An unvaccinated Latter-day Saint’s response to the First Presidency urging vaccinations

NOTE: This post was written in 2021 as an initial reaction. For a follow-up post looking back after 3 years see: A Faithful Look Back at the First Presidency Urging the Covid Vaccine

I’ve never received a vaccine. So, on August 12, 2021 when the First Presidency urged all the members of the Church to wear masks and get the COVID-19 Vaccine I was not thrilled. In fact, if I am being honest, I murmured to my family a lot and tried to look for ways around following the counsel of the First Presidency. But all that changed over the next 24 hours and now I am planning on getting the COVID-19 Vaccine with my wife. What changed? I had a perspective check and a few epiphanies that I want to share with you.

“Anything else”

The first real paradigm shift happened that night as I got in bed. My wife Emily said we should talk about the First Presidency letter before we went to sleep. I told her that I thought that we should combine the counsel from earlier when the Prophet said to consult a physician and this counsel and that because her midwife urged us not to get it, we are obedient still not getting the vaccine. And for masks, we could simply avoid gatherings! Thinking it was the perfect idea, I asked her what her thoughts were? She then asked, “Had we been urged to do anything else; would we even think about hesitating?”

Her question hit me like a ton of bricks. And I thought: Why am I resisting the Prophet? What type of disciple am I being if I only obey when I agree with the Prophet? What type of disciple am I being if I only obey when it makes logical sense? Do not even the heathens follow Christ’s commandments when they are logical, make sense, and they agree with Him?

Real intent is praying with the intent to obey.

I then suggested to Emily that we could go to the temple, pray, fast, and then ask for a Priesthood Blessing, and then only if it felt right, and we were promised protection in the blessing, we would schedule a date to get the vaccine. She disagreed. She said that she thought we should schedule a date first. Once again, my wife reminded me why I love her. She was right. When we pray demanding God tell us what to do, we are asking him to use our agency. We are commanded to pray with real intent. Real intent is praying with the intent to obey.

I realized we should show intent first and schedule a date to get the vaccine, then with the intent to obey the Prophet we will go to the temple, pray, fast, and get a priesthood blessing. WITH ALL INTENTION to get the vaccine. And unless we get a clear “NO” we will follow through with our plan.

When we pray and basically tell God, “Command me in all things before I obey” it is a lazy servant approach. Not only that, but it also won’t work. God rarely tells us what to do, rather He confirms our correct choices, but even more often He simply warns us before we make a mistake. We are expected to use our agency to obey.

God wouldn’t risk our lives… Would He?

After agreeing with Emily that we would schedule a date to get vaccinated, I was still being bugged that the Prophet asked us to do this. I mean, my neighbor had a reaction to it and is in the ICU. How could he ask us to get vaccinated knowing full well people will have side effects? Including severe ones? Why would the Church ask us to do something that could risk our lives? God wouldn’t risk our lives… Would He?

I then had an epiphany. Sometimes, as members of the Church, we get this idea that if we follow the Prophet we will be protected. We get the idea that that suffering is due to disobedience. A classical example is the Willie and Martin handcart companies. When we tell the story about the Willie and Martin handcart companies it is always pointed out that the Prophet warned them not to go so late in the season, and they ignored his counsel and that is the root of their suffering. But then my mind thought of Parley P. Pratt, he was shot and killed on his mission. Did he die because he disobeyed? Surely not!

My mind started to race through examples: you have John Tanner, he did so much for the Church always obeying and giving his all for the Kingdom. His daughter died on the trek to Missouri from Kirtland; then I thought of all those who have died serving missions; and all those who died trying to make it to Zion; how many were buried at sea and along the Mormon trail! Finally, my mind thought of Alma and Amulek and their converts in Ammonihah. They followed the Prophet and their wives and children all died as a result. The scriptures and history of the Church are FULL of stories of faithful Saints who followed the prophet and got hurt or died… But why?

Temporal vs Eternal.

This is when I had my next epiphany. I was looking at this completely wrong! I was looking at this only in a temporal context. If this life was the end, then the Church was awful for asking members to come to Utah and bury their loved ones along the way. Countless prophets and apostles would be considered “bad leaders” because they put the mission of the Church in front of individual lives. Alma not saving the converts of Ammonihah was selfish and ugly. God, the Father, asking Jesus Christ to perform the atonement would’ve been the height of evil. But it was not evil, it was the apex of love. Why? Because of eternity.

Unlike temporal organizations whose highest moral virtue comes from the preservation of life, The Church is an eternal organization. The eternal salvation of souls takes priority over temporal life. The Church’s goal is to perfect the saints, not protect the saints. When I realized this, I had a sudden “click” moment. OHHHHH The Church through all ages has asked Saints to put their life on the line to proclaim the gospel and to build Zion! This is our chance to sacrifice to build the kingdom.

I then realized all my objections to following the Prophet were based purely on temporal fears. All the objections from friends, family, and that I had seen on social media were also purely temporal fears. I turned to Emily and asked, “What is the worst that could happen? I die?” And her reply was, “If you do, I will be blessed, I will know you are in the celestial kingdom, and I will have to do my part to get there too.” I then remarked, “And if we disobeyed out of fear, I could get hit by a car tomorrow morning on my run and die, or you could get in a car crash and die. Our lives are always in God’s hands!”

We decided that whatever happens, we will obey. As we placed our temporal fears regarding mortality on the altar of sacrifice to an eternal God with an eternal plan who has our eternal welfare at heart, suddenly we felt the peace of the Spirit, and both decided it was time for sleep.

Consecration and Sacrifice.

The final epiphany came the next morning while I was pondering the conversation of the night before and our resolution to obey no matter the cost. I thought about all of the sacrifices that others have made to build the kingdom when the words of Joseph Smith came into my mind, “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” I then realized that this whole ordeal was settled long ago when I was endowed and I covenanted to the Lord that I would consecrate and sacrifice everything I have, I am, even my very life, to the building up of the kingdom of God. Therefore, I had but one question to answer: “Will I be valiant in keeping my covenants?”

Choosing to Obey.

At first, when this letter came out, I was planning on avoiding all situations where obedience might be needed to wear masks. Then I decided, maybe I will simply wear one if someone asks. But after our commitment to actually seek ways to be obedient I turned to Emily, and we revisited masks. Whereas we both think they do nothing, and we hate them, we agreed that there was nothing special about the waters of Jordan for Naaman, it was obedience that brought the blessings. If the Prophet had asked us to eat watermelon every day and promised blessings, we would do it knowing the blessings would come.

So, then I asked about Church? Our ward does not require masks. Would we wear one when not required? Would we be proactively obedient, or would we demand to be commanded in all things? We both agreed that despite our detesting masks, we would wear one to Church, even if we were not asked to. Later that day, our Stake Presidency sent a letter to our Stake effectively saying, “We follow the Prophet, wear masks during Church.” And then our Bishopric sent a letter reiterating the same thing. For us, those letters were merely affirmations to what we knew.

Closing Thoughts: Being an exception.

As I write this post, I know it will not be popular, in fact, I expect to get a lot more hate mail than normal (and normally get a fair amount of it). But there is one final point I want to make. It is about the concept of being an exception to the rule. A lot of people fail to understand the principles surrounding being an exception. Here are a few guiding rules about being the exception:

1. You must be willing to obey.
   Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac before he was told not to. If you were never willing to obey, then you lack real intent which is a prerequisite for an answer from God. If you do not have the intent to obey then any answers you have recieved, have come from Satan.
2. You must still believe in the principle/policy and most importantly, you still support the Prophet.
   Think about mothers who work out of the home by necessity, but still long for and testify that it would be best if they could be home. If one truly is the exception, they will still uphold and advocate the rule.
3. You must understand it was personal revelation.
   When someone is broadcasting their personal revelation to disobey the Prophet on social media you know it did NOT come from the Spirit! The Spirit would lay them under strict command to still testify of the rule, and the Prophet even if they are the exception!

I can’t stress the final point enough: If someone is claiming to have received revelation from God telling them to disobey His mouthpiece and broadcast it on Social Media they are being deceived and they are on the road to apostasy. In the words of President George Q. Cannon and President N. Eldon Tanner:

“Whenever you see a man disobeying the counsel of the Lord through the Holy Priesthood, you may know that unless he repents, he will apostatize. It is a sure sign of apostasy. A man may be an Apostle, a Seventy, a High Priest, an Elder or a Bishop, yet if he tries to divide the people and persuades them to disobey the Prophet of God, he will surely fall, unless he repents with all his heart. The Lord asks us to obey Him. He tells us how to do so. He does not ask for blind obedience, because He gives His Holy Spirit to all who ask for it to show them that it is right to obey.”

George Q. Cannon (“Satan Hates a United People,” Gospel Truth, Vol. 1, p. 210–11 (italics and bold added))

“When we begin to choose which of the covenants, which of the commandments we will keep and follow, we are taking the law of the Lord into our own hands and become our own prophets, and believe me, we will be led astray, because we are false prophets to ourselves when we do not follow the Prophet of God.“

N. Eldon Tanner (Conference Report, October 1966, p. 98. (italics and bold added))

I testify Russell M. Nelson is the Prophet on the earth today. We have agency. Now we must use it. Do we choose to be valiant in our obedience and keeping of our covenants? Or do we choose to disobey? If we choose to disobey, remember, there is a kingdom for that.

For more on this topic see “Are You the Exception or Just Disobeying? 6 Ways to Know if You Are the Exception“, “20+ Amazing Quotes on Following The Prophet and the Dangers of Disobeying!” “When Satan Gives You a ‘Revelation’ That You Don’t Need to Follow Your Church Leaders” and “Blind obedience is better than disobedience. But obedience based on faith is not blind!” and “Why it is dangerous to throw away prophets you dislike“

Debunking Common Objections:

“I hold the keys over my family, and I recieved revelation that we don’t need to do this.”

Now some people will claim that their right to receive revelation for their family extends to insubordination to the prophet. That is not true. The Church is like a fleet of battleships. You may be the captain of your ship, but the Prophet is the Admiral of the fleet. He receives orders from Allied High Command. It does not matter how big or small your ship is, when the Admiral says what to do, you do it. Even if it makes little or no sense. He has got the bigger picture. He is the watchman on the tower. If he says hold fire, you hold fire. If you go rogue against the Prophet your pride has paved the pathway to the destruction of your family.

“We were only urged, not commanded.”

I defer to Erza Taft Benson who said, “The prophet does not have to say ‘Thus saith the Lord’ to give us scripture. Sometimes there are those who argue about words. They might say the prophet gave us counsel but that we are not obliged to follow it unless he says it is a commandment. But the Lord says of the Prophet, ‘Thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you.’ (D&C 21:4.)” (“Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet” Ensign June 1981)

“This was not an offical Church policy, just a suggestion.” or “This is his opinion as a man” or “A prophet is a prophet only when he is acting like a prophet”

The First Presidency sent a letter, on Church Letterhead, with the headline, “OFFICIAL CHURCH ANNOUNCEMENTS” and it was sent to everyone who has subscribed to the “Official Church Announcements” mailing list aka through official channels, and it was signed by the entire First Presidency, yet you think this was a personal opinion?? This can’t get any more official!

Ezra Taft Benson taught, “In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord refers to the First Presidency as ‘the highest council of the Church’ (D&C 107:80) and says ‘whosoever receiveth me, receiveth those, the First Presidency, whom I have sent …’ (D&C 112:20)… The prophet and the presidency—the living prophet and the First Presidency—follow them and be blessed—reject them and suffer.” See also Doctrine and Covenants 1:38

“Brigham Young once said that he feared blind obedience…”

A lot of people share a quote from Brigham Young stating that his greatest fear would be people obeying blindly. This article, “Blind obedience is better than disobedience. But obedience based on faith is not blind!” Starts with a thorough debunking of using that quote to justify disobedience.