16 Mar 2008

March 16, 2008
Dear Elder Sean,

I'm sitting down to write you after a fun weekend of stake conference meetings. We had Elder Hammond of the 70 visit us. He is probably the most disciplined man I have ever met and boy, does it show in his speaking. Bro. Yorgason told me that his college buddy asked Elder Hammond (15 years ago when he was Bro. Hammond) how he got to be so well versed in the scriptures and could speak so eloquently. Bro. Hammond told him his schedule. He said every day he gets up at 5:45am and exercises for 30 min. with his wife, then showers and gets ready for the day. He has breakfast, then studies scriptures, etc for 45 min. Then he helps get the kids to school, then studies the scriptures with his wife and makes himself a sack lunch. Then he walks to work every day (he's a dentist) and takes a half hour lunch and returns home at 4:30pm. He gets things done around the house and has dinner then goes to meetings. He tries to always be home by around 8:30-9:00pm, then he studies again for 45 minutes before getting ready for bed.
He could quote every hymn, knows where all the major scripture references are, quoted several poems and has tons of stories. For our Sat. evening mtg, he fielded questions about missionary work and why we have trouble sharing what we know with others. He answered using the scriptures and stories. He had the elders in our area come up and they bore their testimonies. Then he had all 4 elders come up front and as they stood there, he said, "Here is the future of our church, of our world." I couldn't help but cry thinking of you the whole time, knowing that you are doing the same thing. He said you missionaries are there for the members. You should always be asking, "What can we do for you?" to the members, instead of the members asking what they can do for you.

Today he spoke of our individual sepulchres. He told of how Pilate demanded that every precaution be taken to make sure that the tomb could not be broken into and Christ's body stolen. He asked men to stand guard and place the heaviest stone possible in the way. And with all that in place, how easily Heavenly Father caused an earthquake to happen and an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. Despite every mighty effort of "man", there is nothing that can thwart the grand plan of our Heavenly Father. Elder Hammond said that we all have individual sepulchres that Satan tries to keep shut and keep us from our Savior. He said some of us have addiction sepulchres, gambling sepulchres, pornography, anger, financial problems, marital problems, etc. Satan tries to seal us in our sins in these sepulchres with strong efforts made by "man" to where we think there is no way out. But we need to know that our Savior is the only one who can free us, remove the stone door and lead us into the light. That was just one of the points he made today, but it was the one that really touched me.

The bishops and wives got to have dinner with the Hammonds last night in between meetings and he spoke to mainly us women in the room. Very tender words for women living in these latter days and also how beautifully a man and a woman compliment each, but are so different.

Right now dad and Kristina and Alex are at a fireside. The little girls and I made a dump cake, read, then I put them in bed. Leah was very cute, she wanted to leave the lights on so she could read her scriptures.

We have been praying for you and the Gonzalez family all week. I put their names in at the temple when dad and I went on Tues also. How did your family night go with them? How is the Moreno family coming along? I hope they both were able to come to church today. I have been thinking about them a lot.

Kirk called today and said Joe Kjar has been with him all weekend. He drove to Rexburg with a friend and stayed with Kirk. Kirk said they had fun and were busy all weekend.

This week we're going to be getting ready to go to California for spring break. We're leaving Saturday and will be back the following Friday. We are staying in Orange over the weekend so we can have Easter dinner with my family at Susan and Mike's. Kirk is also going to fly down for the weekend. He's going to go to Universal studios with us on Monday, then fly back home on tues. Mary will take him to the airport. We are then going down to San Diego for the rest of the time to explore the city. I'll take plenty of pictures so you can see the Calif. family.

Last Friday night Kristina's garage band performed at Rembrandt's. They did a great job. I'll let you know when they release their first CD.

Other than all this, that's about it for the week. I'm anxious to hear about your week. Next week we'll write you from Jan and Jeff's place. I hope you have a nice Easter. Send us some pictures and let us know when you get packages.

Lose yourself in the service and remember always I love you very much.
momxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxox