Question: Can non-Mormons feel a spiritual experience that cause them to devote themselves to service within another Church?

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Question: Can non-Mormons feel a spiritual experience that cause them to devote themselves to service within another Church?

One purpose of this life is for us to gain a body, and then have experiences that help us to learn and grow and to demonstrate the extent to which we will respond to the light that we do receive

Could it be that non-Mormons feel similar feelings that cause them to devote themselves to service within another Church? Certainly. We are taught in our Church that not everyone will join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this life, but everyone will eventually have the opportunity to do so, if that is what they want. The purpose of this life is not only to get baptized into the true Church of Jesus Christ. If that were so, God's plan for us in this life would seem to fall dramatically short of meeting its purpose since so few people have ever even heard of the Church nor ever hear of the Church. So the larger purpose of this life is for us to gain a body, and then have experiences that help us to learn and grow and to demonstrate the extent to which we will respond to the light that we do receive. That should be the focus of Latter-day Saints--to view how these experiences prepare God's children to receive more light (Alma 8:10; 16:16-17). All of God's children receive light in one way or another. We will all have different experiences and we will all receive different amounts of light. So the test for any of us individually is to respond in the best way that we can to the light that we receive.

A deeper question being asked here is regarding nature, purpose, and timing of the spiritual experience by non-latter-day Saints. See here for more information on that.

As expressed in Preach My Gospel:

Throughout history, many people have sincerely believed false creeds and doctrines. They have worshipped according to the light they possessed and have received answers to their prayers. Yet they are “kept from the truth because they know not where to find it" (Doctrine and Covenants 123:12).[1]


Notes

  1. See Preach My Gospel Chapter 3 “Study and Teach”, Lesson 1, “Great Apostasy”.