5 Days!

Hello Everyone,

 

Fall is coming!  Conference is coming!  The Lord is coming!  What a wonderful time to live! 

 

This week has been a little slow.  Many of our appointments have been falling through.  But I get a little comfort to hear that it has been the same for everyone in our zone recently.  The weather has been nice.  It has been slowly warming up to Friday when it hit 90 (the day we spent most of our time knocking on doors and walking [even had a guy said he was calling the cops on us for waking him up at 1 in the afternoon]), to dropping back down in the 60's for the weekend.  Right now it is pouring rain.

 

My companion and I were riding down town on Tuesday when we stopped to talk to a group on the street.  One guy (latter find out his name is Sammy) in the party asked us if we where the Latter-day Saints.  He told us he remembered this Elder, but not the name.  After describing it, we realized he was talking about Elder Warr who just went home about 7 weeks ago.  He told us that Elder Warr never knew, but he saved his life.  Apparently we was about to commit suicide (had the noose tied and everything up in the attic), when Elder Warr knocked on his door.  He described Elder Warr as being an angel.  They never saw each other again, but what a difference that little encounter made!  You never know when you make a difference (for better or worst) in someones life.

 

Friday, Elder McCleve and I were washing shelves at a local library as our weekly scheduled service.  We took books off and wiped everything down, then put the books back.  One book caught my eye.  It was a little picture book and it was entitled Our Mom has Cancer .  I deiced to look at it.  It was about these two little sisters who find out their mother has breast cancer.  They talk about how sad it was with mom loosing hair, going through chemo and radiation, and being sick a lot.  But it also talked about how they spent more time with their mother, and grew closer to her.  I was curious how the book was going to end; was the mother going to survive, or was she going to die.  It turns out that she lived, and the little girl realized how hard at the time it was but that they where blessed.  They grew a deeper relationship with their mother.

I thought about how this applied to our lives.  I thought about the Savior and how through him we live and are all given the gift of being resurrected.  "The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame" (Alma 40:23) and "the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow (Alma 40:12).

 

I love reading the scriptures!  We do not get enough time to study!  I feel selfish for wanting to spend a whole day reading and studying.  But o'well!  I guess we will never fully satisfy our desires to do such.  General Conference is going to be amazing!  It will be weird having it start at noon instead of earlier and having priesthood end at 10!  I have just finished reading the last conference issue and been soaking it up!  My companion told me how when he was not old enough to take notes at conference his parents would have him draw in a notebook what the speakers were talking about.  I thought that was really cool, so we have been suggesting that to some families who have been wondering how to involve their children more at general conference.

 

Just think about it!  We get to listen to a prophet's voice!  It is like listening to Adam, or Noah, or Abraham, or Isaiah, or Moses, or Joseph Smith; BUT IT IS FOR OUR DAY!  IT IS FOR US.  DIRECT DIRECTION FROM THE LORD TO HIS PEOPLE AS A WHOLE! 

 

I hope everyone enjoys their week, and especially conference!

 

Love,

Elder Shurtz