April 18, 2011

FAMILY,
I had to get some things done today so I'm sending this out late. This week has been busy. We had ZLC in Des Moines on Tuesday. And leadership training on Wednesday and Thursday. Elder Perfili and I actually had to do some of the training on Tuesday. It was the first one that I have done. I was hoping that I could just fly under the radar until I was released. We had to train on how to receive revelation through the Book of Mormon for an hour. It went well. I'll attach some of the things that we used in our training. A lot of what we focused on was teaching to concerns from the Book of Mormon. We felt like a majority of the mission took the Book on Mormon for granted in their teaching. The whole group of elder that I came out with from the MTC were at leadership so it was fun to see everyone there and catch up.
Sister F and her family came to church! Sister B and her family came too and Sister S. Sister B moved her baptism date back to June 11th. She wanted some of her family to come to the baptism, they live out in Utah. She is ready and could be baptized tomorrow, but i think the main reason she moved it back was because she wanted her husband to baptize her and he needs a little time to get up to par. we had a great lesson last night with sister F. We brought Sis. G, the relief society president, to get to know her. We first taught R, her 8 year old son, the first lesson. It was short and with legos, but I think that he got the gist of what we were saying. We then started to answer one of sister F's main questions/concerns. Last time we were over there she said that she didn't know why her family couldn't be together forever as they are right now. She felt that God favored one family over another because one was sealed and one was not, and because the one was sealed the other couldn't make it to heaven. She didn't understand why God would do that. I have been studying on that question for 2 weeks. We brought over "The Family, A Proclamation to the World". We read a few paragraphs out of it with her showing her that God did indeed loves and approve of her marriage that she was in. We pointed out that that is what God wanted, a family married to rear children into the world. So not to say that a sealed family was better than a family married by the state, its not, it just wont last forever. Then we went over Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We showed her that Adam and Eve were married by the Lord to work together to bring other spirit children in to the world, God told them to work together. Then we showed her that all of this happened before they ate the forbidden fruit. So when God married them, they were immortal. Their marriage would last forever but because us as humans, we make mistakes, that marriage was broken, because death entered the world. The spirit was so strong, and she understood what we were saying clearly. I know this was a long explanation of what happened but it was so powerful when we were there.
Family I LOVE YOU ALL -Elder Hale Happy Easter!