Message 13 May 2012

Message—13 May 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

I will begin with expressing love and appreciation for all the MOTHERS!  We are so very grateful for our own mothers who, with our fathers, gave us life; with the mothers doing nearly all the work to get us here.  Our mothers are both wonderful women with testimonies of the gospel and patience and persistence to teach those gospel principles to us by word and especially by example.  We are who we are primarily through the love, nurturing, teaching, and guidance given to us in learning to use our agency to choose to do what is in harmony with the gospel and its doctrines and ordinances and covenants.  We are also grateful to the mothers of our grandchildren for all they have done and continue to do to be good mothers.  We also appreciate the many other good mothers who have been a good influence in our lives in many ways.  I am particularly thankful and indebted to my wonderful wife for being the mother of our own eight children; and the grandmother of our now 28 grandchildren, and 6 great grandchildren.  Maxine has been a powerful and kind and patient help meet and a great support to me in all the years we have been together.  In today’s vernacular she is awesome, and I love her dearly and eternally.  We hope all the mothers have a wonderful day today and every day.

Sister Jensen had a very demanding week.  She helped prepare food for a number of training meetings during the week.  Thursday evening we had a meeting with all of the MLS Senior Missionary Couples in the home of President and Sister Christianson.  Sister Jensen helped with that meal as well. There were 10 couples plus the President and his wife who attended.  We had a good dinner followed by some training given by President Christianson.  He taught us some principles on how to help establish the church in our areas and help the church grow.  The focus was on helping the members in the wards and branches where we serve to be fully converted and to understand how the church should function and also how to find and accept investigators and help them to understand church procedures and terminology and how to balance the church meetings and activities so it helps families to be strengthened and prepared to receive temple ordinances and blessings.  The training was very helpful.

Saturday we spent several hours at the Hill Cumorah and in the Sacred Grove.  The trees are now mostly in full leaf and the undergrowth is growing well so it makes good pictures.  I mostly did videos of the places we walked; but we also did take a few photos as well.  I have videos of the majority of the so called “witness trees”; meaning these trees were growing at the time Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son and also Moroni on the Hill.  These places are special and have a peaceful sacred feeling present which brings peace to those who visit them.  Last Sunday evening you may have taken time to listen to the CES Fireside talk by Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Quorum of the Seventy.  He showed some videos of some of the same trees I videoed; and taught some great lessons using the trees as examples.

Later in the day, on Saturday, we met Elder and Sister Jones in Henrietta and had a Mother’s Day dinner with them at the Longhorn Steak House.  The food was good, but the company was even better.  The Jones’s have done much to help the Warsaw Branch in the time they have been there.  They are good faithful people with experience in the church and testimonies to help others grow.  They will be returning to Utah in August; we hate to see them go; but their circumstances require that they return.  We have become good friends with them.

Last weekend one of our young missionaries, Elder Bowman, spent his time in the hospital.  The President followed promptings of the Spirit and got him to a doctor who did blood sugar levels and sent him immediately to the Emergency Room at just the right time to save his life.  He was starting into a diabetic coma when he arrived at the hospital.  Blood sugar levels are normally in the 80 to 120 range; Elder Bowman’s level was at 595.  When the President called the Missionary Health Dept. to get permission to take him to emergency; he told the nurse there what the blood sugar levels were and he could hear her gasp.  When she spoke again she said get him to the emergency room right now; which he already was.  Those who attended him were able to stabilize him and keep him from having serious problems.  He is now working on trying to learn how to manage diabetes; but he will likely have to return home to get his diabetes under control and learn the dieting habits he will have to learn.  He had to return home last year for knee surgery for several months; before returning here to the mission.  Some missionaries just have tough experiences to deal with as missionaries.  Some of our missionaries have difficult family circumstances at home; and it is just a miracle that they are here serving as missionaries; but they have the faith and are obedient and are doing great things as missionaries.

Today we had great meetings in church.  I was substituting for our Gospel Essentials teacher, who is our Ward Mission Leader.  The lesson was on the gathering of Israel; we had a good discussion and hopefully the class members learned something useful.  After our 3 hour block of meetings, we had a baptism service for Junea Duvall, a 9 year old young man; whom the McVea’s taught and prepared for baptism before they went home.  The family waited until May to do the baptism so his grandparents and other family could attend.  Michael Headley is a grandfather, and the father of Junea’s mother, Anna.  He lives in St George UT. We are going to continue the efforts of the McVea’s to teach the father and try to help him convert himself spiritually; so he can be baptized.  The McVea’s did a short video message which was shown at the baptism service in which they shared some thoughts and also their testimonies.  It was a great service.

Congratulations to Aaron and Bryce who are graduating from high school this month.  We hope they do well completing the requirements to graduate.  Aaron is graduating with a 4.0 and one year early; he has been taking some AP classes.  We are happy that Lynne is recovering from giving birth to Dylan; and that Dylan is doing well, and Shadyn is helping Lynne with Dylan after he gets home from school.  We hope you all have a great month of May and that all those in school complete the requirements for the grades they are in.  We hope Mckinzi continues doing well in her new job; and in taking care of Kamri.  We also hope Jason does well in his new job and enjoys doing the work.  We hope Britt continues to do well in his programs.  We wish Austin and Josie well as Austin begins a new job tomorrow in Ely NV.

We share our witness that Heavenly Father lives, Jesus is the Christ; the Book of Mormon is true and will bless our lives as we read and prayerfully ponder its truths.  Joseph Smith is a prophet and Thomas S. Monson is his ordained successor.  We are so blessed to be serving a mission here in NY; we have great experiences and have had our testimonies strengthened and expanded.

We love and pray for each of you!!

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine