Anthropology and Zion

This last Sunday I headed up to Salt Lake City for my great grandmother's fast sunday family home evening. I was in charge of the lesson, and when deciding what topic to do, I kept thinking back on anthropology, and the preparation for my field study. My lesson ended up being on the importance of education, and while preparing for it and giving it I had some insightful realizations. First I shared three of the most major things I feel I have learned over the last couple years through my major at BYU. These were:

• The more I learn, the more I realize how much I do not know. When I was younger I figured the more I found out, the smarter I would be. Now I realize the more I expand my knowledge, the more I realize how inadequate my knowledge span truly is.
• I have learned new definitions of what it means to be a child of God. Learning about culture and the society of man really shifts one's views or erases preconceptions one may not have ever known they had.
• I have found more evidence that there is a God. For one thing, because I do not think pure science, outside of the context of religion and creation, could create such complex unknowable beings and societies. Evolution alone could not be responsible for this. Also, God gives me hope that the worldwide and timeless suffering taken on by humans will someday be universally lifted through the Atonement.

While searching for scriptures to aid my lesson, I found some great verses in Doctrine and Covenants that directly apply to anthropology:

90:15 And set in order the churches, and ^astudy and ^blearn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with ^clanguages, tongues, and people.

93:53 And, verily I say unto you, that it is my will that you should^ahasten to ^btranslate my scriptures, and to ^cobtain a ^dknowledgeof history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of ^elaws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion. Amen.

I thought these were really cool. They prove that God sees it as very important to learn about each other as his children, to open ourselves to a variety of cultures and ways of living. These scriptures helped give my project in Ghana a deeper meaning and context. I like to think that I am fulfilling a commandment of God by attempting to broaden my knowledge of his greatest creations, and thus increase my love for humanity as a whole. By exposing myself to new culture, history, and language while in Ghana, I am obtaining knowledge and working towards Zion.