I love Sunday

Dear family,

Mark, I'm anxious to hear how your lemonade stand went yesterday.  In High Council meeting this morning, Pres. Brinkerhoff told about his nephew who is serving in Norway.  There are only about 30 missionaries in the whole country, and obviously they aren't knocking on doors or street contacting.  Instead they are doing things like joining community softball teams, hiking popular trails in the mountains in their communities, fishing, etc.  White shirts and ties are often traded for respectable clothes appropriate for their activities.  They are finding much more success than by knocking doors.  And apparently they have caught the attention of senior church leadership.  It's going to be so interesting to see how the Lord directs his work.  I smile when I think of the possibility of a "law of Moses to gospel of Jesus Christ" type of change in missionary work.  It may be that everything that we thought defined missionary work when I served gets lovingly set aside for a whole new paradigm that is significantly more effective.  Your kids may look at the service of my generation and shake their heads in disbelief.

I am so proud of myself - no nap today, and I was reasonably engaged all day.  Now if I get to sleep in the next 45 minutes, maybe I can keep that up for the whole week!

Love to all,

Dad

Sunday, September 27, 2020
9:19 pm

Church today was nice, and it was full.  The Hyatt's blessed their baby today, and Shayna Diede had her mission farewell today.  We are supposed to keep sacrament meeting attendance to 150, but we had 210 people there today.  While not everyone was in a mask, many were, and I stayed after church to help wipe down benches and chairs.  It was nice to worship as a community of Saints today.

Evan Clements let me know that the mic last week picked up more than just the speaker – the background noise was distracting and quite clear.  Evan had a directional mic that we tested today, and he said it worked much better.  The Stake is probably going to pick some up to use in each of the buildings.

Before Church we did some Come, Follow Me study.  I asked each of the kids to think of one thing I could do for them as their father that would make a difference for them.  After everyone shared their request, I gave each child an item in response to their request.  They were worthless things like a bag of goat compost from the barn, a shriveled tomato, an old pine cone, etc.  Then we read 3 Nephi 14:7-12 and talked about the gifts that God is willing to give us, and the way he responds to our prayers.  The kids thought my trashy gifts were funny, so I hope they remember this lesson. 

One specific item I have been thinking about is that we should not be surprised when God actually DOES answer our prayers.  He promised to do that, and when we sincerely pray for a righteous desire that is in accordance with God's will, of course he is going to answer that prayer.  Yet sometimes we are astonished when answers come.  I believe we can pray in confidence, especially when the Holy Ghost has confirmed to us the "rightness" of our desire.  Of course, we always need to maintain humility and a "thy will be done" attitude, because we may misunderstand God's will at times, even when we truly desire righteousness and think we understand God's will.  I think this is something that takes experience to get right.

After Church we had 2^nd hour RS/EQ and youth classes.  They weren't perfect, but it was really nice to be together again.  The pork roast I made for dinner was fabulous, and we finished the evening singing hymns and then enjoyed homemade cookies.

Thankful: I am grateful we were able to attend church with so many of our friends and neighbors.  It's harder to interact behind masks, and I wish we could stay for the second hour (and I've decided I miss the third hour), but I appreciate what we have.

Ministering: I worked a little with Isaac this afternoon on his personal goals in the primary and youth curriculum.  It was nice to spend time with him in that.

More later…

Neil's soccer team after their victory yesterday