14 Mar 2011

Hey,

Well this week was kind of slow for us too. Not a whole lot has happened. I guess the most exciting thing was Elder Jensen from the presidency of the seventy visited the area for the weekend. He spoke on Friday to all military members and since elder phillips is in the military we went to that. It was very cool. Elder Jensen opened the whole time to the audience to ask questions and he gave answers. I love it when general authorities do that. Something cool that he said is when the husband is away from home that the wife or single mother if there is no husband becomes the presiding member of the family. And that means that she has stewardship over the family and has all the rights and authority to revelation etc that the husband has. I dont remember exactly how he said it but basically through the spirit the husband is made up for in those types of situations where he is away or the woman is somehow on her own.

He read Doctrine and Covenants 84:88, which by the way is the scripture that is most commonly used by President Monson, to show the support that the Lord gives. He also said that the spirit makes up for geography, which is something Elder Pieper had said, who is in the seventy and visited not too long ago. So I thought that was kind of cool, it doesnt really apply to me at all except I guess that I can teach it to others, but i thought it was neat. Something he also said at the very end, after all the questions, and after he bore testimony of Christ and of the church and especially the Book of mormon, and then he changed the closing hymn and everyone was getting their hymnals out and getting ready to sing, but then he said he had one more thing he wanted to say. And that was that the Lord is mindful of us. He challenged everyone to find out that night what the word mindful meant by reading the scriptures Alma 26:36-37, where the word mindful appears three times. So I read it and from looking at the footnotes I believe it means that God does everything in his power to help us, speicifically to help us do what is right and reach our greatest potential, and he weeps and wishes he could have done more when we choose wrong. He also said the in his patrarchal blessing he is told that the lord is mindful of him, and my patrarchal blessing says that too! :) So that was the highlight of this week. John C*ox our main investigator right now is still doing well. We didnt get to meet with him this week cause he said he was having a rough week. But it was cool he acknowledged that everytime he focuses on baptism that something bad or trying happens and he recognizes that it is satan trying to stop him and distract him. So we talked to him about that and also answered some more questions. He is doing really well, his testimony is consistenly growing and he is reading and studying daily. Well that is about it for this week. It is getting warm which is so nice and makes me more and more excited that winter is over, and excited for summer and to see you all too. :) Well take care and have a good week.

Love
Elder Larson