Okay, so question first, since the answer might be kinda long.
We´re all spirit sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. Jesus was the first born. Lucifer was somewhere in the beginning, as he was the son of the morning. He wasn´t evil initially, but somewhere along the line in the pre-existance, he started down a bad path and eventually revealed his evil intentions at the Grand Council. At this time we were all still in spirit form, except for the Father and Mother.
Because Lucifer sought to destroy our agency and God, he had to be cast out. That´s where the War in Heaven happened, where Michael (Adam) and his angels (us) fought against Lucifer and the 1/3 of spirits who declared their allegiance to him. In the end, we won, and Lucifer and those loyal to him were cast out. Lucifer became Satan, the ¨father of lies¨, and those other spirits became his fallen angels, equal partakers of endless misery.
Because they didn´t keep their ´first estate´, (which was our life in the pre-mortal existance), none of them received a body. (Now, if we were to see him in person, he would appear to be a physical person, because our current eyes can´t discern between physical matter here and the finer matter spirit bodies are made of. But he´s still a spirit.) Those of us who did keep our first estate are here now. Even those who do great wickedness were at some point in the pre-existance, righteous enough to remain on the side of the Almighty.
So, every one is His son, but Jesus is the Only Begotten because he´s the only physical son God has created. Christ had a heavenly father with a mortal mother.
Now, I certainly hope I come home on a plane in a few years and don´t have to get back on another plane. I´m not sure how that´d happen, but I suppose it´s possible. The Church doesn´t typically ask missionaries to serve a second mission right after the first, but we are facing a serious shortage at the moment. Down below 51,000 worldwide from last count. Peaked at 60 thousand just a few years ago. President Hinckley says he´s begged Salt Lake for more missionaries, but they say they just aren´t available at the moment. Too many are choosing not to go, or aren´t worthy. Now we´re handling all this area, 11 million people, with only 10,000 members and eighty something missionaries. Last year they had 130. We´ve closed over twenty areas, yet the Lord knows our plight. We´re not slowing down on baptisms at all. Right now we´re sitting at something like 225 for the year, with a goal to get 600 by the end of the year. I don´t know if it´s possible, but we´re going to give it all we´ve got.
Christmas? It´s a tad early, isn´t it? Maybe a new set of English scriptures (I´m not sure how much longer Mr. Book of Mormon will hold out. The binding´s starting to give. It is over 10 years old now.) Ah, as for packages, I´ve gotten the deodorant pack, but not the box. It wasn´t at Zone Conference, but a letter from the Williams sent to the MTC was, so...I don´t know where that box is at. Sometimes mail gets misplaced here for a while. Elder Crofts has a horror story of sending home a camera card in November and his parents not getting it until March...
The post office is only open from 9-2 on weekdays and 9-1 on Saturday. And they don´t deliver on Saturday (lazy bums:p :)
Zone Conference was interesting. At one point President had us sign a card that´s going to President Monson, along with one of Yadrow´s new statues (the new Missionary type). I thought ¨You probably have his home address!¨
Elder Crofts said that when Richard came through for a tour of the mission last year, he told a story of when he was the mission president for Salt Lake South a few years ago. He said he invited his AP´s over for Christmas dinner...well, you can guess who showed up. He said he thought they were going to die from sitting in their chairs so straight. But he said they relaxed pretty fast, as he wasn´t there as President Hinckley, but as ¨Grandpa¨.
Ah, yes. A request. Could you put in the September package some older talks by President Faust and Elder Maxwell? Not their conference talks from April 2000, 2002, 2004, or October 2003, as I´ve got those in the flat. Not a ton, just a couple, please.
We´re still on track for the baptism on Saturday. He´s been going out with us on visits every day now, and the Bishop here is pushing him to go on a mission in a year.
Had a funny experience the other day. We were in the church teaching a lesson when one of the counselors in the bishopric dropped by. He asked us to give him some info, so we went upstairs to the secretary´s office (which doubles as the library.) I was just looking at the shelves when I see this brown book. I picked it up and realized it was a Book of Mormon, and looked exactly like the original printing from 1830. I´m thinking ¨Naah, can´t be.¨ So I open it and see ¨Printed by E.B. Grandin, New York, 1830.¨ You can bet I was a little shocked.
The next page said ¨Heritage reprint, 1970, Salt Lake City.¨ Ah well, it was still interesting to look at it. Nothing was in verse format, it was only like a novel.
Another interesting tidbit. The pulpit in the Conference Center? It´s made out of black walnut. From a tree that was in President Hinckley´s backyard...
That´s all I´ve got for right now. I´ll write more next week.
What a great writer!
ReplyDeletePres. Monson was in my stake last year in south Salt Lake, so was listed in our Stake Directory. He was the only one in the entire directory whose name wasn't followed by an address and phone number, but was left blank. I wonder why? ;)