Free Letters To A Young Mormon Ebooks Online
This book is composed as a series of letters. The letters are meant for a young Mormon who is familiar with Mormon life but green in their faith. I imagined myself writing these letters to my own children and struggled, in relation to how we talk about things at church, to say my own piece about what it means to be as a Mormon free, ambitious, repentant, faithful, informed, prayerful, selfless, hungry, chaste, and sealed.The letters do little to benchmark a Mormon orthodoxy. That work belongs to those called to it. Here, my work is personal. I mean only to address the real beauty and real costs of trying to live a Mormon life. And I hope only to show something of what it means to live in a way that refuses to abandon either life or Mormonism.
Paperback: 78 pages
Publisher: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship (December 31, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0842528563
ISBN-13: 978-0842528566
Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 0.2 x 6.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (92 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #212,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #311 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Christian Denominations & Sects > Mormonism #47567 in Books > Religion & Spirituality
In this tiny book (about 70 pages of actual text in a book that will actually fit in my pocket), Miller provides 12 short, thought provoking, eminently readable essays on core topics of a religious life. He discusses agency, work, sin, faith, scripture, prayer, history, science, hunger, sex, temples, and eternal life. While each essay could stand alone, there are arcs: The essays on sin and faith work well together, as do the essays on hunger and sex.This book offers alternative ways to think about many of these well-worn concepts. Miller likens our work of studying the scriptures to Joseph Smith’s lifelong work of translating scripture. “You and I must translate these books again. Word by word, line by line, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, God wants the whole thing translated once more, and this time he wants it translated into your native tongue, inflected by your native concerns, and written in your native flesh.”In his chapter on sin, he employs an extended metaphor that has stayed with me: We have stories we want to tell about our lives, and sin happens when we focus on our story rather than centering our lives on Jesus Christ and His fabulous will for us. In this telling, guilt and shame have no place; they’re both still centered on us, on how we’re measuring up, instead of refocusing towards the Savior.Many passages of the book are heady and inspiring, rousing calls to action. The essay on scripture is like that: “Get close to the scriptures. Do anything you can. God is in there.… Underline everything. Pack your margins with notes. Read Paul out loud like poetry … Squeeze their verses like oranges. Know Isaiah by heart. Love Matthew like a brother. Sing the psalms as your prayers.
At some point, every Latter-day Saint (or anyone of any religious persuasion, really) has to "put away childish things" and experience the growing pains of developing a more mature faith. Just as with physical maturation, spiritual maturation can be different for everyone. For some it will not be too difficult, while for others, it can be a very painful process indeed. Regardless of which kind of person you are, this is a book that can help.Written as a series of letters, this little booklet explores various topics related to gospel and how to live it in this fallen world. Throughout it all, Miller talks about how important it is that we abandon the "stories" we tell ourselves and instead seek the life that God has to offer. No easy task, to be sure, and Miller in no way makes it seem like it will be simple. But it is something which can be achieved if we seek God through faith, prayer, and scripture study, all of which are talked about by Miller in ways that will likely give readers a new perspective.Miller doesn't try to shove answers down your throat, or resolve everything for you (not to suggest that books that seek to answer difficult questions are necessarily force feeding you--I think such books are important aids to the process of finding our own answers). Rather, Miller just offers his personal reflections from a life of seeking answers, as a means of offering a little guidance. Miller recognizes that we all, ultimately, must find our own answers, and that they must come through a "working out" between ourselves and God.There is certain vagueness to the book that can be both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, it allows the reader to more freely find themselves in the text, and apply the council to their unique situations.
El Libro de Mormon - Spanish Book of Mormon Audio (27 CD SET) Your Study of the Book of Mormon Made Easier, Part 1: 1 Nephi Through Words of Mormon (Gospel Studies) Letters to a Young Mormon Book of Mormon Study guide: Diagrams, Doodles, & Insights More than the Tattooed Mormon The Book of Mormon Study Guide: Start to Finish From Baptist Preacher to Mormon Teacher Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity The Essential Mormon Cookbook: Green Jell-O, Funeral Potatoes, and Other Secret Combinations The Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers Army Of Israel: Mormon Battalion Narratives The God Makers: A Shocking Expose of What the Mormon Church Really Believes Popol Vuh: The Mythic Sections-Tales of First Beginnings from the Ancient Kiche-Maya (Ancient Texts & Mormon Studies, No. 2) The Book of Mormon Script Book: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical The Book of Mormon: The Testament of a Broadway Musical GIRLS WHO CHOOSE GOD: STORIES OF STRONG WOMEN FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy The Book of Mormon Miracle: 25 Reasons to Believe The Book of Mormon Made Easier, Part 3 (The Gospel Studies Series) THE COMPLETE LDS SCRIPTURES | THE LDS QUADRUPLE COMBINATION (Fully Illustrated Edition) The King James Bible / The Book of Mormon / The Doctrine and Covenants ... and Covenants | The Pearl of Great Price 1)
