What do you get for being Mormon?

I got this in an email from my co-worker Linda. Thanks Linda!

Mission president counts blessings here and now
Alfred Gunn

Special to the Gateway
Published: 04:50PM January 14th, 2009
“What do you get for being a Mormon?”
I t wasn’t a friendly inquiry. It was an in-your-face challenge put to President Brad Wilcox, who was serving as a mission president in Chile, by a concerned father.
First the man’s wife had become active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then his 13-year-old son wanted to be baptized.
So the question: “What does my son get for being a Mormon?”
Speaking to 2,400 LDS youth at the Tacoma Dome, President Wilcox recounted his experience with the father. He answered the father that Christ’s rewards were spiritual, and the answer was, “Salvation.”
“Don’t tell me ‘Salvation,’ ” the man said. “Any church can promise salvation and streets of gold, but how do we know who can deliver?”
He wanted to know what his son would get here and now. So, setting aside the purely spiritual blessings, Wilcox explained what the boy would get.
“First, he gets a longer life.”
Statistically, Mormons live more than 10 years longer than others — so he gets another decade of life.
Second, he gets a better quality of life, through education. In Mexico, for example, Mormons enjoy a 30 percent better livelihood because of better education.
To Mormons, Joseph Smith (1805-44) was the Lord’s prophet, but to education historians, he is known as “The father of adult educ ation” for founding the first adult school in America which taught not only doctrine but also history, culture, languages and other subjects.
Brigham Young instructed migrating Mormon pioneers to not only bring seeds and tools to the West but also books, charts and musical instruments. That continues today.
In higher education, the more degrees people get, the less religious they become — except Mormons! As Mormons get more degrees, they get more faithful.
“When your doctrine encompasses all truth, there is nothing you could learn that would damage your faith,” says Wilcox, a Ph.D. and professor of Education at Brigham Young University.
Another blessing: better marriages and stronger families. Half of marriages in America end in divorce, and one in four when they belong to the same faith. While official numbers are not reported, some sociologists calculate that it is about one in 16 when faithful Mormons marry in an LDS temple.
“Even one in 16 is not good, but it is better than one in two.”
One study showed that if parents had divorced, then there is an almost certain chance that their child will have a divorce during his lifetime.
But not Mormons! They are blessed with good examples all around them of functional, successful, loving and enduring families.
“Mormons have a hope for the future that few others have,” Wilcox says.
A nother thing: “You get an international network of friends — just because you’re a Mormon! You just show up!” he says.
Anywhere in the world where the Church is, you have a family of brothers and sisters.
Wilcox reports the worried father allowed his son to be baptized and even came to the baptismal service. At that point, he wasn’t thinking about his boy getting a longer life, education, marriage or friends — he was feeling something.
The next time the missionaries visited his home, he stayed to listen to their message. The next time they challenged him to read the Book of Mormon, he didn’t laugh at them. He actually accepted the challenge and did it.
Two months later, Wilcox attended another baptism — the father’s. In mock belligerence, Wilcox asked the man, “So, what do you get for being a Mormon!?”
The father humbly answered, “Salvation.”
Wilcox shared this story and more as his testimony to the young people in conference at the Tacoma Dome.
Note: Latter-day Saints believe salvation is only in and through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and by obedience to the laws and ordinances of His gospel. Wilcox and I share the conviction that God has called a prophet and restored His New Testament church and the fulness of His gospel to the earth in modern times.
We are called “Mormons” because=2 0the Lord brought forth The Book of Mormon, the greatest witness for the truth of the Holy Bible ever published, in our time. Last year, 279,000 people joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as converts, each gaining their own witness of its truths.

Alfred Gunn is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Gig Harbor. Reach him by e-mail at alf.gunn@juno.com.

If you'd like to lean more about this please visit: Mormon.org