“I wish to be up and doing. I wish to face each day with resolution and purpose. I wish to use every waking hour to give encouragement, to bless those whose burdens are heavy, to build faith and strength of testimony.”


—Gordon B. Hinckley, “Testimony,” Ensign, May 1998, 69

“This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).






“My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.


“… He that keepeth thee will not slumber.


“Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep”
(Psalm 121:2–4).


FEED MY SHEEP
Don't be discouraged in times of difficulty, But hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, let what will, come; don't deny the faith, and all will be well."



----Joseph Smith


YOU ARE INVITED TO COME UNTO CHRIST

"Mormons Believe in Jesus Christ"

"Mormons Believe in Jesus Christ"
WE BELIEVE

"Oh, Lord, thou shalt save me if thou please; if not, thou shalt lose me; yet Lord will I keep my rudder true"

Friday, October 9, 2009

President Hinckley's Mission Call:

"He received his mission call to the European Mission, with headquarters in London, England. Elder Hinckley traveled to England on a ship that docked at Plymouth the night of 1 July 1933. The next day he was assigned to go to Preston, Lancashire.
As with many missionaries, he had his discouraging moments. His allergies bothered him from all of the June grasses that were pollinating at the time he arrived. Tears from hay fever were constant, and his energy and stamina were at an all-time low. Later he recalled:
“I was not well when I arrived. Those first few weeks, because of illness and the opposition which we felt, I was discouraged. I wrote a letter home to my good father and said that I felt I was wasting my time and his money. He was my father and my stake president, and he was a wise and inspired man. He wrote a very short letter to me which said, ‘Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.’ Earlier that morning in our scripture class my companion and I had read these words of the Lord: ‘Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.’ ( Mark 8:35 .)

“Those words of the Master, followed by my father’s letter with his counsel to forget myself and go to work, went into my very being. With my father’s letter in hand, I went into our bedroom in the house at 15 Wadham Road, where we lived, and got on my knees and made a pledge with the Lord. I covenanted that I would try to forget myself and lose myself in His service.

That July day in 1933 was my day of decision. A new light came into my life and a new joy into my heart. The fog of England seemed to lift, and I saw the sunlight. I had a rich and wonderful mission experience, for which I shall ever be grateful, laboring in Preston where the work began and in other places where it had moved forward, including the great city of London, where I served the larger part of my mission” ( “Taking the Gospel to Britain: A Declaration of Vision, Faith, Courage, and Truth,” Ensign, July 1987, 7 ).
“No sooner had young Elder Hinckley thrown himself into the work in Lancashire than he received a letter calling him to London as a special assistant to Elder Joseph F. Merrill, a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles and president of the European Mission."

--From Presidents of the Church Student Manual - Religion 345. Chapter 15 - Gordon B. Hinckley - Fifteenth President of the Church. (Highlights in the Life of Gordon B. Hinckley)

Dear Missionary Family:

He has asked me to send all his letters out to everyone as he is very busy and can't write to everyone....HOWEVER, he loves mail and, I'm sure he'd say, care packages, too! :)

Rachel Rogers Fenn

Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009

Hey, everyone. How is the weather? Well, guess what! It's freezing here and it's constantly raining, so I'm getting a lot of hot wife points (points you get for tracting out in the rain or snow). But, we got a lot of new investigators this week. All we did was go find, because we want a big pool for winter so we won't have to tract out in the negative 30 degree weather. My comp and I are getting along really well. We are building an igloo with blocks of ice we make in the freezer. It's coming, but it's a slow process. Ha! It's fun, too. I love this work and wish i could baptize everyone, but some people are so stuck in there ways that they will never convert. This place is really hard. But I guess that's why there will be missionary work in the after life, right? Well love you all and continue to pray for hearts to be softened. We need it bad right now since we are the third lowest baptizing mission.



September 30, 2009

> So how is the family doing? This week was pretty lame we walked a lot again with no success, but the weekend made up for it. We had a baptism and the spirit was so strong during the whole meeting. I had to give a talk during it and knowing me i was a little shaky, but it went well and then we had a couple of awesome lessons with some investigators.
> I have to tell you something that i have learned out here and it's that harrasment comes with the tag and 3 days ago me and elder prince were walking along and we had eggs thrown at us and they drilled both of us but i willl be blessed for it in the long run but yeah it wasnt cool to have egg guts all over us. today we got to do something that hardly ever happens we got to do baptism for the dead in the temple we got our presidents blessing to go work on names we did about 400 names spread out across 10 missionaries it was really cool to do everything that comes with doing baptism for the dead.
>
> love you all
>
> Elder rogers
>
> P.S. give bjinko a high five for me eh?

Everyone that knows Elder Rogers:

At the end of every post is the word "comments." If you would like to send some words of encouragement and or your love, just click on that word and it will bring up a comment box for you to type in and then just save it and it will be attached at the bottom of his posts for him to read the next time he gets on. He would love to hear from all of you.



Thank you to those of you who have left a comment to let us know how you know Elder Rogers and have become a follower. It will be a memory for him in his mission book that will be made from his blog. We would love to hear from everyone eventually.....Just go to Monday, May 3, 2010 in the archives list and pull up the "Getting To Know You" post and leave a comment. Thanks so much for supporting Elder Rogers.







A Title of Liberty

A Title of Liberty
In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children. Alma 46:12

The Book of Mormon as a Personal Guide

The Book of Mormon as a Personal Guide
By President Henry B. Eyring First Counselor in the First Presidency:

All of us feel, in our best moments, a desire to return home to live with God. He gave us the gift of His Beloved Son as our Savior to provide the path and to teach us how to follow it. He gave us prophets to point the way. The Prophet Joseph Smith was inspired to translate the record of prophets that is the Book of Mormon. It is our sure guide on the way home to God.

Joseph Smith said of that precious book, “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”1

The precepts of the Book of Mormon are the commandments of God we find in it. Some are direct commands from the Savior through His prophets as to what we are to do and what we are to become. The Book of Mormon gives us the Savior’s example to increase our faith and determination to obey His command to follow Him. The book is filled with the doctrine of Christ to guide us. Here is an example from 2 Nephi:

“[Jesus] said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?

“And the Father said: Repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my Beloved Son” (2 Nephi 31:10–11).

The book makes plain that we must receive the Holy Ghost as a baptism of fire to help us stay on the strait and narrow path. We are taught that we must pray always in the name of Christ, not fainting, and that if we do, we have this promise: “Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:20).

The Book of Mormon makes plain in the marvelous sermon of King Benjamin what it means to have a love of God and of all men. When our natures are changed by the power of the Atonement and through our faithful obedience to the commandments, we will be filled with the love of God (see Mosiah 4:1–12).

The Book of Mormon also gives us confidence that we can become so purified in this life that we have no more desire to do evil (see Mosiah 5:2). This hope gives us courage and comfort as Satan tries to tempt and discourage us on our way.

Each time I read even a few lines in the Book of Mormon, I feel my testimony strengthened that the book is true, that Jesus is the Christ, that we can follow Him home, and that we can take those we love home with us. It has been for me the book of books. It is the word of God.

I pray that we and all those we love will drink deeply and daily from it. I testify in the name of Jesus Christ that it is a true guide.

Mar. 2007

The Message: Gifts to Bring Home from the Mission Field
By President Gordon B. Hinckley

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quite a few years ago I was in an airport and happened to meet some returning missionaries. Their families were there. They were picking up their baggage, and I said to one of them, “What’s all this you have?” He said, “These are gifts I am bringing home.” And that has given me the title of what I would like to share: “Gifts to Bring Home from the Mission Field.”

1. A knowledge of and love for God our Eternal Father and His Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
“This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). There is no greater gift that comes to anyone in this world than a certain, reassuring conviction that God, our Eternal Father, lives and that Jesus is the Christ. I believe that. I think it is so very, very important.

2. A knowledge of and love for the scriptures, the word of the Lord.
As a missionary, I read each evening before going to bed a few chapters of the Book of Mormon, and there came into my heart a conviction which has never left: that this is the word of God, restored to the earth by the power of the Almighty, translated by the gift and power of God to the convincing of the Jew and the Gentile that Jesus is the Christ. I thank the Lord for the testimony which I have of the truth of the word of God as found in these sacred revealed books. And I would hope that every missionary would leave his or her field of labor with a conviction in his or her heart that these things are true.

3. An increased love for parents.
I have attended hundreds of missionary meetings over the years. I love to hear missionaries speak of their love for the Lord, but I also love to hear them speak with great appreciation and love concerning their parents. Boys who had been careless and indifferent stand on their feet and with tears in their eyes thank the Lord for their fathers and their mothers. In these days, what a salutary and wonderful thing it is to hear a strong young man stand up and speak with great feeling concerning his father and his mother, saying things he would never have said before in all of his life. Every boy and girl ought to come home with an increased love for parents.

4. A love for the people among whom they labor.
I love the English people. No one can sell the English short in my mind because I labored with them, I lived with them, I was in their homes at their firesides, I learned to know their hearts, and I learned to love them.

I have learned to love the people of Asia. I spent 11 years among them, and I love them. To me, I love them as much as I love anybody because of the experience I have had as a missionary, as it were, among them.

There’s something wrong if a missionary doesn’t come back with a great love for the people among whom he labored.

5. An appreciation for hard work.
Every missionary ought to come to realize that work, work, work is the key to getting things done, the key to success in life. There is no substitute for work, for getting up in the morning and getting at it and staying with it to get the job done. I don’t know of a greater asset for whatever lies ahead in life than the capacity to discipline oneself to work.

6. The assurance that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is available to each of us when we live for it.
The availability of inspiration—each of us, if we live for it, if we cultivate it, can have it. I love these great words of revelation, these words of promise: “God shall give unto you knowledge by his Holy Spirit, yea, by the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost” (D&C 121:26). What a precious gift to bring home—the assurance, the certainty that if we live for it, we have available to us that which comes by the power of the Holy Spirit.

7. An understanding of the importance of teamwork.
No one can do this work alone. We work in pairs. “In the mouth of two or more witnesses shall [all things] be established” (2 Corinthians 13:1). We work together. There is no place for prima donnas in the mission field. Our efforts are largely team efforts, and what a marvelous thing it is to learn to work with other people.

8. The value of personal virtue.
I think there is no greater thing concerning future integrity that a missionary can learn than the value of personal virtue. I think there are fewer words greater than the promise given under the inspiration of the Lord as set forth by the Prophet Joseph Smith: “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly.” That’s the commandment. And then the promise: “Thy confidence [shall] wax strong in the presence of God” (D&C 121:45). That’s the promise to those who walk in virtue.

9. The faith to act.
“I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way … that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth” (1 Nephi 3:7).

We ask tremendous things of missionaries. It is so hard for shy and diffident young people to do the things we sometimes ask them to do. But what a marvelous thing that they try. They have the faith to do, the faith to act, the faith to go forward and make the effort. And what a marvelous gift that is to bring home.

10. The humility to pray.
Recognize that there is a power greater than ours, that no matter how good a man is, he is not good enough, that no matter how wise he is, he is not wise enough, that no matter how strong he is, he is not strong enough for all of the things which he will face in life, and that there is a source of power to which he can go with the assurance that he will be listened to and that there will be a response.

These are 10 gifts that I would hope every missionary would bring home with him or her—not a lot of tinsel, not a lot of dolls, not a lot of rugs or furs or dresses or plates, but these great, enduring, wonderful things. God bless you to keep the faith, and while doing so, enjoy with great happiness that which you are called to do.

For more on this subject, read “Ten Things to Know before You Go” by President James E. Faust, New Era, July 2002, p. 4.

[photos] Photographs by Matthew Reier; far right: posed by models

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