Joanne Hanks

 

Click here for my Husband Jeff Hanks' Testimony

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Hello, my name is Joanne Hanks. I am grateful to have this opportunity to share my words of testimony to you. Many members of this Church, the True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days have written wonderful and truthful words of testimony. Many of us in the past have explained clearly the doctrines of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and why you, the reader, should be able to see and comprehend the truth and the times we are now in upon the earth. Therefore, I will let those past words stand and write here brief words of strong testimony.

And again, verily I say unto you, those who desire in their hearts, in meekness, to warn sinners to repentance, let them be ordained unto this power. For this is a day of warning, and not a day of many words. For I, the Lord, am not to be mocked in the last days. (D&C 63: 57-58)

Behold, I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor. (D&C 88:81)

I am thankful to God for warning and waking me up to the times we are in and to the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. THESE ARE THE LAST DAYS. I have felt that even as a child growing up in various parts of this country as my family moved around in the Air Force. I have felt the reality of our generation being in the last days since I was a teenager in Seminary at Orem High School. I have watched for the signs of Christ's Second Coming since I was a student in various religion classes at BYU. I have personally witnessed the hypocrisy of the leaders and people of the LDS Church as an employee at the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City. Why do I claim they are hypocrites? Because I know from my own experience that the LDS people are not different or "peculiar" in a spiritual way to the world. They do not know their own history. They do not know what Joseph Smith taught. They claim that a "living prophet" is more correct than a dead prophet and has the God-given right to change any doctrine and belief. That is not the sign of a prophet! The people love to hear a man tell them they are righteous and are successful in the sight of God, when in fact they are totally absorbed with becoming like the world and receiving praise from the world!

Wake up!

But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head. (Helaman 13:38)

I testify that the signs of the times are clear to those who are not distracted by the cares of the world or the words of those who claim to be prophets. Who is a true prophet? The man who teaches the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and lives it himself. Not the man who praises the wicked world and preaches against those righteous few who know the scriptures and are striving to live them. I am living the fullness of the gospel as taught in the scriptures here in this gathering place in Manti. I am living the law of Gathering by being here in this valley which will become the literal Zion. I am living the law of Consecration in it's fullness within this true Church, the True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days. I am living the principle of Plural Marriage which enables me to fully live all the covenants of the endowment. I am happy and most of all I am confident in my standing before the Lord. It is imperative that I keep my covenants with God in order to receive divine protection while many great and terrible judgments are being poured out upon the earth. Jesus Christ will return soon. And as I was taught so many years ago in my little seminary class, He will come to those who are the remnant of the Elect who are looking forth for the signs of His coming and the rest of the world will not even be aware of it.

I know many will not believe my words of testimony. But when the calamities of that final day come, I pray that at least my words will still be in your mind that you may then know where to come for safety and you then will be able to truly build up the Lord's Kingdom once Satan's world has been destroyed.

"I know whereon I stand, I know what I believe, I know what I know and I know what I testify to you is the living truth. As I expect to meet it at the bar of the eternal Jehovah, it is true. And when you stand before the bar you will know."

These words were spoken by Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner (plural wife of Joseph Smith) on April 14, 1905 in an address at Brigham Young University. I take these final words as my own and write them all in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer, Amen.

Joanne Hanks