Green Oasis

I just realized that if I’m wrong about Mormonism and it actually is the truth, then my disbelief and forsaking temple covenants doesn’t matter. I’m going to the Celestial Kingdom, baby!

Incredible? Here’s proof (as quoted in Hope for Parents of Wayward Children):

The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught a more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God. (Orson F. Whitney, in Conference Report, Apr. 1929, 110)

Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang. (Brigham Young quoted in Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 2:90–91)

If you succeed in passing through these trials and afflictions and receive a resurrection, you will, by the power of the Priesthood, work and labor, as the Son of God has, until you get all your sons and daughters in the path of exaltation and glory. This is just as sure as that the sun rose this morning over yonder mountains. Therefore, mourn not because all your sons and daughters do not follow in the path that you have marked out to them, or give heed to your counsels. Inasmuch as we succeed in securing eternal glory, and stand as saviors, and as kings and priests to our God, we will save our posterity. (Lorenzo Snow in Collected Discourses, comp. Brian H. Stuy, 5 vols. [1987–92], 3:364).

My parents are pretty faithful, though I don’t want to put any pressure on them. I’ve worried them enough, I’m sure. There’s got to be at least one of my ancestors that I can count on to save me from the hell that is the Terrestial and Telestial Kingdoms: I’ve got at least five or six generations of Mormons on every branch of my family tree.

If all that Mormon ancestry fails me, I can always fall back on faithful Father Adam—who is Michael the Archangel and certainly faithful enough to save his posterity.

So there you have it. I can have my cake and eat it too. I’m going to the Celestial Kingdom.

(Thanks to Deconstructor on RfM for the quotes. I knew I’d heard this from somewhere, but had a hard time scrounging up the authoritative citations.)