Believing means doing, Elder Jensen says

LOGAN, Utah — Elder Marlin K. Jensen spoke to Logan

Institute of Religion students Friday, sharing with them the importance

of the relationship in the LDS Church between believing and doing.

     

As part of the weekly Religion in Life Devotional series, Elder

Jensen, a member of the Quorums of Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints and executive director of the church's History Department,

spoke to hundreds of students, telling them of an academic person who died and

went to heaven. Once there, the person came upon two signs. One, pointing left,

said, "Heaven: This way"; the other, pointing right, saying, "Lecture on Heaven:

This way."

     

"I'll leave it up to you to decide which direction

the academic took," Elder Jensen said.

     

"That can be a danger,

a trap, I think, in our lives, that religion becomes an academic pursuit rather

than religion in life," he said.

     

Fifteen years ago, Elder

Jensen was in Washington preparing to release a young stake president who had

recently lost his wife and was left to care for five small children. He was only

in his mid-30s, but "mature, spiritually speaking." Elder Jensen wanted to visit

with him, to see how he was handling these circumstances.

     

"Much to my amazement, he was completely composed, completely at peace with what

had happened and with his future."