Relying on The Lord in the Last Days

More than a decade ago, I heard a Church leader declare that the time was fast approaching when the spiritual convictions we had cultivated up to that point in our lives would not be sufficient for what lies ahead. I believe that time has already arrived. If we are not actively strengthening our personal testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we may not survive the perils of the present day, and we most certainly will not survive what is coming. The temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be as essential to the salvation of mankind in the last days as was the ark in the days of Noah. How can we prepare our minds and hearts to endure the tribulations that are now upon us and will only worsen in days to come? Is there more to be done than storing food and supplies and weapons? While temporal preparations are absolutely essential, can we suppose they will preserve us if we are negligent in our individual spiritual preparations? Can we be saved without our dead? What has The Lord declared about trusting in the arm of the flesh? Do we really want to put our trust in the arm of flesh, and by so doing, gamble away our divine, eternal birthright?

Ilyan Kei Lavanway is a proliferate yet undiscovered and unheralded Christian author. He served as a full-time missionary for two years in Argentina for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1986-1988. Since 2005, he has written and published over two dozen books of various lengths, ranging from a few pages to almost five-hundred pages. His education includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from the University of Washington, Seattle, and a Master of Science degree in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.
Mr. Lavanway is married and has an autistic son who has Down's syndrome. Mr. Lavanway grew up in Wenatchee and Waterville, Washington State. He is the oldest of nine siblings, seven of whom are living. He spent his high school summers driving wheat trucks and combines during harvest, earning cash to support his first love, the love of flight. He was an avid private pilot in his teens.
Ironically, for all his love of aviation, Mr. Lavanway's fourteen years in the United States Air Force never landed him a flight crew assignment. Nope. He was kicking it subterranean school in a capsule beneath the North Dakota plains as an ICBM launch officer for his first four years of service, followed by a year of really uninteresting work in a vault, on base. His next two years took him up near the Canadian border, to the giant, phased array space surveillance and early warning radar site outside Cavalier, North Dakota.
Then, he was off to California. Academic assignments filled the final seven years of his military service. By the time he was medically retired from active duty, he had discovered his passion for writing.
Since life has thrown him a few curves that make it impractical for him to return to flying airplanes any time soon, he has poured his heart into the written word.
Mr. Lavanway feels he has a God-given gift and responsibility to express eternal principles that will point sincere readers to the scriptures, to the living apostles, to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and ultimately to a personal relationship with God the Father, and with God's Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Ghost.