Marcus Martins: Focused on the Future, Learning from the Past

All In

DB Podcasts

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Marcus Martins never planned to serve a mission, to be sealed in the temple, or to serve as a bishop. These things would require him to receive the priesthood, and there was a restriction in place that precluded him from doing so. But Martins’s life changed forever on June 8, 1978, when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a revelation extending the priesthood to all worthy male members ages 12 and older. Since that day, Martins has served not only as a missionary, but as a bishop, a temple officiator, a Book of Mormon translator, and a mission president. On this week's episode, Martins explains how he developed a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ even before 1978 and why he has never looked back in the nearly 50 years since he joined the Church.

“I’m very optimistic about the future and the fact that because of the testimony of Jesus Christ, we will come eventually to a point, even before the millennium, in which this will be for most people a thing of the past because, since we are always receiving new converts, we will always have to be revisiting these lessons but it won’t hurt as much."

Show Notes

1:44- Hearing the Gospel Message for the First Time
8:05- Priesthood Ban and Baptism
13:30- Attempts at Explaining the Ban
19:28- Racism, Human Nature, and a Crossroads in History
26:11- Serving a Mission
34:20- Knowing the Significance of the Priesthood
38:02- Small Things Accumulate Over Time
44:00- Optimistic for the Future
48:39- Expanding the Horizon of Our Understanding Through Diversity
54:05- Representation
57:28- What Does It Mean To Be All In the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Find the full episode transcript at ldsliving.com/allin.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Marcus Martins was 19 years old in June 1978. He had no expectation at the time of
0:07.7	serving a mission because of the priesthood restriction that precluded him from
0:11.8	doing so. But all of that changed on June 8th when a friend in Utah called to
0:17.2	tell his family the news. The church had announced a revelation extending the
0:21.8	priesthood to all worthy male members ages 12 and older regardless of race or
0:27.0	color. Just months later Marcus Martins who had been engaged at the time of the
0:32.2	revelation entered the year old Brazil Missionary Training Center and became
0:37.0	the first black missionary to serve after the announced revelation. A native of
0:43.2	Rio de Janeiro Brazil Marcus Martins worked as a systems analyst and project
0:48.5	manager for the Brazilian government and as a freelance consultant before moving
0:53.4	to the United States in 1990. He served as chair of the Department of
0:58.2	Religious Education at Brigham Young University Hawaii and teaches church
1:02.2	organization and leadership, marriage and occasionally man and gerial leadership.
1:07.1	Brother Martins joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1972.
1:12.8	Since then he has served as a mission president, bishop, temple
1:17.2	officiator and translator of the Book of Mormon. This is All-In, an LDS living
1:25.4	podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be All-In the
1:29.8	Gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Jones and I am so honored to have Marcus
1:35.0	Martins on the line with me today. Brother Martins, welcome. Thank you very much for
1:40.1	having me. Well, I have been watching talks that you've given and reading things
1:47.5	that you've written and I'm just so thrilled to have the chance to ask you some
1:52.9	questions today and hear more of your experiences and your story. But let's
	...

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