Message—28 November 2011
Dear Family & Friends,
We have survived another busy week. Monday we attended the mission office staff meeting and coordinated assignments for the zone conferences to be held during the week of November 28th-Dec 3rd. In the afternoon we drove to the Buffalo area to check three apartments; the apartments in Lockport, Niagara Falls, and Kenmore. After checking these three apartments we had made arrangements to go to the home of Richard Grapes in North Tonawanda, so we could visit with him and his son Rick Grapes who was visiting for Thanksgiving. Rick works in the BYU Library in the same department in which I worked. Rick and his father took us to Ted’s, which is a well-known eating place for NY hot dogs. The regular hot dog size is about 8 inches long, or you can have a foot long. After eating at Ted’s, we then went to Wurlitzers Pizza which has an adjoining Ice Cream shop which sells the famous Perry’s Ice Cream. Even though the weather was cold we still had some good Perry’s ice cream; which is almost as good as the BYU Creamery ice cream. We arrived home about 9:30 pm. Our late arrival home is why the blog message last week was not posted until nearly 11pm our time.
On Tuesday, Sister Jensen got up early and made some of her wonderful cinnamon rolls to take with us to Shortsville. There were eight Elders who met us there at about 1:30pm to move out all of the furniture and other items from the apartment there; and move it all to be stored in the garage at the “White House” which is near the Palmyra Temple. The White House is an old home on the original Joseph Smith Sen. Farm; in which there is space for three sets of sister missionaries. The sister missionaries who had been living in Shortsville were moved to the White House the week previous. The cinnamon rolls were for the elders who came and helped move things, and also the two sisters who came and helped finish cleaning the old Shortsville apartment.
Our district meeting was held Wednesday morning at 10 am in the chapel on English Road in Greece. Before we left for the meeting, we checked the apartment of the two elders who live by us in Brockport. After the meeting, we checked the apartment of the elder’s in Greece, who are also our zone leaders.
Thursday we used partly for a P-Day and then in the afternoon at 4pm we took the two elders here in Brockport and drove to Holley NY to have Thanksgiving Day dinner at the home of Brother & Sister Kimbler. Brother Kimbler is our Ward Mission Leader and his wife is the Ward Relief Society President. In addition Brother Kimbler’s mother came, and also John and Jackie Petranek were there; John was recently released as the first counselor in the Brockport ward bishopric. We had a very good Thanksgiving Day dinner and visited with each other for a little while. Yesterday in our sacrament meeting, Brother Kimbler was released as our Ward Mission Leader; and then sustained as the new Young Men’s President. Brother Petranek was then sustained as our new Ward Mission Leader. Brother Petranek will be a good leader and will be very helpful to the missionaries.
On Friday we went to check the apartments in Geneseo, Warsaw, and Batavia.This took the better part of the day. We finished our P-Day work when we returned home from these three places.
On Saturday we returned to the Niagara Falls apartment to re-check it; since the apartment was very much not clean when we went on Monday. We told the elders we would give them until Saturday to get it cleaned up, and then we would come back to see how well they had done. When we walked in to the apartment there was a very good feeling in the apartment, we could actually feel the Spirit there, because the apartment was very clean and orderly. The Spirit was not there in the apartment on Monday. This was a great lesson in why it is important for the missionaries to keep their apartments clean. When the apartments are clean the Spirit will be there to help them with their preparations; when the apartments are not clean the Spirit is not there. I know this same principle applies to our own homes. After checking the apartment we took the elder’s to lunch at an Italian restaurant and were able to get better acquainted with them and learn about their families and the success they are having with the missionary work in their area.
After church on Sunday we did some things to prepare for the busy week ahead with four zone conferences. Today we went to our mission office staff meeting; and had a post-Thanksgiving discussion about things for which we are thankful. President Christianson said he was grateful for the commandments which have been given to us; and shared some things he had written in his journal about how commandments bless our lives; they do not restrict us, they enable us to receive more blessings than we ever will by not obeying them. We also helped with getting some last minute things ready for the zone conferences this week.
We are patiently waiting to hear from Jana how her father-in-law’s surgery for removing some cancer went today. We hope all will be well for Norman. We talked with Kristine and learned plans are going forward for the family to have our annual Christmas gathering on December 10th in Utah. We hope you all have a great time together and take some time to remember how important the Savior is to Christmas. We know He is the Only Begotten Son of Heavenly Father and has provided the great promise of being resurrected, and has also suffered more than we can know to provide the atonement to make it possible to be forgiven of our mistakes and be made clean and pure enough to return to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus. In Sunday School last week a wonderful quote was shared about the Savior and the atonement, I will share it with you. “I bear testimony that you cannot sink further than the light and sweeping intelligence of Jesus Christ can reach. I bear testimony that as long as there is one spark of the will to repent and to reach, He is there. He did not just descend to your condition; he descended below it, ‘that He might be in all and through all things, the light of truth’.” (D&C 88:6) (The quote came from "The Infinite Atonement" by Elder Tad R. Callister, now of the Presidency of the Seventy, on page p.101. Elder Callister is actually quoting from "Christ and the Inner Life" by Truman Madsen on page 14.) This quote was given in connection with four principles given in the lesson manual, which are actually a process. The principles are afflictions, prayer, self control, and obedience. Afflictions, challenges, and trials are a natural part of mortal life which helps us to learn humility which will lead us to prayer and faith to receive help from the Lord to properly handle the afflictions. This includes learning to control anger and other wrong behavior thereby helping us learn to properly control our behavior. As we do this we learn to be obedient to the Lord’s will, plan, and timing. Then we have more afflictions and start the process again and learn another lesson to help us become more like Jesus, step by step. The atonement makes it possible to be forgiven for the times we make mistakes; and we can then try the process again each time new challenges come along. I am a little slow at learning, but I am gradually learning more about Heavenly Father’s great love for us in providing a divine plan to help us return to Him.
We wish a happy birthday to Josh on December 1st, Alli on December 10th, Colton on December 15th, Jada on December 18th, Olivia on December 19th, and Kristine on December 22nd.
We express our great love for each of you and appreciate our associations with you. We pray for each of you as we know you pray for us.
Love,
Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Maxine & Richard
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