(RNS) — This time final week, all of them had been nonetheless alive.
4 of my fellow Latter-day Saints had been murdered on Sunday, Sept. 28, whereas worshipping at church. Eight others had been wounded. The youngest taking pictures sufferer, who’s recovering, is solely 6 years previous.
All week, I’ve been following the story, praying for the victims and their households. And I’ve been making an attempt — and failing — to wish for the shooter, who additionally died that day. I’ve been too stuffed with righteous anger to wish for him.
How might he do it? Why did he do it?
This afternoon, I used to be lastly capable of pray for him, too, and it was due to one thing that occurred at Common Convention.
Or quite, I ought to say it was due to one thing that didn’t occur at present. Not one of the convention audio system used the taking pictures to whip our individuals right into a frenzy of tribal grievance.
It will have been simple to do. We’re so primed for it. Proper now we’re mourning a one-two punch: not solely the horrifying and sudden deaths of our fellow Saints who died violently, but in addition the extra anticipated lack of Russell M. Nelson, who died peacefully the evening earlier than the taking pictures at age 101.
The irony that President Nelson, whose final main written phrases had been an op-ed about peacemaking for Time journal, died simply earlier than this violent occasion shook our individuals is one thing I’ve been eager about all week.
Firstly of Common Convention at present, Dallin H. Oaks, who might be our subsequent president of the church, made a degree of claiming that President Nelson had already deliberate all of the audio system and the music for this convention and that one method to honor him could be by following the schedule he had accepted. Oaks requested the audio system to chorus from giving private tributes to President Nelson and as a substitute follow the conference-as-usual plan, saving any private remarks for Tuesday’s funeral.
However Nelson’s handprint was evident from the very first speaker, whose matter was peacemaking. Elder Gary Stevenson opened by acknowledging that “our hearts are mourning loss” and that tragedy and violence have marked our world. He didn’t title the Michigan taking pictures, however I’m certain most U.S. Saints had been pondering of it.
What I took from his discuss was that the instances when it appears most not possible to make peace are the instances when it’s most crucial to make peace.
It made me consider the GoFundMe campaigns which were began for the victims of the taking pictures, so I went and made a donation there. You may go to that website to help the households of those that died and likewise the households of those that are recovering — individuals who will want surgical procedures and remedy and time without work work.
A GoFundMe web page for the victims of the September 28, 2025, LDS Church taking pictures in Michigan. (Display seize)
However there’s additionally one other method to donate, and that’s to the household of the shooter.
An LDS member of the church has arrange a GiveSendGo web page to assist the spouse and youngsters of Thomas Sanford, the person who shot the victims and burned the church. As of this afternoon, it had raised greater than $361,000 to supply help for the Sanford household.
The person who began it, David Butler, is a Latter-day Saint science fiction author with no connection to the Sanfords. He arrange the fundraiser as a result of within the New Testomony Guide of James, we be taught that “Pure faith and undefiled earlier than God and the Father is that this, to go to the fatherless and widows of their affliction.”
Yesterday, the fund creator stated he had been “standing in a hurricane of affection and generosity for 3 days now. Thanks.” He has been in contact with the Sanford household, who expressed gratitude “for the huge outpouring of help and compassion.”
In some way, this flood of affection — not only for my very own individuals who have been wronged, however for the household of the one who wronged them — softened my coronary heart. I gave too. I prayed. And I cried — not simply the tears of sorrow and anger I’ve succumbed to this week, however tears of pleasure as nicely.
I’m happy with my individuals. That is how we conquer the hatred and prejudice of the world: not with an eye fixed for an eye fixed, however with an inundation of affection. President Nelson would smile on this response, I believe.
How becoming at present had been the phrases of “Now Let Us Rejoice,” sung by the Tabernacle Choir on the opening of Common Convention:
Now allow us to rejoice within the day of salvation.
Not as strangers on earth want we roam.
Good tidings are sounding to us and every nation,
And shortly the hour of redemption will come,
When all that was promised the Saints might be given,
And none will molest them from morn till ev’n,
And earth will seem because the Backyard of Eden,
And Jesus will say to all Israel, “Come residence.”
Might we be secure, inhabiting a Zion the place none will molest us from morn till ev’n. However could we additionally try for greater than that: to create such a Zion for all individuals, even those who search to do hurt. That is the gospel.
