Sunday, July 9, 2023: The Allen's, Teresa Smith's RS lesson, Kaitlin Wilhelm, lunch, puzzle, DMT, Unshaken Saints, Sue Thomas, Blog, Talk w/ James, Charlie Bird, Sound of Freedom

 

Belem, Brazil

174th operating temple

Dedicated: 20 Nov 2022

By: Dale G. Renlund

Jesus Christ, Types of, in Anticipation

Jonah 1:17

Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Book of Mormon

Alma 30:29-45

Come Follow Me

"Don't Miss This"

AprGenCon

He Could Heal Me!

Elder Peter F. Meurs

Of the Seventy

The Savior's response to the Nephites was both touching and instructive. He said, "Behold, my bowels are filled with compassion towards you."

I believe that His compassion was much more than a response to the people's tears. It seems that He could see them through the eyes of His atoning sacrifice. He saw their every pain, affliction, and temptation. He saw their sicknesses. He saw their infirmities, and He knew from His agonizing suffering in Gethsemane and on Golgotha how to succor them according to their infirmities.

For the first time in as long as I can remember we had all Aaronic priesthood administer the sacrament today. Deven and Branden Crane blessed and Nathen Crane, Resten Tesarek, Colter Hunsaker, Logan Robles and Curtis Wilhelm passed. Nathen was wearing the shirt we bought him and it looked like his brothers Deven and Branden also had new shirts. 

We had lots of visitors again today. Many of them were here for a family reunion. The Wilhelm's also had visitors. Their son Ammon and his wife Kaitlyn and their children.

 Steve & Tina Allen were the speakers in sacrament meeting. Tina's nephew Jeremiah just passed away and the topic of both talks seemed to be surrounding the families reaction to his death. Tina had been assigned President Eyring's talk, "Finding Personal Peace." Her sister, Jeremiah's mother, is not a member of the Church and neither is her husband or their children. The entire family thinks Steve is a Priest. He conducts all of the funerals and other spiritual meetings in the family. He and his boys gave all of the family and whoever else wanted one, a blessing. Steve said before the blessing everything was chaotic and people were crying. After the blessings people were talking and laughing and the entire atmosphere of the room had changed. 

Steve's talk was about being a good example to others. Am I a good example of Jesus Christ and His gospel? 

It was a good meeting. The Allen's are an awesome family. They have a big family, six girls and two boys along with spouses and grandchildren.

Teresa Smith taught Relief Society and did an excellent job. She had asked people ahead of time to answer certain questions. The talk we were studying was Elder Nattress's, "Can I Really Be Forgiven.?"

Teresa assigned people to answer questions who normally don't talk very much in Relief Society. Cress Miller was one of them. I don't remember what her question was she was supposed to answer, something about receiving forgiveness from the Savior and learning to forgive yourself.  She ended up telling us about being an alcoholic and hitting rock bottom and wanting to change her life. She told her husband she was going to stop drinking and start going to Church and eventually go to the temple. She said he could come with her if he wanted but she was going to go to the temple with or without him. Richard, her husband, had to stop smoking, which he did. They both have temple recommends now and are the temple cleaning coordinators for our ward.

James gave Virgil Cooper a blessing today after the block. He asked Terry Tignor if he wanted to be a part of the blessing and he did. It was his first time to participate in giving someone a blessing since he received the Melchizedek priesthood. Virgil is having hernia surgery this week.

This afternoon I listened to "Don't Miss This" and part of "Unshaken Saints" for next week's "Come Follow Me" lesson. I also worked on my blog while James did some indexing.

I watched the last episode of "Sue Thomas F.B.I." I love this show and the people in it.

James had listened to Greg Matsen this week. He had Tim Ballard on. Tim talked about the movie about his work, "The Sound of Freedom." He is encouraging everyone to see the movie which is about the sex slave trafficking of children. Such a horrendous thing and Tim is doing something about it.

CWIC Media, the name of Greg Matsen's podcast is something James listens to quite frequently. Greg talked about Charlie Bird who was Cosmos the Cougar at BYU. He is extremely popular and has quite a following. He is also gay. He has done firesides for the Church and has been a positive influence. Now he is engaged to be married and Greg says he can't support him anymore. When Charlie was asked about going against the Church's standards regarding marriage he said he was sure they were going to change the Family Proclamation to include gay marriage. I have listened to Charlie's audio book about his life and he is a great guy, just a little confused. 

It was a wonderful Sabbath day.

The Bob & Suzy Case Family

Happy Sabbath with Charlie