Sunday, October 15, 2023

Semana 60

 Dear Elder Lutze,

We love you and pray for you and your area! We hope transfers go well this week. 

Life here is crazy! Work has been especially busy!!! I feel like I can’t keep up at times! I’m excited to take a break this next week and spend some time with the girls on our Mexican Riviera cruise. 🇲🇽🚢 So, hope to talk with you this Wednesday and then we’ll talk again on October 30th. 

Rachael is continuing to interview for CRNA schools. Please pray for her success. 
Foster shot his elk and spent tons of hours processing the meat with his dad. Hannah was glad to have him home. She was lonely even with our two girls nights out. We saw Grand Turismo. Awesome 🎥! Natalie is working and making plans again with Laurie.  Will you pray specifically that she can find new friends?

I love you! The gospel is true! He is a God of miracles! 

Love,

❤️ Mom

Will You Engage in the Wrestle? Sheri Dew

The contrast was stunning. At about the same time, these two young women had questions that threatened their testimonies. One of them sent out a cry for help, and family, friends and leaders followed President Monson's counsel and went to her rescue. The other girl nursed her doubt and convinced herself that her immoral choices were acceptable. I love and care about this girl. But for now, she has chosen a spiritually perilous path. 
 
One girl's questions propelled her to become a seeker of truth. The other girl used her questions to justify her immorality. 
 
My dear friends, questions are good. Questions are good if they are inspired questions, asked in faith, and asked of credible sources where the Spirit will direct and confirm the answer.[vii] 
 
Nephi asked an inspired question in faith when he asked the Lord if he could see what his father saw. The Lord responded by showing Nephi the tree of life, the iron rod, the great and spacious building and mists of darkness, and the fruit of the tree, which is "sweet above all that is sweet."[viii] 
 
And the vision didn't stop there. Nephi saw the birth, ministry, and Crucifixion of the Savior. He saw the coming forth of latter-day scripture, the Restoration, and the building of latter-day Zion. 
 
Nephi saw all this and much more, only to return to his father's tent and find Laman and Lemuel arguing about the meaning of their father's vision. When Nephi asked them, "Have ye inquired of the Lord?" they gave the classic response of doubters: "We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us"-as though nothing was required of them.[ix] 
 
None of us are entitled to revelation without effort on our part. Answers from God don't just magically appear. If we want to grow spiritually, the Lord expects us to ask questions and seek answers. "If thou shalt ask," He promised, "thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge...."[x] How much clearer can it be? The Lord loves inspired questions asked in faith because they lead to knowledge, to revelation, and to greater faith.


8 ​And I said unto them: Have ye ​​​inquired​ of the Lord?


Armed with Righteousness and Power

Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained that righteousness will be the power of the Lord’s people: “So let us look at ourselves. For the Church, the scriptures suggest both an accelerated sifting and accelerated spiritual numerical growth—with all this preceding the time when the people of God will be ‘armed with righteousness’—not weapons—and when the Lord’s glory will be poured out upon them (1 Nephi 14:14; see also 1 Peter 4:17; D&C 112:25). The Lord is determined to have a tried, pure, and proven people (see D&C 100:16; 101:4; 136:31), and ‘there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will do it’ (Abraham 3:17)” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1988, 8; or Ensign, May 1988, 8).

Elder Maxwell further explained that honoring our covenants is vital to the reception of this promise: “Church members have a special rendezvous to keep, brothers and sisters. Nephi saw it. One future day, he said, Jesus’ covenant people, ‘scattered upon all the face of the earth,’ will be ‘armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory’ (1 Nephi 14:14). This will happen, but only after more members become more saintly and more consecrated in conduct” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1991, 43; or Ensign, Nov. 1991,32).


14 ​And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were ​​​armed​ with ​​​righteousness​ and with the ​​​power​ of God in great glory.


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