Message 25 July 2011

Message—25 Jul 2011

Dear Family & Friends,

Even though we have said this before, we have an absolute and certain witness that the hand of the Lord is at the root and the heart of the proceedings and the affairs of his church and kingdom and especially the missionary work.  We see His hand daily as we go about trying to be of service to bring the gospel to our brothers and sisters who live in this mission.  Many people who attended the Hill Cumorah Pageant provided referrals to have the missionaries visit them and provide more information about the church.  The two missionaries in our Brockport area have received over 14 referrals.  One was a request to receive a Book of Mormon in the Arabic language.  Hopefully some of the people will listen with their hearts and receive a witness of the truth of the gospel and accept the invitation to be baptized and live worthy to receive all of the eternal blessings available to them through priesthood and temple ordinances.

In the Preach My Gospel manual there is a very well worded and succinct statement about missionary work and what our role is to help accomplish it.  The statement is;  “My purpose as a missionary is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.”  As you read and ponder this statement you will learn that our role is to “invite” and “help”; all the other parts are the responsibility of the person we talk with, they are to use their agency to accept the invitations.  It is not difficult to invite and help others, that is all that is required of us.  As we open our mouths to invite and help the power of the Holy Ghost will put the right words in our mouth and He will also witness to others of the truths He gives us to speak.  Because the Lord is in the details of His work He will provide all the help we need through the Holy Ghost.  When some choose with their agency to not accept our invitation or help, we have to respect their choice because Heavenly Father and the Savior respect their choices, that is an eternal law.  We can still love those who do not accept our invitation and help, and continue being their brother and sister, and there may well come a time later when we will be inspired to invite and help again.  At a later time the person may accept the invitation and help to come unto Christ.  Someone has come up with a statistic that on average, it takes seven exposures to the church and its message before people will accept the message we have to share; so never give up on anyone.  Follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost and we can help in the Lord’s work wherever we are.

After having a long and wet spring with much rain here; the last few weeks have been very dry, hardly any rain at all.  The grass around people’s homes and yards, which is normally very green, is now very brown.  Most people do not use lawn sprinklers, they depend on the rain; it is easy to see which yards have sprinklers, because the grass is green.  Last week in going to check on an apartment near Niagara Falls; we drove along a rural road with many farms on both sides of the road.  The crops which were planted a month late due to wet soil, are now starting to wilt and die from lack of water.  It will take some good rain in the coming week to save these crops from being a total loss.  Many vegetable farms are going to have severe losses.  The trees are still green and doing all right, but some of the shrubs are also starting to wilt.  It is very interesting that a month ago there was plenty of water; and now there is not enough.  Water really is the life blood of the plant world; and it is also essential for animal and human life.  It remains to be seen how things will turn out.  We can see how the cycle of years of plenty and years of drought can have a significant impact on the lives of people.  We read about these cycles in many places in the scriptures, as well as in the history of mankind in non-scripture sources.  In many instances the drought years led people to become humble and recognize the source of their blessings are from the Lord, and not self-made.

Yesterday in our sacrament meeting the first counselor in the Bishopric, Brother Petranek, gave a short talk relating to our faithful pioneer ancestors and the sacrifices they made to sustain the call of the Lord’s prophet and move to Utah to establish the gospel in the tops of the mountains.  This was a fulfillment of prophecies by Isaiah.  We, who live today, have been blessed in countless ways as a result of the faith and obedience and sacrifices of our pioneer ancestors.  Brother Petranek made a statement which we believe to be true.  He said while we honor our pioneer ancestors, they also honor us, for continuing on in helping the Lord’s work to move forward.  As we continue with the work here, we will help to bring blessings upon them and their families and their ancestors.  We are very grateful for our ancestors; we hope to live worthy of personally thanking them for their great influence for good in our lives through our parents and other family.  We recognize Grandma and Grandpa Swasey’s 80^th wedding anniversary on July 29^th.  They are great people in our eyes and we honor them for all they have done to help us in our lives.  After my father died when I was 21, Grandpa Swasey became my substitute father for the next 23 years.  I learned a lot of valuable lessons from him and his example

We hope all of our children and their families, who possible can, will attend our family reunion on August 6^th at our home in Provo.  We know you will be blessed for your participation and taking the time to maintain and strengthen family relations.  We will be thinking of you to a greater degree on that day.

We express our love to each of you.  We are grateful for each of you and appreciate our associations with you and we pray for you every time we pray.

We know the Lord is blessing and helping you in many ways, and He will continue to do so.  We testify Heavenly Father and the Savior live and love us; we have living prophets and apostles guiding us, the Book of Mormon is true, living the gospel will bless our lives in countless ways and help us become who we should be.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine

Message 18 July 2011

Message—18 July 2011

Dear Family & Friends,

As we told you in last weeks’ message, we were invited to help at the Grandin Building during the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  The name has been changed to the Book of Mormon Historic Publication Site; but I will use Grandin Bldg to abbreviate in this message.  We were at the Grandin Bldg on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 11:30am to 5:30pm.  There was a steady flow of people who came to the Grandin Bldg; so we were busy during the full time we were there.  There were family groups, youth groups, bus tour groups, and a variety of other people.  The majority of the people were members of the LDS Church, but we also had a number of people were not members.  There were a number of referrals that came from the visitors.  One man was driving through town and saw all the groups of people in front of the Grandin Bldg so he stopped and came in and asked what was going on.  Elder Nielsen, one of the supervisors for the site spent an hour and half going through the displays explaining them and answering the man’s questions.  At the end of the time, the man gave his name and contact information to Elder Nielsen and asked to have the missionaries come and visit him and tell him more.  Elder Nielsen also gave him a Book Of Mormon.  We will not likely find out what happens; but he did feel the Spirit.  There were a few people who came that I knew from BYU connections.  While I was sharing my presentation with one group in the bookstore, I saw Paul Jensen and his wife walk into the bookstore behind the group I was talking to; and he was turning to walk into E. B. Grandin’s Office, so I would have missed seeing him.  I stopped in the middle of a sentence and spoke a little louder and said, Paul Jensen, don’t leave until I talk with you; I then continued on with my presentation to the group.  After finishing with the group I apologized to them for calling out to Paul; and explained Paul was my neighbor from Provo.  The group then went in to Grandin’s office with Maxine.  I had a chance to visit with Paul and his wife who live on 1100 West in Provo at about 1030 South; which is almost directly East of our home on 1600 West through the fields of the farmers between us.  It was good to see them for a few minutes.

On Saturday evening after we finished our assignment at the Grandin Bldg; we drove down to the Hill Cumorah and put a quilt on two chairs for us to save a place for us to see the pageant.  We then went back to the Grandin Bldg to attend a 7pm specially arranged demonstration by the owners of Experience Press; this was done after the visiting hours were over and the doors were locked.  This business is one a few book printers and bindery’s who do modern replicas of old books.  One of the main books they do is the Book of Mormon.  They are currently working on printing and binding copies of the book “Voice of Warning” which was written by Parley P. Pratt.  Mark and Jay are the names of the two guys who run the business; they have website at www.experiencepress.org.   They advertise what they have for sale and what they do.  All the couples who had helped at the Grandin Bldg during the Pageant were in attendance.  Mark and Jay demonstrated, with the use of the printing press and other equipment in the Grandin Bldg, how the Book of Mormon was printed and bound.  It was very special for us to be able to see this demonstration.  They also answered all of our questions, which were quite a few in number.  After the demonstration we rushed down to the Pageant and witnessed it a second time, it is just as impressive the second time.

On Sunday evening we drove to the Grandin Bldg for another special presentation about the restoration of the Grandin Bldg and also the Joseph Smith Log home.  Earlier in the week a man named Ken Graham came to the Grandin Bldg and while there he talked with the site supervisor, Elder Shepard.  Elder Shepard arranged for him to come Sunday to do this presentation.  Ken was the contractor who supervised most of the work on restoring the Grandin Bldg and making it into a visitor’s center; and he also was the contractor for the restoration of the Joseph Smith log home.  Ken shared a number of stories and experiences and pictures about the restoration work.  He has a lot of great memories and shared them in a very interesting way.  I will make record of what he shared and we can share it with you later.

These two events provided a lot of information that has helped to add to our testimony of how the Lord’s hand was directly involved in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and making it available to the world.  So many details had to happen in just the right sequence and timing to make it possible for the Book of Mormon to be translated and published.  These events have added to our testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon; but we also know the book is true because of the witness of the Spirit that the fullness of the gospel is in the Book of Mormon.  Today in our Mission Office Staff Meeting, Sister McVea shared the idea that we need to continue to read the Book of Mormon daily and pray every day to know the truths in the book are really true.  We should not rely on a witness from years ago; we need to continue reading and applying Moroni’s promise in Chapter 10 verse 4 and 5.  As we do this our testimonies will continue to grow and become stronger and have more power as we testify to others.

Friday afternoon we were blessed to see the marriage of our grandson Austin to Josie by the means of Skype.  Jana tried sending the wedding through her computer, but the wireless signal was not strong enough; so she used her cell phone and we were able to see the ceremony.  Thank you to Jana and the rest of the wedding group for waiting for Jana to get it set up so we could see it; we really appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness.  We were also able to visit with Austin and Josie and others of the family for a few minutes by means of Skype after the wedding ceremony.

This is long enough, we will close for now.  We love you and appreciate your thoughts and prayers in our behalf.  They do make a difference and the Lord does answer your prayers and we know he answers our prayers in your behalf as well.  The work we are doing is the Lord’s work and His hand is guiding all that happens; we know this to be true.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine

Message 11 July 2011

Message—11 July 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

Another week has flown by; here are some of the things we have experienced this week.  On Monday, July 4^th, 7 new missionaries arrived in the mission; 2 Elders, and 5 Sisters.  When the new missionaries arrive we are invited to help the President with some orientation to help them know the details of how things work in the mission.  We take only about 5 or 10 minutes or so.  We provide a scripture background for why the apartment needs to be kept clean and orderly by using      D&C 88:118-119.   After reading the scripture we explain the connection between organizing and preparing everything so the Holy Ghost can be present to guide and inspire them.  The Holy Ghost is absolutely essential as a third companion in order to find and invite and help people to receive the gospel.  The Holy Ghost will not be present in a disorderly and unclean apartment to help the missionaries study and prepare to teach each day.  We also explain that the apartment is really the Lord’s apartment since the rent and utilities are paid by the church, and the missionaries $400 is used to reimburse part of the cost.  The cost of most apartments here in the mission range from $400-$700 per month plus utilities.  So you can see that the church does pay over half of the cost of rent and utilities, thus the apartments really do belong to the Lord.  This information helps the missionaries understand how important it is to keep the apartment clean and orderly.  Our monthly check of the apartments helps remind them to keep the apartment clean and orderly.  Most of the missionaries do really well at keeping things in good order.  Sometimes we go and help the missionaries do a good cleaning.  The new Sister missionaries were really put to the test since they only had a few days to learn what they needed to know to begin immediately serving at the Historic Sites and give instructions and teach and testify of what took place at the different sites.  Each new group of missionaries just keep getting better and better.

Since we were asked to help a few days during the Pageant to be at the Grandin Building to answer questions and give some brief information about the events and people involved in the publishing of the Book of Mormon; we needed some training.  On Wednesday afternoon and evening we went to the Palmyra Stake Center which is across the road from the Palmyra Temple, to receive the instruction.  The instruction was given by Sister and Elder Lenker who supervise all the Historic Sites and the training that is given.  Also President and Sister Christianson gave some great instruction as well.   There were about 40 senior couples who volunteered to do a two week mission to help during the Pageant.  One couple is Carl and Sherry Johnson, Carl worked with me in the BYU Library; he is still working there.  Another couple is Vaughn and Susan Evans; Vaughn is the Bishop in my sister Kathy’s ward in Logandale, NV.  We then went to the sites at which we would be serving and received more detailed instructions from the site supervisors; ours supervisors are Elder and Sister Shepard, and Elder and Sister Nielsen.  Elder Nielsen’s father taught elementary school at Sunset View where our children attended; our son Todd had him for a teacher.   We have been studying the site training manual for about two weeks so we will know some of what we need to know.  We had a great experience on Friday, which was our first day at the Grandin Building.  Maxine was assigned to be in E. B. Grandin’s Office on the first floor; and Richard was assigned to be in the Bookstore room, also on the first floor.  Richard was right at home in the bookstore, talking about books, printing, and binding, and church history.  We are looking forward to our other three days of service this week.  One large youth group came through the Grandin Building while we were there.  They were from Dayton Ohio; when they told me that, I asked if they knew Blake Carter; and they said you mean Patriarch Carter.  I answered yes, and they said he was their Stake Patriarch.  Blake is a brother to Mac Carter who I farmed with at home in Provo; I have known him for many years.  One of the young ladies said she was the 50^th person to receive a patriarchal blessing from Blake.  What a small world.  This same group were annoyed by the Anti-Mormon guy outside the front door to the Grandin Building; and said they were going to go out and sing “Praise to the Man” to him.  We do not know if they did or not since we were so busy inside talking with people.

The Pageant on Friday evening was just wonderful; there was a very strong presence of the Spirit there during the performance.  The participants in the pageant really have to put in a lot time and effort in a short time period to learn their parts and do them in unison with the pre-recorded sound track.  They did not know what their part(s) was(were) until about a week before the pageant.  Some of them had more than one part.  The performers also have to learn how to help with setting up and taking down parts of the set to get ready for the next scene.  They all did very well.  The performers and the stage crew and directors combined include several hundred people.  They really do well.  The appearance of the person representing the Savior when he comes to the people after his resurrection and also when he appears at the end representing the second coming is very impressive.

In the middle of the week President Christianson informed all the missionaries that Elder Costa of the Presidency of the Seventy and his wife were coming to the Pageant on Friday.  Elder Costa said he was staying over the weekend and would like to speak to all of the missionaries at a fireside Sunday evening.  This was a very special experience to be taught by Sister Costa and then by Elder Costa.  They are both great people and very good teachers.  Their messages were very motivating and we all felt the power of the Spirit.  While we were waiting for a few of the Sister missionaries and Site Couples to arrive, Elder Costa took time to shake hands with all the missionaries, including the senior missionaries.  It was a very great experience to be present.

We hope the technology for Skyping Austin and Josie’s wedding to us on Friday will work so we can see this great event in their lives; hopefully we will get to see some or all of the rest of you.

We love you all and appreciate your thoughts and prayers in our behalf; please know we also pray for all of you as well.  We are always happy to hear from any of you.  Heavenly Father lives and loves us as does His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and they want to bless and help us in our lives.  They hear and answer our prayers according to Their wisdom and timing and love for us.  The Book of Mormon is true and is a great source of help and encouragement in how to live so we can find true joy.  President Monson is the prophet today, Joseph Smith was the Prophet of the restoration.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Maxine & Richard

Message 4 July 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

First, we hope you had a wonderful July 4^th and took time to ponder on the great blessings of freedom we enjoy in this land and also recognize the sacrifices of those who have and do fight to preserve these freedoms and also recognize those who gave their lives to secure and maintain the freedoms we have.  We are so grateful for the founding fathers of this nation and republic and gratefully acknowledge the hand of God in sending these great patriots to live on the earth at the right time to establish this land of liberty.  We also gratefully recognize that the Lord inspired the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the laws that enabled the restoration of the gospel to take place.  Through the Lord’s hand and influence we are blessed to have the fullness of the gospel available to us which makes it possible to have faith, repent as needed, be baptized, and have the gift of the Holy Ghost to help us do what is required to return to the presence of Heavenly Father and the Savior.  We are also grateful for our faithful ancestors who accepted the gospel and moved to Utah so we could have the privilege of being born and raised there by faithful and good parents.  We express our love to all of our families and friends; we consider ourselves very blessed to have associations with each of you.

We had the chance Last Sunday evening to go with Elder Morrison and Elder Swaner to visit an investigator by the name of Jack.  The Elders had previously met with him and taught him the first lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read it and attend church.  Jack’s wife died a year ago and he is thinking about what happens after death.  He has a background in science and wants to see physical proof of life after death.  We mostly listened to what the Elders taught; but we did share some thoughts and our testimony of Heavenly Father’s eternal plan and having faith in Christ.  At the end of our meeting with Jack, Elder Morrison invited him to pray, which he did, and the Spirit was there; I think Jack felt it.  The Elders have been teaching a young man named Zach; and a young lady, Monica, in the ward has also been teaching him and answering some of his questions.  Zach accepted the invitation from the Elders to be baptized in a week or two; I do not know the date that was set.  When members help with the teaching it is a great help.

We have spent some of our study time this week reading and studying the Grandin Building Historic Site Manual to learn what we need to know to serve at the site this next week.  We have learned a lot about the Grandin Building and the events that took place there and the history of the publishing and binding of the Book of Mormon.  We hope to have the help of the Spirit to answer questions visitors will ask us.  Most of the rest of this past week we spent helping with the needs of the missionary apartments.

We just learned from President Christianson today that next Sunday evening Elder Claudio R. M. Costa of the Presidency of the 70 will be here to see the Pageant and has requested the mission President to invite all the missionaries to a fireside this coming Sunday evening, including senior missionaries.  We look forward to hearing from him and being taught.

We were very pleased to learn of the birth of another great granddaughter on Tuesday.  Mckinzi gave birth to Kamri, she weighed 7 lbs. 15 oz. and was 20 inches; both mother and child are doing well.  She is a very pretty young lady.  In visiting with Todd we learned Chandler, who graduated from High School in May, has moved in to an apartment with a friend in Elko NV, while he attends a diesel mechanic school for which he has a scholarship to pay for expenses.  The scholarship is given by one of the gold mines in Nevada and they promise him a job when he graduates.  We are sure he will do well and learn a lot while living away from home.  Chris and Brandon have both been away from home fighting forest fires.  Chris has been to two fires; one on the Arizona and New Mexico border; and the second one is in New Mexico, where is today.  Brandon is on a fire in North Carolina, and may be home this week.  We hope and pray they are kept safe and return home safely.  We continue to pray for Kendra and her sister Rhonda.  We hope Rhonda will be blessed and comforted and able to endure the radiation and chemotherapy.  We also hope Kendra continues to be alright and not need major care.  We also hope Bryce’s broken finger can be pinned back together straight and not have any future problems with it.  We are glad Bailey recovered from her health problems.  We hope Travis will continue to heal and recover fully from his surgery without problems.  We look forward to hearing a report on the wedding of Austin and Josie on the 15^th.  We pray for all of you and hope everything goes well for everyone.

We love you all and gratefully appreciate your prayers for us and all the other things you do for us.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Maxine & Richard