From: Richard Pratt
To: Those I Love
Re: FAITH
“Gospel” is from the Greek and means, “The good news”. And what is the good news? That God is, and without him we wouldn’t be for there can be no creation without a creator. For as the great prophet Lehi taught, “If there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.” (2 Nephi 2:13) Then he continues, “for there is a God and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act (us) and things to be acted upon.” (Our environment)
Our Father in Heaven is the actual father of our spirits and our Mother in heaven birthed our spirit bodies there. After a thorough schooling there we had to be sent away for further education and to gain a physical body which was to become the eternal home for our spirit and has to pass thru the change we call death and resurrection.
Jesus has passed thru all these stations and is a resurrected being like his (and our) Father. Our Father taught us the gospel in our spirit existence and that by going thru the same pattern as He and the Son could become like they are and enjoy “Eternal Lives” or family.” this joyful message is the “Gospel or good news.” and the first principle of the Gospel is FAITH, “ FOR WITHOUT FAITH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE HIM: FOR HE THAT COMETH TO GOD MUST BELIEVE THAT HE IS, AND THAT HE IS A REWARDER OF THEM THAT DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM.”
If faith, then, is so vitally important each one of us had better examine ourselves and determine if we have it. And if we haven’t got faith then we had better find out how to get it and strengthen it so that we ultimately will have sufficient faith to overcome the world’s temptations, which are Satan’s temptations and be prepared to enter back into the presence of God and eternally enjoy all that he has to give.
Paul teaches that, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1) Another prophet , Moroni, teaches that “faith is a hope in unseen things that are true.” Moroni continues, “wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” (Ether 12:6) Notice that after the trial of our faith we receive a witness of unseen things that are true.
Our nation from the beginning has been called a “Christian Nation” although it has been greatly diluted the past 20 - 30 years by a great influx of non-Christian peoples. However, ask any of the so called Christians, “Do you believe there is a God?” and they will answer “yes”. So faith, then, starts with believing, but believing without action is dead and of no value. For as James says, “thou believest that there is one God; THE DEVILS ALSO BELIEVE AND TREMBLE.” (James 2:19) faith then is to ACT upon our beliefs!
Faith, to have the power to save, must then be based on TRUTH. FOR THERE CAN BE NO POWER UNTO SALVATION IF OUR FAITH IS BASED ON THAT WHICH IS NOT TRUE. So then we need to carefully check our beliefs and be sure they are true. And then act upon our beliefs find out what we must do to please God AND DO IT! THIS IS FAITH!
Or as Paul teaches: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?and
how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?.... that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things?”
The prophet Joseph Smith states, “that there are three things necessary in order that any intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto eternal life and salvation.
1. The IDEA THAT GOD ACTUALLY EXISTS!
2. A correct idea of His character, perfections and attributes.
3. An actual knowledge that the course of life which we are pursuing is according to his will.
For without an acquaintance of these three important facts, the faith of every rational being must be imperfect and unproductive.” (His third lecture on Faith)
So then who is God? He is our Father.
Who is Jesus Christ? He is our older or oldest brother. For as the Bible amply teaches, he is the first born of all spirits. And is empowered by the Father to be our Savior the author of our salvation. Jesus also carries the title of God, or God the Son.
It is impossible for a person to be saved in ignorance. For he must believe that God is and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
When the Savior shall appear (and that will be soon) we shall see that he is a man like ourselves. (D. & C. 130:1)
Remember that 40 days after his resurrection, having appeared at least 10 times to his disciples, He had insisted that they feel him so that they would know that he was real and had also eaten food and drink; He then led them out of Jerusalem and a short distance thereafter, “He was taken up and the clouds received him out of their sight and as he was caught up two angels appeared in shinning white apparel and said, “ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven, this same Jesus which is taken up form you into heaven SHALL SO COME AGAIN AS YE HAVE SEEN HIM GO INTO HEAVEN.” (Acts 1:9-11)
Also remember, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us. (D.&C. 13022)
What shall I do to inherit the kingdom of God?
“There is a special sense of urgency infusing itself into many Church members everywhere that says, quietly, but insistently - this is the time for us to choose! It is not just that God will insist that we choose for our own sake, but that those who depend upon us, or use us as a reference point, need and deserve to know which way we are going. It is no good posing as a lifeguard if one is a non-swimmer. It is no good being a guide if one leaves his post and wanders with the multitude in search of another way, ‘for there is not an other way,’ especially at a time when there is a sharper and sharper divergence in the way of the world and the straight and narrow way. The disciple must not only stand in ‘holy places’ but on holy issues and ‘not be moved.’
“In short, the events of our time and spiritual decay in the world have produced for us the equivalent situation faced by many of the disciples who followed Jesus. They followed him unto he began to preach the ‘hard sayings’ - the doctrines that really demand not only belief, but performance; doctrines which would distinguish them from their contemporary society. The Lord wants us to put some distance - behaviorally - between ourselves and the world, not because we
love mankind less, but precisely because we do love them. It is for the world’s sake the we must sanctify ourselves. When Jesus’ followers faced their moment of truth, John records, ‘From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him,’ Jesus turned to the remainder and queried them, ‘will ye also go away?'
"Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou are that Christ, the Son of the living God." (John 6: 66-67)
God lives! Believe and act upon that belief!
I LOVE you, DAD, GRANDPA ETC
David Pratt (the youngest brother to Richard) sent a wonderful letter. We will include major excerpts here. It was written May 1, 2003. He and his wife Beverly are serving a mission at the genealogy building in Salt Lake.
Dear Family,
I want to share some of the things I have learned about our family while serving on this mission. I will address my brothers and sisters so that you who are one or two generations removed from us will need to add some “greats” to the stated relationships.
Two of our great grand parents, Thomas Callister and Helen Mar Clark, met and fell in love in a tailor’s shop in Nauvoo. He had learned the trade of a tailor in Great Britain. She was an orphan at 15 when her mother Elizabeth died in the Nauvoo area in March 1845. Elizabeth Town Clark Morse received her patriarchal blessing in 1844. At that time, the patriarch declared, “thou hast passed thru many scenes of affliction and sorrow,” but the Lord would deliver her, “and thy children shall be there to assist thee.”
After her mother’s death, Helen apparently went to live with the family of John Smith, a cousin of the Prophet Joseph, who owned the tailor’s shop. Her job was to make button holes. Thomas felt obligated to ask their boss for her hand in marriage. At this point a scenario like Jacob’s quest in the Bible to marry Rachel unfolded. John Smith asked Thomas to marry his own daughter, Caroline, first before he could marry Helen. Thomas agreed but only had to wait some 3 months instead of seven years to also marry Helen at the end of 1845 when she was 16 years old. Our grandfather on the Pratt side, Nephi, was born in Nauvoo in Jan. Of 1846.
The Callisters and most of the Pratt family spent over a year at Winter Quarters and missed the first wagon train to Utah due to sickness on the part of the Callisters and the fact that Parley was on another mission to Great Britain with his friend and fellow apostle, John Taylor. They all determined to cross the plains in the second wagon train led by John Van Cott, Parley’s cousin and a member of the seven presidents of the 70. Parley’s horses were all gone when he returned to Winter Quarters. As they got out on the prairie he spotted some wild horses that John Taylor rounded up for him.
Caroline Callister lost her eight-month old son Thomas who is buried at Winter Quarters. She was too ill to attend the burial and had to lie in a wagon as they passed the grave. Helen held her up in the wagon so that Caroline could have “her first and last look at the little grave.”
After arriving in Salt Lake, Parley took up his residence in a home just across the street from the south gate on Temple Square, approximately where the Crossroads Mall now stands. Orson lived on the northwest corner of the same block where there is now a hotel. The Callisters were about two blocks north of them where Thomas became bishop of the 17th ward in 1855. (Mom, Bev and I lived in that same ward in the early 1960s and even then the ward boundaries still included Temple Square.) In 1861, Brigham Young sent the Callisters south where Thomas first served as the bishop of Fillmore and then the as the first stake president. All together, he served some 14 years as bishop of the two wards, then 8 years as stake president. He ended his years as the stake patriarch. Not to be outdone, Helen was Relief Society President in Fillmore for 25 years.
In 1870 Brigham Young sent 24-year old Nephi Pratt to Fillmore to manage the local tithing office. Such offices were necessary in the days when most paid their tithing in kind: produce, animals, wool, etc. Life on the Mormon frontier was sweetened by music, both choral singing and dancing. The local stake that Thomas Callister presided over was particularly proud of their choir. So much so that a history of the area printed much later featured the choir with individual photos of the director, organist, the organ, and each section of the choir. There is a photo of Nephi Pratt at around 30 years of age. He was a tenor and was joined in that section by his future brother-in-law, Clark Callister. I had no idea that such a photo existed and always pictured him as an old man. Nephi Pratt married Sarah (known as Sadie) Melissa Callister in April of 1880. At the end of that same year the choir gathered at the home of her ailing father to serenade him. Thomas died on my future birthday, December 1, 1880......
