He inspired me to list out a few of the reasons I am absolutely thrilled to be anchored to the Rock of Christ as revealed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  The more committed, creative, or scholarly might make a better list, but here’s my shot.
10. Truth is stranger than fiction – and it is beautiful!
Stories familiar to me since childhood sound pretty strange to most people.  And because they’re not yet engrained with world-wide legendary status or accepted by billions as matters of fact like biblical history, it is nearly impossible for many people to take very seriously.  (i.e., your beliefs are shared by so few, that they can’t possibly be true).  So most just think we’re brain-washed.  When I realized how unusual our own history and doctrine is, I likewise wondered if I was brainwashed.  But through prayer, study, and living the teachings, my mind has raced and come alive with a fascinating world of Truth that is unbeknownst to most people – even inside our religion sometimes.  Even if you have a hard time accepting the story of how our church came into existence, if you just read the Book of Mormon and study our practices and interpretations of the Bible with an eye to pick out truths that can bless your life and bring you closer to God, you’ll be amazed at the value you will find.  Truth is found in historical, physical, and social science.  LDS theology supports pure science.

9. Hail to the Prophet
If God ever spoke to man through prophets, why would He cease?  What is the Bible other than the collection of remaining prophetic writings that began with Adam and continued for thousands of years.  God’s intent was that there should be no end to scripture and revelation, nor to prophets and apostles.  However God allowed revelation to cease and Christ’s church structure to dissolve through the Dark Ages in part because Satan simply had great hold upon the people of those times.  The righteous were crucified or fed to lions, and Church leadership became lost and wicked as Luther pointed out.

However as more and more hungered for the truth, the Lord was ready to re-establish the truth that was driven into obscurity by Satan during that period.  He began with Luther, inspired our Founding Fathers and Constitution, inspired Protestants and the Great Awakenings, and ultimately has established Prophets again in the land as in the days of ancient Israel.  Is it so hard to believe?  To me it is almost easier to accept Atheism than to believe there would be no prophets today when so many hunger for, seeking it out via science, reasoning, religion, etc., but are greatly split on where best to find it.  Up to 10% of the entire human family since Adam is alive today and searching as never before for truth that is hidden as never before as a needle within a media haystack.  Given such a huge share of the “family” is here TODAY, God would surely be actively communicating to inspired individuals and even to official spokesmen just as in times of old to help save His family.

8. Independence, Preparation, Practicality
God would have His people be of great service to their fellow man, and counts any service to man as service to Him (Golden Rule).  Thus as much as possible, we cannot allow ourselves to be wards of the state, but in fact must carry our own weight and then some if we are to be of service.  To be solidly LDS is to be mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically prepared for whatever life can throw at you.  If life deals you a good hand and you’re fortunate enough to avoid serious pain, then it is incumbent upon you to use your stewardships and talents in support of those who do suffer – even if their suffering is brought about by their own actions (recall the Lord praises those who visit those in prison).  It is to take whatever talents the Lord has given, and to “double them” as commanded in the Lord’s parable of the talents.  I love LDS emphasis on education, emergency preparedness/food storage, and general well roundedness.  The true gospel will help each person develop their inner genius across an array of disciplines. 

7. Saved by grace, after all that we can do
Latter-day Saints recognize that we cannot save ourselves and are completely dependent on the grace of Christ, but we also recognize that Christ sets the rules for how His Grace is divvied.  Resurrection is a gift of Grace that even the wicked will freely get (a recognition that they chose to be part of the 2/3rds who supported Christ in the Pre-Existence).  Beyond this, we must strive to be more like Him every day, and repent when we fall short.  If we will do that, then He will elect to “save us by His grace, after all that we can do”. 

6. Focus on the Family
God has declared His mission and purpose to be “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”.  Thus man is His family, and solid human families are the key means of ensuring that parents of children will bring forth good fruits that are pleasing to God.  I once met a man who when he learned I was LDS, expressed concern the world was over-populated, but said “nonetheless, LDS should keep having as many kids as they can because from my experience they’re among the world’s most solid citizens around, and we need a lot of that in spite of the additional population”.  I have 5 little kids, and what a burden!  It is hard, but they are also such a joy.  Family home evenings, eternal marriage, the list goes on.  “No success in life can compensate for failure in the home.”  There is great support for families found here.

5. I am a Child of God (Children’s Song)
There is a strong, healthy emphasis in this church to have every individual on the earth see their soul as infinitely valuable in God’s eyes.  More than that, to see God very much as a loving parent in whom you can count on, confide in, converse with, and get responses from.   He is the All-Powerful Governor of the Universe, but in spite of our billions of siblings, He can also be as intimate and personally concerned for our individual well being as even the best parent one could imagine. 

4. Kool-Aid – best drink ever!
Part of what makes being LDS so valuable is that it’s just plain fun.  “Singles Ward” was a movie that emphasized much of that unique culture, but it is embodied in so many activities that together just make for a fun life.  Primary songs, goofy neighbors as your Sunday school teachers, cub scouts, boy scouts, youth dances & activities, seminary, service projects, church history tours, 2-year missions, “vacation-log” testimonies, little kid testimonies, creative and usually harmless unintoxicated teenage mischief, family reunions, green Jell-O at ward parties, funeral potatoes, wedding receptions in the cultural haul, last day of the month home teaching – it all adds up to a way of life that is engaging and truly fun. 

3. He who has eyes to see, let him see.
There is something almost magical about the Gospel of Jesus Christ as practiced in this church.  Prayer, study, pondering, and time have helped me comprehend so many powerful truths – mysteries of God if you will – that are lost to the view of the rest of humanity and even largely to general Christianity.  I’ve only scratched the surface of what I could know through mechanisms revealed by Christ’s restored gospel.  It is as though mankind – Christendom largely included – stumbles along in relative blindness compared to this (the worldly being focused on spiritually inconsequential base sciences; Christianity missing “the rest of the story”). 

There are whole new dimensions of truth to be seen through these lenses.  It’s like being in the shoes of Einstein in some ways, where he could see things no one else could see.  Atheists and intellectuals think they see 20/20 when they worship the God of Science, but they are so blind to the most important truths – the Spiritual Sciences.  It’s like looking at a 3-D picture where the majority see only a bunch of red and green dots, and scoff at those few who swear there is a dolphin visible if you look at it long enough and cross your eyes just right.

2. Plan of Salvation
The full vision of our eternal-backward and eternal-forward existence, and the role that this in-between earth plays in our status going forward, is breathtakingly beautiful and definitely inspires the converted soul – long-time members and those just beginning to “see the Dolphins” – to repent and align their lives with Christ so as to be found in a more rewarding, if not the most rewarding afterlife, the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom.   In God’s great Plan, where we came from, why we’re here, and where we may end up are answered with powerful satisfaction.  There is an answer to the most perplexing dilemmas facing some branches of Christianity, such as what to do about the many good people of the earth who died with no knowledge of Christ, given that Christ himself explained that no one can come into heaven except by him, and baptism is the key that unlocks the gate allowing him to enter if he wills it. 

1. ”I Believe in Christ” (Popular LDS Hymn)
Every element of the Church recognizes Christ as the keystone of our happiness and salvation.  There are wonderful insights into Christ’s atonement.  The meaning and purpose of His sacrifice are all very well articulated.  The fact that He never fell victim to the sins of the world, yet suffered as though he were guilty of all sin, gives him respect in the Heavens such that all of creation bows low before him and will grant unto him the power to redeem fallen man if they will confess the truth and repent.  It is unfortunate that a church so Christ-centered is labeled “Mormon” because the more meaningful name is so long.  The ancient American prophet Mormon who compiled 1000 years of Christ-centered prophecy and spiritual lessons is simply much easier to say. 

It is likewise unfortunate that so many good Christians are so antagonistic toward this branch.  It makes sense – our foundations and tenets are significantly different.  However, it is not unlike “The Ugly Duckling”, where the “ducklings” who formed as protestants to clearly erroneous middle-ages Catholisism are so proud that they’ve got something better than that, that they can only recognize this Restored Gospel of Christ as some kind of freakish-looking duck that can’t possibly be “true” when it is so young (How can something only 180-years old and with relatively small following be anything other than a cult?).  In truth what looks awkward and false at first glance is in fact a Beautiful Swan, a Pearl of Great Price — even Christ’s very gospel of salvation in its fulness, as the Crown Jewel of the Biblical Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.

To Be a Latter-Day Saint is to Believe in Christ

To Be a Latter-Day Saint is to Be Happy

in Your Pursuit of Happiness

Vouchers is about more than money, but it is also about money.  I’m sure some publicly educated government accountant can show some way it could cost more money, but consider this:

• If for just $2000 we can tempt families to match, the schools keep $5000, the kid gets $4000, so overall education benefits at $9000 instead of $7000, with either the schools or taxpayers having $5000 they’d have otherwise had to use for that kid!
• Business is EXCELLENT at finding ways to make things both better and cheaper at the same time.  Will it cost more? Maybe to an accountant.  Will we get better value?  YES!   Attatch the dollars to the kid instead of the district, and watch miracles begin to happen. 
• Lasik would be far more expensive if insurance companies were the middle man, just as bureaucrats are.
• Airlines, phones – both better and cheaper once the government got out, but there were doomsday predictions!
• What about Pell Grants?  Is this not public money that goes to a student who then decides where to go, even BYU?  Have Pell Grants ruined the world yet or been determined unconstitutional?

The cookie commercial is a perfect example.  Vouchers will result in a net savings to taxpayers.  While our public system is our tradition and we all have fond memories, at the core it is fundamentally a socialist system.  How we got here was largely accidental.  Education is clearly in the public interest, so since we were levying taxes, it seemed natural to just put teachers on the government payroll.

There is a better way.  Instead of paying teachers, pay parents if the parents want to be involved, and let them shop for where they think they’ll get what their kid needs.  Most parents will settle on the neighborhood school, but more than a few have kids with special needs (both ends of the bell curve, behavioral problems, etc.), or they have educational goals that are important to the family (moral emphasis, American history emphasis, musical emphasis, science emphasis, whatever). 

It is like hiring contractors, which the government does all the time and you should be glad they do.  Government doesn’t pave the streets, but they raise money to do it.  They don’t built missles, but they raise money to do it.
Our tradition of government operated schools has resulted in schools that:

Can’t discipline adequately;

Can’t get rid of the lazy or incompetent, but tenured 10% (you know you had some);

Can’t find desire to innovate and keep up with the modern world;

Can’t respond adequately to special needs of families not a few;

Can’t leave any child behind (i.e. must hold performers back to focus on those who still won’t read when they graduate);

Must pay the bottom 10% within 10% of the top 10%. 

How about this?  Keep the schools completely in tact and initially staffed with the same staff, but put the management roll to contractors.  Then they can hire say retiring chemists or engineers who have no “certificate”, but do have a knack for teaching kids and desire to serve.  Since BUSINESS must perform to renew their contract, they can also help those on white-collar welfare and hiding behind the union find their way over to Home Depot. 

We’ve got to try something, and the other 49 expensive experiments prove that handing cash over to unionized government bureaucrats is also not a wise course.  Let’s try vouchers anyway and see what we learn.