Monday, June 20, 2016

The First Day of Summer and
it's 97 degrees in the White Mountains.
Unless you are too close to the Cedar Fire.

This guy is heading to the valley to get away from the heat.
It's only 120 degrees there.
The fire has grown to 24, 000 acres and only about
30% containment.

Gospel Study: 

Alma 19:12-21 - Why might have Abish waited to make her conversion known to the Lamanites?

Comments made on bofm365 by marinawolfe:

Today my thoughts turn toward Abish.  She is a Christian woman living amongst a totally non-Christian society.  She was "converted unto the Lord for many years" (v16), but she "never ...made it known" to others (v17).  No, I think it had to do with perceived negative consequences of speaking out.  I don't think she felt safe to do so.  I'm wondering about her circumstances and how difficult it must have been to not speak of her deeply-rooted testimony of her Savior, to never speak Christ's name, never share her feelings, or never have an open conversation to express thoughts or gratitude about her Savior, Jesus Christ.  To be a muted believer, must've been really hard.  I'm personally considering this aspect of her life more deeply, because I will be living in her shoes soon.  In about three months, I will be a Christian woman living in a non-Christian society as well, not being able to speak my beliefs, where the law prohibits any such conversation (actually punishable by death).

So when I see Abish's courage to run from house to house as she notices an "opportunity ...that would cause them to believe in the power of God" (v17), I'm amazed at her strength and bravery to stand up and let her thoughts be known ...although I'm sure she was ecstatic to do so, because she had waited so long. 

Abish is a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

It makes me consider how slack I've been here in America where it's much easier to have gospel conversations.

Abish had a 100% seized opportunity statistic.  

One opportunity, one seized moment. 

What is our statistic?

How can we be more courageous in bringing others to Christ?

How can we be an opportunity seeker/seizer?

How can we be better disciples?

I know this is long but I love what this sister had to say.  Abish is on of the only women mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon.  I have often wondered why but never really thought about the significance of what she did.  I have changed my attitude about her and believe that what Abish did was truly significant in the conversion of so many Lamanites.

Walter Rane's portrayal of Abish

(For more information about Abish go to ldsmag.com, article

"Why Was Abish Mentioned by Name?" June 21, 2016)

Here are some other thoughts about this scripture story:

Sometimes we need to keep holy things to ourselves until moved upon by the Spirit.

I love King Lamoni's words in Alma 19:13 - For as sure as thou livest, behold, I have seen my Redeemer; and he shall come forth, and be born of a woman, and he shall redeem all mankind who believe on his name.

I have been doing some research about the Melchizedek priesthood at Michael's request.  Today I read D&C 84:18-25, The greater priesthood holds the key of the knowledge of God.

Also in studying this week's Sunday School lesson which covers Alma 13-16 I found this quote by Joseph Smith:

"Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was."

James got a flat tire on the Cat while working on the waterline for the fruit trees, hence a trip to town.  It was a good day for me to go since I needed to finish the grocery shopping I started on Saturday.  I am feeding the missionaries this week and I want to prepare them a nice meal.  

James was hungry so the first place we went to was Darbi's in Pinetop.  The smoke was not bad when we went in, but when we came out it was terrible.  Here is what it looked like when we got home.

I can barely see my mountain.

James has lots of work to do outside but the air

quality is so poor that he is staying inside and

doing office and church work.

We dropped off James's tire at Center Tire on the way in to town.  I did my shopping at Walmart while James went to his favorite store, Home Depot.  Walmart is crazy busy and I can't find things because they are changing their store around.  I wish they would leave things alone for those of us who don't like change and don't like trying to "guess" where things are.

Neither James nor I are feeling well today.  He has shingles on his head and I am having stomach problems.  Too help us forget our physical aches and pains I read from our book "Juliana" on the way home.

This first book in this series was

"Alexandra."  Juliana is her younger sister.  There is

one more sister so I assume there will be one more book.

The worst language in this book is the word turd.  This is supposed to be the sweet and clean version so hopefully that remains true.

I have not been able to post on my blog today.  Whenever I try it says I need to enable cookies.  I am not sure what that means, but I finally figure out that I need to download Google Chrome and use it for my server.  Everything is fine now!  

Trina texted me and said there was a tornado warning for Snowflake, Taylor and Shumway and she was checking to make sure that we were okay.

Interesting.

A beautiful orange moon tonight.  My camera can't do it justice.