“The creator actively
remembers His creation. Closely linked to His remembrance of us is the loving
attention associated with it. He not only remembers you; He cares deeply about
where you are, what you are doing, who you are becoming, and what you are
feeling. He is interested and involved in your life. As Isaiah reminds us, in a
comparison as moving and dramatic as that of the mother who may forget her
child while the Lord can never forget His own, the Lord says:
“For the mountains
shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from
thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that
hath mercy on thee. [Isaiah 54:10]
“Extending this mercy
and doing all He can to assure our safe return to the Father who knows us and
whom we will know when we see Him again is His most important work. I testify
to you that you are His most important work. That He knows you by name
individually and that He will never forget you.”
—Cecilia M. Peak, "Yea, They May Forget, Yet Will I Not
Forget Thee”, BYU Devotional, November 09, 2010
Tuesday—July 15 thru
Friday July 18—these have been days spent doing our temple shifts and
attending the Susan Easton Black Durrant Lectures, as well as getting a special
treat.
Sister Durrant taught about Joseph Smith being a candidate
for the President of the United States and the last 20 days before his
martyrdom. These were interesting
lectures. Sister Durrant always bears
her testimony at the end of each lecture.
After her Thursday lecture she said something in her testimony that is
so true. She said that “you can leave
Nauvoo, but Nauvoo will not leave you.”
Once again testifying of this sacred place.
We had a little serendipity event happen this week also
which in some sense coincided with the 2 lectures from Sister Durrant. We had a message from our Friday Shift
Coordinators that we would not be needed at the temple on Friday which was not
totally unusual because we knew that others had been getting these messages
over the last few months. This particular
Friday we were blessed with having this time off because it would allow us to
do things that we would not normally be able to do because of our PM shift.
In the morning we decided to go to Burlington, Iowa and have
lunch at a place that other missionaries had recommended as well as have an ice
cream afterward at the place we have already mentioned called Grandpa’s where
their ice cream is homemade--SO YUMMY! We arrived
at Big Muddy’s located right on the
Mississippi river and got there just a little while before they opened which
allowed us time to walk around and see the damage where the flooding had
happened a few weeks previous that we have already mentioned. It was quite noticeable and the fire
department was helping pump water out of a train depot that had been severely
flooded. The city of Burlington has a
nice walking path along the river front but that had just been opened up a few
days prior because of the flooding. So
we have the seen the ravages of flooding.
Interesting that we had that flooding in Burlington and then
we heard of the Rexburg, Idaho flash flooding which caused major damage there. We have friends who are serving as a Mission
President in Mexico and have their daughter’s family living in their home. On their FB page they let everyone know that
their home had been flooded with major damage.
They still have one year left on their mission. They mentioned how much help they received
from their angel ward members who help clean out the mess and helped their
daughter’s family. Lesson learned—“it is just stuff” they said with
a cheerful attitude!
When we got home from Burlington we went to the Nauvoo Groves (more on this later)
where the actor portraying Joseph Smith in the Pageant gave a portion of the
King Follett sermon. He did an excellent
job and the spirit was in abundance.
This discourse was summarized in two Ensign articles in April and May of 1971. The King Follett Sermon, one of the classics of Church literature, was given by the Prophet Joseph Smith at the April 7, 1844, conference of the Church in Nauvoo, Illinois. Some twenty thousand Saints were assembled. The account of the talk noted that it was the funeral sermon for Elder King Follett, a close friend of the Prophet’s, who had been killed in an accident on March 9. It should also be noted that this discourse was given two months before the death of Joseph Smith. During these months the enemies of the Church were extremely active, and the Prophet undoubtedly anticipated the coming events.
We add here some of
the doctrine of the sermon (links to the articles are given at the end) and
encourage these teachings of the Prophet Joseph to be studied and learned from
in your personal study and testify that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God who
had a question and sought the answer by kneeling in prayer in a grove of trees
and was chosen by God to restore His gospel once again in these latter days and
that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the church that has the
true authority from God:
“Beloved Saints: I will call [for] the attention of this
congregation while I address you on the subject of the dead.
The Character of God
“In the first place, I wish to go back to the beginning—to
the morn of creation. It is necessary
for us to have an understanding of God himself in the beginning. If we start
right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong we may go
wrong, and it will be a hard matter to get right.
“I want to ask this congregation, every man, woman and
child, to answer the question in their own hearts, what kind of a being God is?
Ask yourselves; turn your thoughts into your hearts, and say if any of you have
seen, heard, or communed with Him? This is a question that may occupy your
attention for a long time. I again repeat the question—What kind of being is
God? Does any man or woman know? Have any of you seen Him, heard Him, or
communed with Him? Here is the question that will, peradventure, from this time
henceforth occupy your attention. The scriptures inform us that “this is life eternal, that they might know
thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3.)
“If any man does not know God, and inquires what kind of a
being He is—if he will search diligently his own heart—if the declaration of
Jesus and the apostles be true, he will realize that he has not eternal life;
for there can be eternal life on no other principle.
God an Exalted Man
“I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to
show what kind of a being God is. What sort of a being was God in the
beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth, for I am going to
prove it to you by the Bible, and to tell you the designs of God in relation to
the human race, and why He interferes with the affairs of man.
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man,
and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil
were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who
upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible—I
say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like
yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was
created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received
instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks
and communes with another.
In order to understand the subject of the dead, for
consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is
necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how He came
to be so.
It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a
certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as
one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that
God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ
Himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.
Eternal Life to Know
God and Jesus Christ
“The scriptures inform us that Jesus said, as the Father
hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power—to do what? Why, what the
Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner to lay down his body and take it
up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father
did, and take it up again.
“Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true
God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and
priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going
from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one;
from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the
resurrection of the dead.
The Righteous to
Dwell in Everlasting Burnings
“These are the first principles of consolation. How
consoling to the mourners when they are called to part with a husband, wife,
father, mother, child, or dear relative, to know that, although the earthly
tabernacle is laid down and dissolved, they shall rise again to dwell in
everlasting burnings in immortal glory, not to sorrow, suffer, or die any more,
but they shall be heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. What is it?
To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you
arrive at the station of a god, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the
same as those who have gone before.
“When we understand
the character of God, and know how to come to Him, he begins to unfold the
heavens to us, and to tell us all about it. When we are ready to come to him,
he is ready to come to us.
Our Greatest
Responsibility
“The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid
upon us is to seek after our dead. The apostle says, “They without us cannot be
made perfect”; for it is necessary that the sealing power should be in our
hands to seal our children and our dead for the fulness of the dispensation of
times—a dispensation to meet the promises made by Jesus Christ before the
foundation of the world for the salvation of man.
The Forgiveness of
Sins
“All sins shall be forgiven, except the sin against the Holy
Ghost; for Jesus will save all except the sons of perdition.
“Knowledge saves a man; and in the world of spirits no man
can be exalted but by knowledge. So long as a man will not give heed to the
commandments, he must abide without salvation. If a man has knowledge, he can
be saved; although, if he has been guilty of great sins, he will be punished
for them. But when he consents to obey the gospel, whether here or in the world
of spirits, he is saved.
“Hence the salvation of Jesus Christ was wrought out for all
men, in order to triumph over the devil... All will suffer until they obey
Christ himself.
“I am authorized to say, by the authority of the Holy Ghost,
that you have no occasion to fear; for he [Brother Follett] is gone to the home
of the just. Don’t mourn, don’t weep. I know it by the testimony of the Holy
Ghost that is within me; and you may wait for your friends to come forth to
meet you in the morn of the celestial world.
“Rejoice, O Israel! Your friends who have been murdered for
the truth’s sake in the persecutions shall triumph gloriously in the celestial
world, while their murderers shall welter for ages in torment, even until they
shall have paid the uttermost farthing. I say this for the benefit of
strangers.
“I have a father, brothers, children, and friends who have
gone to a world of spirits. They are only absent for a moment. They are in the
spirit, and we shall soon meet again. The time will soon arrive when the
trumpet shall sound. When we depart, we shall hail our mothers, fathers,
friends, and all whom we love, who have fallen asleep in Jesus. There will be
no fear of mobs, persecutions, or malicious lawsuits and arrests; but it will
be an eternity of felicity.
“A question may be asked—“Will mothers have their children
in eternity?” Yes! Yes! Mothers, you shall have your children; for they shall
have eternal life, for their debt is paid. There is no damnation awaiting them
for they are in the spirit. But as the child dies, so shall it rise from the
dead, and be forever living in the learning of God. It will never grow [in the
grave]; it will still be the child, in the same precise form [when it rises] as
it appeared before it died out of its mother’s arms, but possessing all the
intelligence of a God. …
“I have intended my remarks for all, both rich and poor,
bond and free, great and small. I have no enmity against any man. I love you
all; but I hate some of your deeds. I am your best friend.”
“No man knows my
history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don’t blame anyone for
not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not
have believed it myself. I never
did harm any man since I was born in the world. My voice is always for peace.
“I cannot lie down until all my work is finished. I never
think any evil, nor do anything to the harm of my fellow-man. When I am called
by the trump of the archangel and weighed in the balance, you will all know me
then. I add no more. God bless you all. Amen.
NAUVOO GROVES
Between 1839 and 1846, the Latter-day Saints held many of
their meetings outdoors. The Nauvoo Groves commemorate those early meetings,
many of which occurred only a short distance from this spot.
There are many markers telling the story of the Groves from
journal accounts. A walk through the
Grove will introduce visitors to journal and newspaper accounts of the many
occasions when both LDS-Church members and friends were touched in their hearts
by the spoken word.
During most of the historic era, when Latter-day Saints were
building Nauvoo, the main grove was located immediately west of the temple. For
one period, during 1844, Joseph Smith and others preached in a grove east of
the temple, with a wooden stand set up near the corner of Robinson and Knight
streets, east of the Nauvoo Elementary School.
On this same day there was a visit from Abraham Lincoln to Nauvoo. A friend of the missionaries sent these pictures out. Although Joseph Smith and Abraham Lincoln never met, these two valiant met lived in the same state and believed in freedom. Deseret Book has recently published The Lincoln Hypothesis exploring Abraham Lincoln being the sixteenth US president during a very dark time in America's history. Author Timothy Ballard explores the crucial role that President Lincoln played to bring this nation closer to heaven. Readers will see Lincoln as a man inspired of God who invoked a covenant relationship between America and its maker — not unlike the national covenants invoked by righteous leaders in the Book of Mormon. In addition, The Lincoln Hypothesis reveals documented evidence that Abraham Lincoln did, in fact, check out the Book of Mormon from the Library of Congress.
Saturday--July 19 thru Sunday July 20
We found the following this week on a walk we took and so in honor of Granny Middleton who loved Coleus Plants we share them with her posterity—these are planted near the Information Center upon entering Nauvoo with quite a few different varieties of Coleus Plants and other flowers:
In honor of this weeks Pioneer Day coming up on July 24 we give a link to a PDF document with the quotes to the Trail of Hope markers on Parley Street.
In Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, most likely the world over, Pioneer hymns were sung in praise and honor to the blessed men and women who sacrificed so much and whose memory we celebrate this Thursday, July 24. As we sang with the saints in the Rock Island Ward we were touched by the words to the following sacred hymn. Yes, let us be grateful and honor these courageous men and women and learn from them, BUT let us not forget that we each in our own way are pioneers as we are also builders of the nation as we strive to live the gospel each day doing as is stated in these verses. Oh, Remember, Remember -- Lest We Forget! (especially consider verse 2)
They, the Builders of the Nation, no. 36
1. They, the builders of the nation,
Blazing trails along
the way;
Stepping-stones for
generations
Were their deeds of
ev'ry day.
Building new and firm
foundations,
Pushing on the wild
frontier,
Forging onward, ever
onward,
Blessed, honored
Pioneer!
2. Service ever was their watchcry;
Love became their
guiding star;
Courage, their
unfailing beacon,
Radiating near and
far.
Ev'ry day some burden
lifted,
Ev'ry day some heart
to cheer,
Ev'ry day some hope
the brighter,
Blessed, honored
Pioneer!
3. As an ensign to the nation,
They unfurled the
flag of truth,
Pillar, guide, and
inspiration
To the hosts of
waiting youth.
Honor, praise, and
veneration
To the founders we
revere!
List our song of
adoration,
Blessed, honored
Pioneer!
One more link we would like to share is a document we made about the Monument to Women Garden. The link follows:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8pL4fr4yqFGeFJsSXZ0clZlaFE/edit?usp=sharing
And last but not least, we would like to congratulate Ben, Erin and Patty Vehikite for being sealed for time and all eternity on Saturday, July 20, 2014. From our work in the temple we know angels were attending that blessed event!
One more link we would like to share is a document we made about the Monument to Women Garden. The link follows:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8pL4fr4yqFGeFJsSXZ0clZlaFE/edit?usp=sharing
And last but not least, we would like to congratulate Ben, Erin and Patty Vehikite for being sealed for time and all eternity on Saturday, July 20, 2014. From our work in the temple we know angels were attending that blessed event!
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