking are not in dispute. Smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to develop heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. Smoking is estimated to increase the risk of lung cancer by 25 times.6

So what the adversary portrayed as fashionable, sophisticated, and fun has in fact resulted in misery and untimely death for millions of people.

Alcohol is another example. Over many years I have followed a research project that commenced in the 1940s. Initially, 268 men attending Harvard University were periodically studied over their entire lives. Later, others, including women, became part of the study. The goal of the original study was to find out about success and happiness.

This study contains three significant insights. First, adult happiness has a high correlation with childhood familyhappiness, especially love and affection from parents.7Second is the importance of a healthy, stable marriage to lifelong happiness.8 Third is the negative effect of alcohol on marital and lifetime success and happiness. Alcohol abuse touches one-third of families in the United States and is involved in one-fourth of hospital admissions. It plays a major role in death, bad health, and diminished accomplishment.9

A recent Washington Post front-page article based on U.S. federal health data reported that “women in America are drinking far more, and far more frequently, than their mothers or grandmothers did, and alcohol consumption is killing them in record numbers.” The article concluded that “the current and emerging science does not support the purported benefits of moderate drinking” and that “the risk of death from cancer appears to go up with any level of alcohol consumption.”

• MARCH 2018
• WHEN EVIL APPEARS GOOD AND GOOD APPEARS EVIL

• PREVIOUS
• NEXT

When Evil Appears Good and Good Appears Evil

By Elder Quentin L. Cook

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

From a devotional address, “A Banquet of Consequences: The Cumulative Result of All Choices,” given at Brigham Young University on February 7, 2017. For the full address, visit speeches.byu.edu.

Law of Health - Things I Need to Remember

"The spirit of this law is to consume nutritious foods and to refrain from anything that is habit forming...
 A clean body is more receptive to the Holy Ghost....
We should also avoid anything that is harmful to our bodies, such as overeating or refusing to eat enough healthy foods to maintain our health."

"The Lord Has Given Us a Law of Health," Ensign, Feb 2012, 8. 

The Milk Cocktail

“I have found that if you live the way you should live, people notice and are impressed with your beliefs and you have an influence on the lives of others.

“I spent my career in the department store business. Because I was part of a management team, it was important for me to interact socially with local business organizations. The meetings with most of these organizations always started with a cocktail hour. It was a time to mix and get acquainted with the men who belonged to the organization. I have always felt uncomfortable in these social hours. At first I started asking for a lemon-lime soda. I soon discovered that lemon-lime soda looks like many of the other drinks. I could not build the impression I was a nondrinker with a clear soda in my hands. I tried root beer. It had the same problem.

“Finally I decided I had to have a drink that would clearly mark me as a nondrinker. I went to the bartender and requested a glass of milk. The bartender had never had such a request. He went into the kitchen and found a glass of milk for me. Now I had a drink that looked very different from the alcoholic beverages the others were drinking. Suddenly I was the center of attention. There were a lot of jokes made of my drink. My milk was a conversation piece. I met more business leaders that evening than I ever had before at a cocktail hour.

“Milk became my drink of choice at the cocktail hours. It soon became common knowledge I was a Mormon. The respect I received really surprised me, as did an interesting event that started to occur. Others soon joined me in a pure milk cocktail!

“Dare to be different. Live up to the standards we are taught in the gospel.”

Elder L. Tom Perry, From an address delivered on January 15, 2010, at Utah Valley University.