Gerrit W. Gong · Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
1For 50 years, I have studied culture, including gospel culture. I began with fortune cookies.
2In San Francisco’s Chinatown, Gong family dinners concluded with a fortune cookie and a wise saying like “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
3As a young adult, I made fortune cookies. Wearing white cotton gloves, I folded and tucked into shape the round cookies hot out of the oven.
4To my surprise, I learned fortune cookies are not originally part of Chinese culture. To distinguish Chinese, American, and European fortune cookie culture, I looked for fortune cookies on multiple continents—just as one would use multiple locations to triangulate a forest fire. Chinese restaurants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York serve fortune cookies, but not those in Beijing, London, or Sydney. Only Americans celebrate National Fortune Cookie Day. Only Chinese advertisements offer “Authentic American Fortune Cookies.”
5Fortune cookies are a fun, simple example. But the same principle of comparing practices in different cultural settings can help us distinguish gospel culture. And now the Lord is opening new opportunities to learn gospel culture as Book of Mormon allegory and New Testament parable prophecies are fulfilled.
6Everywhere people are moving. The United Nations reports 281 million international migrants. This is 128 million more individuals than in 1990 and more than three times 1970 estimates. Everywhere, record numbers of converts are finding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every Sabbath, members and friends from 195 birth countries and territories gather in 31,916 Church congregations. We speak 125 languages.
7Recently, in Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Switzerland, and Germany, I witnessed new members fulfilling the Book of Mormon allegory of the olive tree. In Jacob 5, the Lord of the vineyard and his servants strengthen both olive tree roots and branches by gathering and grafting together those from diverse locations. Today children of God gather as one in Jesus Christ; the Lord offers a remarkable natural means to expand our lived fulness of His restored gospel.
8Preparing us for the kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells the parables of the great supper and wedding feast. In these parables, invited guests make excuses not to come. The master instructs his servants to “go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city” and “the highways and hedges” to “bring in hither” the poor, maimed, halt, and blind. Spiritually speaking, that’s each of us.
9Scripture declares:
10“All nations shall be invited” unto “a supper of the house of the Lord.”
11“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, … that his kingdom may go forth upon the earth, that the inhabitants thereof may receive it, and be prepared for the days to come.”
12Today those invited to the supper of the Lord come from every place and culture. Old and young, rich and poor, local and global, we make our Church congregations look like our communities.
13As chief Apostle, Peter saw heaven open a vision of “a great sheet knit at the four corners, … wherein were all manner of … beasts.” Taught Peter: “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. … In every nation he that feareth [the Lord], and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”
14In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus invites us to come to each other and to Him in His inn—His Church. He invites us to be good neighbors. The good Samaritan promises to return and recompense the care of those in His inn. Living the gospel of Jesus Christ includes making room for all in His restored Church.
15The spirit of “room in the inn” includes “no one sits alone.” When you come to church, if you see someone alone, will you please say hello and sit with him or her? This may not be your custom. The person may look or speak differently than you. And of course, as a fortune cookie might say, “A journey of gospel friendship and love begins with a first hello and no one sitting alone.”
16“No one sits alone” also means no one sits alone emotionally or spiritually. I went with a brokenhearted father to visit his son. Years earlier, the son was excited to become a new deacon. The occasion included his family buying him his first pair of new shoes.
17But at church, the deacons laughed at him. His shoes were new, but not fashionable. Embarrassed and hurt, the young deacon said he would never go again to church. My heart is still broken for him and his family.
18On the dusty roads to Jericho, each of us has been laughed at, embarrassed and hurt, perhaps scorned or abused. And with varying degrees of intent, each of us has also disregarded, not seen or heard, perhaps deliberately hurt others. It is precisely because we have been hurt and have hurt others that Jesus Christ brings us all to His inn. In His Church and through His ordinances and covenants, we come to each other and to Jesus Christ. We love and are loved, serve and are served, forgive and are forgiven. Please remember, “earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot heal”; earth burdens lighten—our Savior’s joy is real.
19In 1 Nephi 19, we read: “Even the very God of Israel do [they] trample under their feet; … they set him at naught. … Wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it.”
20My friend Professor Terry Warner says the judging, scourging, smiting, and spitting were not occasional events that occurred only during Christ’s mortal life. How we treat each other—especially the hungry, the thirsty, those left out alone—is how we treat Him.
21In His restored Church, we are all better when no one sits alone. Let us not simply accommodate or tolerate. Let us genuinely welcome, acknowledge, minister to, love. May each friend, sister, brother not be a foreigner or stranger but a child at home.
22Today many feel lonely and isolated. Social media and artificial intelligence can leave us yearning for human closeness and human touch. We want to hear each other’s voices. We want authentic belonging and kindness.
23There are many reasons we may feel we do not fit in at church—that, speaking figuratively, we sit alone. We may worry about our accent, clothes, family situation. Perhaps we feel inadequate, smell of smoke, yearn for moral cleanliness, have broken up with someone and feel hurt and embarrassed, are concerned about this or that Church policy. We may be single, divorced, widowed. Our children are noisy; we don’t have children. We didn’t serve a mission or came home early. The list goes on.
24Mosiah 18:21 invites us to knit our hearts together in love. I invite us to worry less, judge less, be less demanding of others—and, when needed, be less hard on ourselves. We do not create Zion in a day. But each “hello,” each warm gesture, brings Zion closer. Let us trust the Lord more and choose joyfully to obey all His commandments.
25Doctrinally, in the household of faith and fellowship of the Saints, no one sits alone because of covenant belonging in Jesus Christ.
26Taught the Prophet Joseph Smith: “It is left for us to see, participate in and help to roll forward the Latter-day glory, ‘the dispensation of the fullness of times … ,’ when the Saints of God will be gathered in one from every nation, and kindred, and people.”
27God “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; … that he may draw all men [and women] unto him. …
28“… He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; … and all are alike unto God.”
29Conversion in Jesus Christ requires us to put off the natural man and worldly culture. As President Dallin H. Oaks teaches, we are to give up any tradition and cultural practice that is contrary to the commandments of God and to become Latter-day Saints. He explains, “There is a unique gospel culture, a set of values and expectations and practices common to all [the] members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Gospel culture includes chastity, weekly attendance at church, abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee. It includes honesty and integrity, understanding we move forward, not upward or downward, in Church positions.
30I learn from faithful members and friends in every land and culture. Scriptures studied in multiple languages and cultural perspectives deepen gospel understanding. Different expressions of Christlike attributes deepen my love and understanding of my Savior. All are blessed when we define our cultural identity, as President Russell M. Nelson taught, as a child of God, a child of the covenant, a disciple of Jesus Christ.
31The peace of Jesus Christ is meant for us personally. Recently a young man earnestly asked, “Elder Gong, can I still go to heaven?” He wondered if he could ever be forgiven. I asked his name, listened carefully, invited him to talk with his bishop, gave him a big hug. He left with hope in Jesus Christ.
32I mentioned the young man in another setting. Later I received an unsigned letter that began, “Elder Gong, my wife and I have raised nine kids … and served two missions.” But “I always felt I would not be allowed in the celestial kingdom … because my sins as a youth were so bad!”
33The letter continued, “Elder Gong, when you told about the young man gaining hope of forgiveness, I was filled with joy, beginning to realize that maybe I [could be forgiven].” The letter concludes, “I even like myself now!”
34Covenant belonging deepens as we come to each other and to the Lord in His inn. The Lord blesses us all when no one sits alone. And who knows? Maybe the person we sit next to may become our best fortune cookie friend. May we find and make place for Him and each other at the supper of the Lamb, I humbly pray in the holy name of Jesus Christ, amen.