I look forward to the Second Coming because apparently that’s the only thing that will get us silly humans to stop killing each other.

The Second Coming has always been used as a boogeyman, the bell signaling the test is over, you’d better have done well! Because, well, it is sort of the end of the road. If you were bad by that point, you will not be getting any presents. If you’ve been good, well, you get your mansions in heaven.

I recall the constant discussions when I was growing up about whether we would all be ready to move to Jackson County in order to prepare the way for the Second Coming. I told of having to help build buildings, etc. All I can say is that if you need me to build a building, stay out! The Second Coming seemed to be something that was going to be any day. Actually most of my young men leaders thought it would be around 2000. I never quite understood why the worry about the Second Coming. One could die at any time. So, shouldn’t the moral of any individual be to live each day as if it were the last? I suppose the division as God perhaps sees it is that some choose to live their lives as if God were coming tomorrow (The oil in the lantern parable) versus as if God were never coming (eat drink and be merry). I suppose this could be my last comment ever, though I live as if I will write a hundred more.

As Comic Book Guy would say, “Worst Lesson Ever.” I had the pleasure if you can call it that of teaching this lesson and I just kept saying to myself why is this lesson even in here. The whole point of the lesson is to live the gospel. There isn’t anything special that one should do in preparation for this event.

The only thing that I found interesting was the discussion of the Parable of the 10 Virgins. It is pretty easy to figure out who the 5 prepared virgins are. But who are the 5 unprepared? Less actives? Actives who simply go through the motions? Does any of this matter?

il_slinky,

I agree that it was a particularly hard lesson to teach. Of course I didn’t do myself any favors by asking a question directly related to the title of this post to start things off.

I also agree that the lesson didn’t seem to bring up anything that we should do in preparation that we shouldn’t be doing anyhow. Maybe it emphasized building Zion as a place of peace and a refuge from the world, but you had to strain to get that out of it.

J. Stapley,

I thought that two of the quotes in the lesson made it quite clear that he thought that it was going to happen during the lifetimes of most of his listeners. I decided to avoid that topic because I didn’t see much to talk about there. I guess that any of their short term preparations might have been in vain unless they served some other purpose as well, but the long term preparations in terms of Zion, temple work, and living righteously seem to useful either way. Perhaps you could expound a bit more on what you think the take home lesson was?

J. Stapley,

You think it is resurgent? I was under the impression that it is a much less popular topic than it was 20 years ago. My personal experience doesn’t extend much beyond that. Do you think that 9-11 and the Iraq war are to blame? Or the fact that some of our civil rights are hanging by a thread?

Perhaps cyclical would have been a better adjective. :)

“… is there a way to do so without resorting to fear as a motivating tool?”

The Lord uses fear as a motivating tool quite often in the standard works.

“But who are the 5 unprepared?”

I think all ten are “active” Mormons. They’re all virgins, they’re all invited, they’re all actually present (they showed up), they all expect the bridegroom to come.

“Every single Saint since the beginning has wondered and likely believed that they would see the end. “

A friend says “Jesus is coming when you die.” So your “end” is when you die. Whether the Savior returns in our lifetime, or if we die before then, either event is “the bell,” when you put your pencils down and turn in your papers. The day of our individual death, as to the mortal body, is pretty much analogous to the, or a virtual, Second Coming.

“… most of my young men leaders thought it would be around 2000.”

Ok, so it wasn’t exactly 2000 years since His birth. And given the 4 year (more or less) calendar discrepancy that many believe in, we have slightly stronger reason to not believe the 1996-2004 time frame as the 2nd coming.

So how about 2000 years from the Resurrection? The scripture says no man knows the hour or the day. Therefore, does anyone want to place any bets on the year?

“… talking about how we can support foreign missionary service.”

1. Make sure your kids take a foreign language in high school. I’d recommend French as preparation for Africa. Russian, Arabic, Hindi, and Spanish are good choices too if they are available.

2. Make sure your local mission office is stocked with foreign-language Books of Mormon so they can be delivered without having to wait for the 2-week shipment time from SLC Distribution Center. Foreign-born investigators will mention the church to their relatives back home during phone conversations, and may take material back home with them.

3. Make sure your ward library and/or full-time missionaries are stocked with foreign-language Books of Mormon. See languages given out so far for a list of the ones spoken in Indianapolis, which should be a rough guideline for other metropolitan areas. 52 Book of Mormon languages, plus 17 more that have other church material but no BoM yet.

4. Donate to the Perpetual Education Fund, so that young adults in other countries can start to earn enough money in their lifetime to support THEIR future sons on missions in THEIR part of the world.

5. If you have all your kids’ college educations and missions paid for, save up for YOUR mission as retirees.

But you don’t just learn a language to share the gospel on a mission. I’ve never been called on a mission, but I have shared the gospel in both Arabic and Russian.

15. Yes, those are all things you can do (I’ve done many of them myself). My point was that most the people don’t even talk to their neighbors, yet they focus on foreign missionary work, when there is so much missionary work to be done around them.

Or should we all just bombard the Chinese embassy with gifts of jello and the like to convince them to let missionaries in….