OCR Text |
Show 268 of turning points. In the weeks that followed, even Sorenson had to temper his doubts, because they kept getting invited back, and little by little the structure of the discussions began to be pulled into recognizable shape. They got invited back even after discussions that Alice had not appeared to find interesting, and that was a good sign. They talked about the pre-existence one night while she listened narrow-eyed and skeptical and Richard looked desperately for a way to get past his wife and down the hall to the bathroom without making her angry. Another time they talked about the nature of revelations, and how they were different from visions. Alice liked- them less once the difference was made clear. Richard finally excused himself to go to the bathroom, and stayed. On still another evening-it was during a spongy thaw, and they had tracked brown sodden leaves all the way to the couch-they discussed the Great Apostasy, drawing from writers like Hegesippus, Eusebius, Mosheim, and John Wesley, all contained in useful extracts in the Ready References section of their missionary Bibles. Sorenson did most of the talking this time. He explained, while Alice listened politely and Richard sat in resentful silence staring at the porch light through the window and Lorin kept quiet, how the early church had begun to fall away even during the time of the apostles, and how within a century the priesthood and thus all claim to authority had been lifted from the earth, not to be restored until the nineteenth century, by the resurrected John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John, who conferred it on the heads of Joseph Smith and selected converts to the restored church. On an evening fragrant with the breath of the coming spring they finally talked about angels. Alice noticeably picked up during this discussion. Lorin explained that angels were solid flesh and bone, muscle |