How Are You a Mormon?

I had a dream the other night.

In the dream a group of Latter-day Saints were asking me how I could consider myself a Mormon, when I was not a baptized member of the Church.

I said that I had a testimony of the gospel, and that I lived the principles of the gospel to the best of my ability. I quoted Richard C. Edgley's last conference talk, in which he said that the thing that qualifies us for baptism is a desire to bear one another's burdens. I was willing to do everything I could to build the kingdom, and to support other Saints in their journey, to bear their burdens, and to be supported by them, to let them bear my burdens. More than anything, I desired to do that. My heart was ready for baptism and it was not my fault that leaders of the Church refused to baptize me. If, in my heart, I was ready, if in my heart I had accepted the responsibilities of baptism, then in the eyes of the Lord I was baptized.

I sensed skepticism among those I was speaking with. I wanted to say more, but I realized there was nothing more I could say.

There is nothing more I can say.