In Dieter F. Uchtdorf's October 2013 conference talk, he said, "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters—my dear friends—please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. We must never allow doubt to hold us prisoner and keep us from the divine love, peace, and gifts that come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."
In the past year or so I have heard of some people who thought for a long time that they were supposed to just put these questions on the shelf, i.e. ignore them or forget about them. Eventually what happened was that they decided to take the questions off the shelf, didn't like what they saw, and left the church, often after looking at anti-Mormon literature. I think we have to be careful when we quote Elder Uchtdorf and say, "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith," because after rereading his talk I don't think he was saying we should ignore our questions. (I won't pretend to understand what goes through someone's head when they decide to leave the church. That doesn't happen to be my trial and it's never been a temptation for me.)
Instead, I think what he means is that when we have doubts we should cling to our faith, the things we do know, and trust that God will help us increase in understanding if we keep working on our testimonies. If we become too fixated on our doubts we may miss out on the blessings of peace, love, joy, service, and righteous works that are the fruits of our faith.
When we rely on our faith (including spiritual experiences we have had), trust in God, and keep working on building our faith through study, prayer, and good works, we come to understand the tough questions better. It's important to remember that the answers to our questions can't always come at once. It might be that you need to learn more about humility, service, the Atonement, the priesthood, baptism, or other principles before getting understanding about the things you want to know. In some cases the answer won't make sense if you haven't had enough experience or developed certain virtues enough. If you just put your questions on the shelf and convince yourself to ignore them, you won't be any closer to the answer. But if instead you go to God in prayer and say, "I don't understand, and this bothers me, but please give me faith and help me to understand," the response might be to study about a specific topic, or work on developing a specific virtue, or get involved in some kind of church service. Then over time you will find that you are closer to understanding the hard questions.
I have never been completely easy with the idea of plural marriage in the LDS church. I don't think very many people are. I can definitely understand why Emma Smith had a hard time with Joseph practicing it. But I have found that I agree with Simon Peter in John 6:66-69:
66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.If I left the church over the church's history of polygamy (not that this was ever a temptation for me), I know I would be missing all of the things in the gospel that I know are true. I believe in eternal families, proxy temple work for the dead, living prophets, the priesthood, the Atonement and the understanding of it that we get from modern revelation, and the Book of Mormon. There really is no other place I could go that would have these precious eternal doctrines. So instead I have stayed, acknowledging that I don't understand everything, and I have continued to work on my testimony.
67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
A few years ago I started getting interested in doing my family history. At the time I started doing it because I was urged to get involved by the Holy Ghost, but what I didn't know was that my family history research would give me increased understanding of plural marriage.
I have some ancestors who practiced plural marriage. These include Stephen Chadwick Perry, Edwin Whiting, and Hans Peter Jensen. I transcribed life histories of them that had been passed down to me from family members and shared those on Family Search, and I also looked at the sources, stories, and pictures of them that were shared on Family Search by others.
What I have learned while doing this research is that when we learn about our ancestors they are with us. As I have learned more about these men, I have felt them near and I have become acquainted them and their families. And while there is much I don't know about plural marriage, what I do know is this: These were good and righteous men. I have felt this as I've learned about them. They had strong testimonies and faith in God, and they loved their wives and their children. They worked tirelessly to build Zion in Utah by serving in the church. So I feel that someday I will get an answer about plural marriage, and I will be okay with that answer, because I know that my ancestors who practiced plural marriage were in good standing with God. I didn't expect this understanding to come to me through doing family history, but I know that it came because I was willing to trust in my faith and in God and keep building my testimony by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
