8/1/16 Letter from Mission President

Subject: Presidents Letter 8/1/16

Dear Elders and Sisters,

Thank you for your faith, hope, love and devotion to the Lord in your efforts and sacrifices this week for your fellowmen...  None of your efforts are in vain.  They strengthen others and they strengthen you.

President Monson has promised that: "As we touch the temple and love the temple, our lives will reflect our faith. As we go to the holy house, as we remember the covenants we make therein, we will be able to bear every trial and overcome each temptation. The temple is a place where we can find peace. There we receive a renewed dedication to the gospel and a strengthened resolve to keep the commandments." 

There is a great blessing and power to  all that go into the Lord’s house that is taught in the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple and applies so well, especially to missionaries:

D&C 109 21-23   “And when thy people transgress, any of them, they may speedily repent and return unto thee, and find favor in thy sight, and be restored to the blessings which thou hast ordained to be poured out upon those who shall reverence thee in thy house. And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them.  And from this place they may bear exceedingly great and glorious tidings, in truth, unto the ends of the earth, that they may know that this is thy work, and that thou hast put forth thy hand, to fulfil that which thou hast spoken by the mouths of the prophets, concerning the last days.”

I pray that each of us will find refuge from the storms of life as we enter into the temple and allow the temple to enter into us.  Knowing what the final outcome will be in this battle should be of great comfort to us.  Jesus said in John 16:33 “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”    He has won the victory and now stands with His arms outstretched to assist us in overcoming the world and coming unto Him.  May we jump into the gospel and this missionary work with our all. 

CS Lewis puts it this way:  “And now, what does it all matter? It matters more than anything else in the world. The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection, if you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?”   Let’s not stand on the sidelines of this great missionary work but immerse ourselves completely and be all in, in all ways.

I love this scripture that was shared by one of you in your letter last week and how being able to see things as they really are and really will be can help us through any hard days.  Not only that but being here in the South how could you not love a scripture that starts with “For I reckon..”

Romans 8:18   "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

May God bless us all this coming in week in loving, finding, teaching and baptizing.  Let us remember who we are looking for and who the Lord is preparing.  “And ye are called to bring to pass the gathering of mine elect; for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts”  D&C 29: 7