Message 3 October 2011

Message—3 October 2011

Dear Family & Friends,

You may remember we shared with you a month ago that everyone in the mission was going to read the Book of Mormon before the next transfer; which is tomorrow.  We completed our reading a week ago and have started reading and studying together again, this time a little slower, only three chapters a day.  Here are a few comments from some of the missionaries about their experience of reading it together.  “It has allowed us to truly feel Heavenly Father’s love for us and has helped us to more fully understand our purpose as a missionary.”  “It has helped us see the atonement on almost every page of the Book of Mormon as we have looked for it and understand how to use it more fully every day.  The Spirit is so much stronger in our companionship and our love for it has grown so much.”  “Our eyes have been opened and we know that our purpose, the Book of Mormon’s purpose and God’s purpose are all exactly one and as we read the Book of Mormon we become one with God.”  On page 108 of Preach My Gospel there is a quote from President Hinckley about the Book of Mormon.  He first gave this statement in a 1985 or 1986 General Conference talk; he repeated it in another Conference talk in the early 1990’s and again after he became the Prophet.  He said, “Those who have read the Book of Mormon prayerfully, be they rich or poor, learned or unlearned, have grown under its power…Without reservation, I promise you that if you will prayerfully read the Book of Mormon, regardless of how many times you have read it, there will come into your hearts…the Spirit of the Lord.  There will come a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to his commandments, and there will come a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God.”  We testify this is true.  Sister Jensen and I have noticed that through reading the Book of Mormon together, praying for the missionaries and members to be more united, and praying for the investigators to understand and feel the witness of the Spirit as it speaks to their hearts has brought great blessings to our ward and the missionaries and the investigators.  We have been trying since we arrived in the mission, along with the Elders who serve here also, to coordinate together with the members to make a ward mission plan; which is supported by the members.  Last week in ward council the ward mission plan was agreed upon and accepted.  We have a great Ward Mission Leader who has helped a lot in getting the plan put together and approved in ward council.

We have seen some good success in the last week or two as ward members have gone with the Elders to teach some of the investigators.  The youth in the ward have accepted and are encouraging one of the young women investigators, Casey, whom the Elders are teaching, and she has made great progress.  Casey was brave enough to go up to the podium and share her testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon in Fast Meeting last Sunday.  She also came to our apartment Sunday (yesterday) to watch both sessions of General Conference along with the Elders and another young lady who is a member but has been inactive; she has been attending meetings for the last few weeks.  Casey would very much like to be baptized, but her mother will not give her consent, yet.  After Casey went home yesterday, she sent a text message to the Elders stating that while Casey was watching conference with us, her mother was at home also watching conference by herself.  We keep praying that Casey’s mother will allow her to be baptized; and Casey is also praying and fasting that her mother will give her consent.

General Conference was absolutely a spiritual feast.  Every talk and all the music was given under the direction of the Spirit and was a message from the Lord through his servants.  There will be much to study, review, and ponder, and pray about when the talks become available.  The October Ensign is focused on the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.  It is filled with testimonies of prophets and apostles and others of the truths contained in the Book of Mormon; which will be very helpful in understanding it and strengthening our testimonies of its truth.  President Christianson said there are 6607 verses in the Book of Mormon, and there are over 3800 of the verses that have one or more occurrences of one of the 100 names used to refer to Christ; this means that every 1.7 verses refers to Christ.  This is more references to his name than there is in any other book in the world.  Thus the Book of Mormon really is another witness of Christ.  The more we read, study, pray, and ponder about what we read in the Book of Mormon the more we will learn about Christ and improve the possibility we can learn to obey him and his teachings and work towards becoming like him.  We know this will be true for each of us.

We wish a wonderful and happy birthday to Laurie on October 28^th; that is the only birthday we know of in our immediate family for this month.  We are sure she is not getting any older; she is just having a birthday celebration.  We hope Caulter continues to get better and recover from his motor bike accident last week.  We talked to him on the phone and he says he is doing much better.

We love and appreciate all of you, we pray for you, and we are grateful for your prayers for us.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Maxine & Richard