O captive daughter of Zion

Recorded recently in my journal:

“...I’ve been thinking a lot about the leaders in our stake and ward and the things I’ve heard and been told in relation to church attendance, or temple attendance. A common theme, I’ve realized, is the necessity of the church in providing what we need for salvation and the implication that it can’t come in other ways. When I told ___ and ___ a while back that I’ve at least been watching sacrament meeting on Zoom, they both said it’s not the same, implying that I need to be there in person with others to get the most out of it. They both said that this is the only way I can have the sacrament. ___ said in my 2-hour interview last August (2023) that the church is needed to provide opportunities to serve and sacrifice. He also said there are leaders that can reach our kids in ways that we might not be able to. Both ___ and ___ have either implied or said outright that there is spiritual power we can obtain in the temple that we can’t obtain outside. I remember believing that there would never be a time where I’d be closer to the Lord than on my mission. All of this has the same implied or explicit message that there are things we need for our progress and salvation that can only be found in the LDS church.

“...I wanted to continue, briefly, with what I was saying in my last entry. Because of this, we are held in bondage to our false religions. We become the ‘captives’ spoken of by Isaiah. This can be literal, in the sense of oppressive governments, as the children of Israel were in bondage in Egypt. But more generally, and more particularly, I think this would refer to being kept in spiritual bondage to false traditions and religions. Many would go out of the bondage of the false Mormonism of the LDS church. But, the LDS church tells its members ‘you need me.’ ‘Don’t you dare step outside of that old ship Zion, for you will only drown and perish.’ This is what I’m being told by ___ and ___ …”

Adding to my journal entry these words from Isaiah:

“Therefore, hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken and not with wine. Thus saith thy Lord — the Lord and thy God pleadeth the cause of his people: Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again. But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee, who have said to thy soul, Bow down that we may go over — and thou hast laid thy body as the ground and as the street to them that went over. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion. Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city. For henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust. Arise, sit down, O Jerusalem. Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”