Adrift

And so ends another General Conference. This post isn't exactly going to be your typical social networking update about General Conference. No pictures of quotes written in Comic Sans. No Instagram pictures of the temple. No stupid hashtags like #teamuchtdorf or #teammonson. Just truth, just thoughts, just  realizations.

Every one take something different away from Conference and I guess my story begins the same way Conference starts, with the first session. I was picking up a common theme from the first few talks: Unity within the church and outside of it. I thought about this a lot as I was on the train to the conference center and I realized something that I had never quite picked up on about myself.

I feel no connection to the church anymore.

That's not to say that I don't believe in the gospel the LDS church teaches. I believe in a loving Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus atoned for our sins and was crucified so that we can live again free from our mistakes. I believe in Joseph Smith and that he restored the true church. I believe in the prophet and his apostles. I believe in the power of the Priesthood and I believe in the sealing power of the temple. I still feel the Spirit and I still have a strong relationship with my Heavenly Father.

Despite this, I don't think I believe in the role of a church anymore.

I think this has been going on since I came to Utah but as this problem slowly and subtly got worse, it came to the point where my attitude had completely changed from what it had been before. I feel less and less sincerity from the members I associate with, whether it be the speaker in church or the crazy 1st counselor who always asks me why I'm not married yet. I spend more time thinking about how different my views from the world are from the other members' views instead of celebrating the similarities. I spend more time wondering if whoever is teaching honestly believes what they are teaching or are just simply teaching because that's what they're supposed to do. I spend more time wondering why the heck I'm still here.

And the always wonderful Jeffrey R. Holland reminded me why we need to be united, why we need to work together, why we need to set our differences aside, why we need to look the similarities and not the differences.

Because we're all broken.

You're broken. I'm broken. Your friends are broken. Your family is broken. Everyone you know and everyone I know is broken. We have all been broken in various capacities in our lives. For some it's mental and physical disabilities. For others, it's something much more horrifying. But for many others, it's the simple heartaches, pains, and challenges that we associate with the journey of life. And if that's the only similiarity I see between me and the members of the church that I simply cannot stand, I have to embrace that.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not a perfect Church. The gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ is. The Church is a gathering of those broken souls who find comfort in the light of Christ and need a fellowship to find this light in a world that is growing darker. It's a fellowship of the stubborn, the narcisstic, the rude, the cruel, the stupid, the clueless, the obscene, and the ruthless and it's a fellowship of people who want to change these qualities in their characters. As much as I struggle to find faith and trust in the people of this Church, I have to realize that they are struggling to find faith and trust in themselves. And it just might be that I'm the key to helping them achieve that. And it just might be that those people I can't stand are the key to helping me change into the best person I can be.

For those that know me well, I'm a pretty hard-hearted and stubborn person. I'm a very prideful and wary person. And changing is nearly impossible for me. Conference today showed me a problem that I never knew I had. As much as I love the Lord, as much as I love His Spirit and the peace it brings my life, I need the fellowship of the church as well, even if I think it just might kill me. I'm beyond grateful for the peace of this gospel and I hope one day I'll be grateful for the Church that tries to live by it again. Any advice how to get past this is much appreciated :)