Buon Halloween!

(Anziano Wilkinson)

This year's Halloween was admittedly not very eventful for us; just any other day pretty much. Halloween is just barely starting to become an observed holiday in Italy and as of yet they're still at the stage where old people get quite confused when kids come up to their door saying "dolcetto o scherzetto!" (trick or treat!). I'd say they've still got a few decades before they'll be up to pace with America haha. On the bright side though, we happened to get a ton of food given to us on Halloween. I guess this year a bulging sac of food will have to do in place of a bulging sac of candy!

On another note, Anziano Larsen and I recently met a kid named Jackie who is a pretty solid magician! When I first saw him, he was deftly moving a deck of cards around in his hands, swiftly maneuvering individual cards and periodically shuffling in a way that appeared very skilled. I recognized immediately that he would know a magic trick or two, so I asked him to show me one. He proceeded to show me a seemingly impossible (as always haha) trick where he practically made my card appear out of thin air. Then he showed me another and another, each one just as amazing as the last. I was quite impressed, to say the least!

We got to talking and eventually I asked him if he would be willing to listen to our message about the restoration of the gospel and he agreed. As we explained to him the doctrines of the restoration, he became quite interested, asking dozens of questions about prophets, the atonement, and the Book of Mormon. As for his religious background, he doesn't really have one. He believes in God and is part of a christian family, but he's rarely ever been to church and never read the bible, but it was clear to see that when we started expounding on these simple doctrines that gears were turning in his head. Gaps were being filled and understanding multiplied as we shed new light into his heart.

This experience got me thinking about truth and how it works. Prophets teach us that all truth can be gathered into one great whole, whether it come out of the mouth of one of God's spokespersons or out of a science lab; it's all the same and all comes from the same source, which is our Father in Heaven. With a puzzle, when we have all the puzzle pieces, then there is only one obvious way that it all fits together smoothly and creates a whole image. And truth is the same way! If we were to have all the pieces, then they would all fit together nice and snugly and it would make perfect sense; there would be no confusion. But the problem is that in this life we simply don't have all the puzzle pieces and, by design, as long as we're still on the earth we never will manage to gather all the pieces. On one end of this puzzle we have religious truth, which is complete enough for us to see the image that is starting to take shape, depicted in bright, vibrant colors. On the other end of this puzzle we have scientific truth, also depicted in bright, vibrant colors, but colors from a different spectrum. In times past, the lack of scientific knowledge left this part of the puzzle quite unfinished and indistinct, so it wasn't hard for people to believe that all of the puzzle pieces belonged to the same puzzle. But now, with today's much more developed understanding of scientific truth, we can see the image start to take shape. Yet from what it seems, it almost looks like an entirely different puzzle from the first, since the colors are different and the images don't seem to align yet. This causes many to proclaim that they are two separate puzzles and in fact do not go together at all. They say that one puzzle depicts fanaticism and falsehoods while the other depicts truth and reason and thus they do not go together. They complain that the puzzle of truth would have been long ago finished if its pieces hadn't been mixed with those of an entirely different puzzle. Sadly, many deny true science while many others deny true religion.

The truth is, however, that both halves belong to the same puzzle and that ignoring or rejecting one half or the other is to ignore or reject half of the truth. Let us not forget that all truth comes from the same God and that he is not limited to only physical or only spiritual means of communicating it. Truth is truth, so let us be grateful for that portion we have and diligently and humbly seek that portion we lack. One day it will become quite clear to us all how the two halves of this puzzle fit together, so let's not hyperventilate if for right now we can't see it all!

Anyway, I hope you had a great Halloween and that November proves to be just as good!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson