Week of 29 February to 6 March 2016

i wrote in my last blog about taking our neighbors to the temple open house on Monday 29th February.  That evening, we met with the Jenkins family, we had stopped by earlier and had talked with Sister  Jenkins father whom they live with, he is quite the story teller but an interesting one, he is single, his daughter and husband with four children are living with him for now as they had hit hard times.  Her husband has health issues, she works full time with a son 17, daughters 15, 11, 8, beautiful family but we have not met Brother Jenkins yet.  We visited later that evening with Sister Jenkins and the girls, her son was at work.  Sister Jenkins is an amazing, positive woman.  They are members but with her having to work on many Sunday's the children won't go to church without her and the dad's health is not where he is able to go most times.  She voiced her desire to attend the temple open house seeing it's the last week of it.  After we had a delightful visit, Elder Morley sent an email to our Stake President as he works for the church in the temple department and one of the secretary's takes care of the open house tickets.  He requested so many tickets for Wednesday at 3:30 PM, within one hour we had the email with the tickets to print out from the secretary.  We have an amazing stake president.

Tuesday 1 March, the full time Elders had lunch at our home as they do most Tuesday's, this is a good time to plan with them and to catch up with families they need us to visit or to report to them of those we have visited.  We then visited our sweet widow, Sister Balle who she and Ray are cousins and I knew her years ago as we were in the same stake in Kearns.  We gave her a copy of a recording  Ray did with a Vicar in England while he was a missionary there. The Vicar had been doing research on the Morley line as they were one of the first families in that area in that church.  Thanks to Ray's son Dan several years ago who was able to copy it off from the old reel to reel and put it onto a CD for him.  As usual, we come away being lifted by Sister Balle.

Wednesday 2nd March, we went to the Provo City Center Temple open house with the Jenkins family minus their father who didn't feel that he could walk around that much.  It touched each of them.  Sister Jenkins realized that she needs to get back attending the temple and she needs to talk to her boss and arrange for her to have Sunday's off to go with her children to church, he said it will take a lot of praying but she knows this is what she needs to do to keep her family together an on the right path.

We were to have read with our young couple who has one darling 16 month very active boy but they had sickness but we did visit the Peterson's who were going to move this coming Thursday to their new home.  He served a mission in Taiwan, his wife is also from there.  With all the move in's from all over the world here in Lehi, there are several from China who speak English but the vocabulary of the Mormon faith, they don't understand sometimes so the Elders and ward mission leaders need help and even though the Peterson's are moving out of the area, he is still willing to come and help when needed.

On Friday the 4th of March, we had our District Meeting and the training lesson was on Listening, how often we talk too much and not listen to those we are teaching or visiting.  Brother Byers also took us through the time when the sons of Mosiah met up with Alma after their mission and how they were instruments in the Lord's hands in bringing many  of the Lamanites into the Gospel, unto their Savior.

That evening we joined the 4th ward in their table game night.  Members bring many board games and you just pick a table which game you would like to participate and play and for us it was getting to know the ward members of that ward better.  We met a couple of non-members who loves to mingle with the saints but doesn't want to join the church, not yet anyway.  This is a perfect example in reaching out to all in our neighborhoods not matter if they are members of the LDS faith or of another faith, we are still all children of God.  Very enjoyable evening with lots of snacks.

Ray's daughter from San Antonio Texas, along with her husband and oldest son flew in on Saturday 5th March to visit their daughter who is going to BYU, she needed a little support in life, she's doing great at school, just life.  They stayed with us Saturday night, attended our three hour block with us then visited her mom until dinner time then ate with us and flew back home.  Was nice to have them here even if it was a short trip.

Sunday afternoon, we visited a Sister who is single, she has home a son who served a mission and has been home for a year, he's going to school and needing a job, so we asked the ward employment specialist to contact him.  She also has a 16 year old daughter.  They are active, their Bishop thought just a visit from us and a message would be nice for them.  We showed them a short video of President Uchdorf talking of our worth as sons and daughters of Heavenly Father and don't let anyone tell you you have to be this way or that way.  That message was what they needed to hear.  The mother grew up in the stake we just moved from in Orem, we know her parents.  Beautiful family.

It's been a wonderful week.  I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I know it is true, for it ws upon the earth when our Savior lived and it was restored again in its fullness through the Prophet Joseph Smith.  Thomas S Monson is our modern prophet today, called by God to receive revelations for not only the church but the world.  I know God lives, I know Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, he sacrificed his life for us, I am humble and grateful for his perfect love for us.

With the Jenkins family