Message--15 October 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

We were blessed with a good week this past week.  I am one day late with the blog message due to our being blessed with a personal visit from our daughter April, and Maxine’s special friend and neighbor Ruth.  They arrived on Saturday morning and we have taken time to be with them both Saturday and Sunday.  So I am writing our blog message early Monday morning before we spend another day with April and Ruth.

Last Monday and Tuesday evening we took time to work on preparing for the Institute lesson for Thursday evening.  We are greatly blessed to have the opportunity to study and learn from the lessons about the mortal life of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ.  Elder Bednar shared a quote from Elder Neal A. Maxwell which he gave at a training meeting he attended some years ago.  Elder Maxwell said “There would have been no atoning sacrifice without the character of Christ.”  Jesus had personal character traits which enabled him to do all he did including the suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross.  As we develop those same character traits which Christ possessed we can overcome all of our trials and challenges in mortality and become who we should become.  Becoming is a life-long process not an event that happens on one day or even in one week.  We become like Christ one day at a time relying completely on his atoning sacrifice to make up for the natural man behavior which we allow to influence the choices we make with our agency.  We are so blessed and so grateful for the opportunity to learn from the Institute lessons.

On Wednesday our area Fleet Manager from Salt Lake, who has stewardship over all the vehicles in our Northeast North America Area, came to meet with me for his semi-annual visit.  He is a very good man with some years of good experience and knowledge.  I enjoy having him come and provide some good suggestions on how to better take care of the vehicles we have in the mission and also teach the missionaries how to keep safe and take care of the vehicles properly.  After meeting with him all morning we had completed all we needed to do in the office; and he had the rest of the afternoon and evening available to do something else.  Since he has not had the privilege to visit the Peter Whitmer Farm in Fayette where the church was organized in 1830; we decided to take him to visit this sacred place.  We were blessed to have a good senior missionary provide the tour for our fleet manager.  Then in the evening he wanted to go with us to the Site Training Meeting at the Hill Cumorah which he enjoyed very much.

Thursday evening we went to the Institute class in the Geneseo chapel.  While we were waiting for YSA’s to come we learned that on the 2^nd Thursday of each month the Scout Roundtable meeting for the community is held in our building.  Scouting in most of the rural areas of New York is done under a community organized program and not under the influence of the church like it is in Utah.  We only had one YSA come to Institute; and Brother Gammon came and he taught the lesson instead of us.  We are always happy to have him come and share his knowledge with us.

Friday evening we made preparations for April and Ruth coming to visit us.  Then on Saturday morning we went to the airport to pick up April and Ruth.  We took them to see Niagara Falls since Saturday was a day it was not supposed to rain.  It did sprinkle just a little on us while we were at Niagara Falls, but we had good day together.  We also stopped at a couple of Amish stores on Ridge Road on the way to the falls.  Sunday we went to church in Geneseo, and then drove to the Peter Whitmer Farm in the afternoon where Sister Lee, who is from Hong Kong, provided the tour for us.  Sister Lee has become an awesome missionary.  Then we went to the Martin Harris home, and Alvin Smith’s grave, and then we went to the Grandin Building in Palmyra where the Book of Mormon was published.  Sister Larsen provided a very spiritual tour in the Grandin Building for us.  We have some very special Sister Missionaries in our mission.  While we were in the Grandin Building I met up with Gary Gillum’s son who was there with his family.  He was in the Sunset 13^th ward for a few years while I was in the Stake Presidency.

Sunday evening we had a good visit and shared with April & Ruth some DVD’s we have that are used to do missionary training.  We are so greatly blessed to be in this mission and have such experiences as we are able to have with friends, missionaries, and local members at the historic sites where the early events of the restoration took place.  Our testimonies are strengthened and we see more clearly how divine direction and influence guided the restoration and the people who were a part of it so that everything took place in the order, sequences, and places that made the restoration successful.  We also know that the same loving, patient, wise, and divine guidance comes from Heavenly Father in our own personal lives, and in the lives of our children and their families.  As Elder Maxwell said in another address he gave, “Our lives are intertwined by divine design and there are no coincidences.”  We often do not see the divine influence in our lives on a daily basis; sometimes we do not see the divine help until later in our lives.  We know His divine help is present in our lives on a daily basis.

We love you all and are so blessed to have you as family and friends.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Maxine & Richard