Blessing come from asking - 2-11-09

Well, this last week has been fun. Yes, I did get a new bike and you will be seeing pictures of it soon, it is amazing. As far as lessons, we have been teaching alot and even more in spanish. I can't help but realize the blessings that come from simply asking.

I can't believe that I have been out 4 months already, that time just won't stop. But at the same time the days seem like they never end. I love it out here, and can't wait to get back to work. I will be sending my card home next week so that every one can see everything that is going on over the past 4 months.

Yeah, I remember "Ghost Recon", I have thought about the fun times we had playing it.

I think I have found one of the hardest things of a mission, your companion. Either you are best friends or not, and after a little time I have found the Elder Davis and I don't mesh quite as well as I thought. But, I am trying to work with him to understand both sides, but it is hard to do.

This past week has shown me alot. I went on an exchange with two other Elders, and they were really cool. We were able to teach and keep each other relaxed, as well as have fun doing it.

I just want you to know that I am loving it out here, and can't wait to talk to you again, and tell you all the things I have learned. Also, I will be returnig with honor, and can't wait to come home and tell you that I have.

The Spanish investigators that we are teaching have been slowly progressing and I really hope that we are able to help them. The other people that we are working with have been slowly dropping off, but we find others and continue to try to talk with even the dropped people.

I know that this work can change lives and that if you put all your faith in Christ that he will help you.

Love, Elder Boy

P.S. I love to get pictures in my emails.

Filling your Life with Light - 2-10-09

William,

How has this week gone for you? I hope that you have everything taken care of with the bike. I am proud of the way you chose to handle that whole situation. As you continue to grow in gospel you will become a great tool in the hands of the Lord. But you will also become a target for Satan to work on.

The story you talked about last week, "A Child of Promise" was incredible. I sent a copy to Mom like you asked and I also included the entire story as a footnote with your last letter on your blogsite. What was the bit about singing at a fireside? Were you with a duet, trio, or a group? Or did you sing a solo ( I can't even imagine that.)

How is your Spanish coming? I hope that you are having success with your families. Remember, they won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. Corny I know, but it's true.

I got some bad news, but I want to tell you so that you can learn from it. Matt Bentz, is coming home from France in 5 months. He has collected 3 cards full of pictures on his digital camera over the last 19 months, and has not sent any pictures home. Last week, Matt left his camera somewhere and lost all of his pictures from his entire mission. He has already contacted his past companions to try to get copies of pictures that they have taken. But he will never replace the pictures that he took. Please, send home pictures often. The camera can be replaced, the pictures can not.

I know I told you about the Quilt that Mary Ann is making for Trisha. She is working hard to finish it soon because we are going to Arizona in a couple of weeks. Garth is working as a tech in a play in Las Vegas and Mary Ann wants to support him, so we are going to stop there on Thursday and then continue on to Arizona.

Grandma Boy went to the Temple last week, and really enjoyed that, she said that she can't believe that Grandpa has been gone almost a whole year. She is really excited about us coming down.

We delivered the headboard that we made for Steve and Tausha. It turned out really nice. Mary Ann and I took the old door that used to lead to the laundry room and painted it chocolate brown. Then we painted it with "Crackle paint" and then Almond White over that. We added some crown molding on the top edge (turned sideways) and added some legs. The finish looks really old with the chocolate brown showing through the cracks in the almond white. They really liked it. The whole project cost $13.

Benson and I have taken out the old "Ghost Recon" game. remember the fun times we had playing that? Benson and I have been having a blast playing it together.

I can't believe that you have been gone for 4 months already, boy how the time flies. I hope that you are enjoying your new companionship, I think that it is great that you get to work on your spanish again. I found this lesson in the "Let Virtue Garnish Thy Thoughts" manual. I thought that it had good message.

I hope you get something good from it.

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Filling Your Life with Light
taken from "Let Virtue Garnish Thy Thoughts", (1969),2–3

The Savior Jesus Christ promises those who follow Him: “Your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you” (D&C 88:67 And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things.). Fill your life with truth, righteousness, peace, and faith. As you fill your life with goodness, there will be no room for pornography and other sources of spiritual darkness.

Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve observed: “Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Light dispels darkness. When light is present, darkness is vanquished and must depart. More important, darkness cannot conquer light unless the light is diminished or departs” (in Conference Report, Apr. 2002, 80–81; or Ensign, May 2002, 70).

You fill your life with light as you pray and study the scriptures with real intent, seeking to know, understand, and follow the Lord. You will find that the word of God has a “more powerful effect” upon you “than . . . anything else” (Alma 31:5 And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.). An understanding of true doctrine will help you change your attitudes and behaviors.

Attending Church meetings and partaking of the sacrament, keeping the Sabbath day holy, fasting, and paying tithing will help you keep yourself free of the darkness of the world (see D&C 59:9 And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;). Appropriate music and uplifting visual images will invite the Spirit into your life.

Regular worship and service in the temple will also strengthen you. President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke of the fortifying effects of temple attendance: “Make a habit of going to the house of the Lord. There is no better way to ensure proper living than temple attendance. It will crowd out the evils of pornography” (in Conference Report, Apr. 2005, 109; or Ensign, May 2005, 102).

As you draw near to the Lord, your behavior and your very nature will gradually become more Christlike. Through personal conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will learn to “have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2 And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.).

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William, never let your guard down, pray often, and turn to the Lord in all things.
Keep up the good work, and take care of yourself out there.

We Love you,
Dad, Mary Ann & Benson (& Grandma Boy)

Stolen bike won't slow me down - 2-4-09

This last week has been interesting, first my bike was stolen, and I could have gotten really mad and given up but I thought about it and how satan is really working me at this point and so I tried to look past that and keep working. So I am getting a new bike today and going to keep working.

We are also in a threesome, Elder Davis, Elder Goats, and Elder Boy. Elder Goats is the Spanish Speaking Missionary and with him we are working with alot of spanish people. On Tuesdays we play soccer as a finding activity and good exercise, and we have about 6 to 12 people from that. I have also been learning a little spanish and have been running every morning since Thursday. I don't remember if I told you about the missionary musical fireside I was in. I sang 2 songs, and it was really cool.

I just wrote a long letter underneath this and then the server timed out so I lost everything. I will try to put most of it back.

Go and look up the talk called "A Child of Promise". I don't remember who it is by, but it is really good. I have been listening to it alot and I really like it. I have also been learning Spanish.

I have also gotten completely over my homesickness and can really get into the work and love it.
I have been having the best time here, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

P.S.S. If you could share that talk with Mom and send me a copy I would love it. I also have been looking at my time here and can't beleve that I have almost been out 4 months and only have 20 left. I have not done enough work up to this point, but I can say that I will be working until they tell me I have to go.

Love you all,
Elder Boy

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(Story added by the William's father)

The Message:Child of Promise
by Henry B. Eyring, New Era, Aug 1993
(From a fireside address at Brigham Young University on May 4, 1986.)

Time rushes by, but master it, and the riches of eternity are yours.

Since I know something of the anxiety the pressure of time creates in your life, I would like to share what I have learned about how to handle that feeling of hurry. It’s important to be sure we agree on the nature of the problem. Time passes at a fixed rate and we can’t store it. You can just decide what to do with it—or not to do with it. Even a moment’s reflection will help you see that the problem of using your time well is not a problem of the mind but of the heart. It will only yield to a change in the very way we feel about time. The value of time must change for us.

And then the way we think about it will change, naturally and wisely.

That change in feeling and in thinking is combined in the words of a prophet of God in this dispensation. It was Brigham Young, and the year was 1877. “The property which we inherit from our Heavenly Father is our time, and the power to choose in the disposition of the same. This is the real capital that is bequeathed unto us by our Heavenly Father; all the rest is what he may be pleased to add unto us” (Journal of Discourses, 18:354).

Time is the property which we inherit from God, along with the power to choose what we will do with it. President Young calls the gift of life, which is time and the power to dispose of it, so great an inheritance that we should feel that it is our capital. The early Yankee families in America taught their children and grandchildren some rules about an inheritance. They were always to invest the capital they inherited and to live only on part of the earnings. One rule was “Never spend your capital.” The hope was that inherited wealth would be felt a trust so important that no descendant would put pleasure ahead of obligation to those who would follow.

There is more than one way to spend time foolishly, as you know. You may sleep it away or play it away. But the bankruptcy that will cheat all those who come after you, comes after the idleness and the thoughtless seeking for thrills.

When you choose to see or hear filth portrayed, for instance, you may at first feel you have just spent some time. But if you persist, you will find that beyond time wasted you have allowed Satan to draw you toward sin and then into it. And then you will have incurred debts that will burden and diminish every minute of existence that follows, unless and until you find the healing balm of the atonement of Jesus Christ through repentance, which takes pain, and time. Oh, what Brigham Young would want for you, and what I pray you may have, is a heart that wants to invest your inheritance, time.

It’s worth doing, not only because you have life ahead but because you have eternity ahead, as well. Here is one report that suggests your reward for investing your inheritance well here will be to get to do it forever. President Wilford Woodruff gave this report in general conference in 1896.

“Joseph Smith continued visiting myself and others up to a certain time, and then it stopped. The last time I saw him was in heaven. In the night vision I saw him at the door of the temple in heaven. He came to me and spoke to me. He said he could not stop to talk with me because he was in a hurry. The next man I met was Father Smith; he could not talk with me because he was in a hurry. I met half a dozen brethren who had held high positions on earth, and none of them could stop to talk with me because they were in a hurry. I was much astonished. By and by I saw the Prophet again and I got the privilege of asking him a question.

“ ‘Now,’ said I, ‘I want to know why you are in a hurry? I have been in a hurry all my life; but I expected my hurry would be over when I got into the kingdom of heaven, if I ever did.’
“Joseph said: ‘I will tell you, Brother Woodruff. Every dispensation that has had the priesthood on the earth and has gone into the celestial kingdom has had a certain amount of work to do to prepare to go to the earth with the Savior when he goes to reign on the earth. Each dispensation has had ample time to do this work. We have not. We are the last dispensation, and so much work has to be done, and we need to be in a hurry in order to accomplish it.’
“Of course, that was satisfactory, but it was new doctrine to me” (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, sel. G. Homer Durham, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1946, pp. 288–89).

Can you see and feel the truth in these familiar words of President Benson? “You have been born at this time for a sacred and glorious purpose. It is not by chance that you have been reserved to come to earth in this last dispensation of the fulness of times. Your birth at this particular time was foreordained in the eternities. You are to be the royal army of the Lord in the last days. You are ‘youth of the noble birthright’ ” (Ensign, May 1986, p. 43).

When I heard those words I thought of a boy with a noble birthright, but lacking what many of you have. He was born on November 22. Thirteen days later his father was buried. He was named and blessed by the bishop of his ward, Edwin Woolley. The name he was given by the bishop was Heber Jeddy Ivins Grant. “I was only an instrument in the hands of his dead father … in blessing him,” Bishop Woolley later remarked. Heber Grant “is entitled to be one of the Apostles, and I know it” (The Presidents of the Church, ed. Leonard J. Arrington, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1986, p. 212).

People then and since have called Heber J. Grant a “child of promise.” He was. But his departed father didn’t make the promises to the child. His Heavenly Father did. Your Heavenly Father did—the same Father who chose you to come into this time and place to hold, honor, and to nurture those who hold his power. You have a right to become like your Heavenly Father. You are a royal child of God, a child of promise, chosen from among many to be here and to have your royal inheritance, time in the fulness of times.

One young man changed forever my feelings about the value of that gift, and what it means to be a child of promise. Bob Allen was an undergraduate at Stanford University when I was his bishop. He left his schooling to serve a mission in Japan. He came back to school, took up his studies, and lived in a world of too many demands and too little time.

One day I was sitting at my desk in the graduate school of business at Stanford. I looked up and saw two people. I remember that their faces seemed to shine. Suddenly, Bob Allen stepped between them and, smiling as broadly as they were, said, “These are two new bishops from Japan.” They could speak little English, but I could tell they loved Bob Allen and, because of something he must have told them, they loved me. I thought then, as I have many times since, how remarkable it was that he had found time to spend days with those young men from Japan.
I spoke in a sacrament meeting in Tokyo ten years later. The person who had introduced me mentioned that I had been at Stanford. Two young people, a couple, rushed to me after the meeting and said, “Did you know Bob Allen? We love him.”

Later I was in Tokyo again. Of all the excellent presentations made to me, one seemed most remarkable. I asked to see the man who had made it. He was introduced and then said, “We have met before, at Stanford University.” He was the young man, now older, who had stood with his fellow bishop in my office door. He told me about his life, and the life of the other man, now a great leader in Japan. In that moment, I learned again, in my heart as well as my head, what it means to have a royal inheritance of time, and how a child of promise, who believes the promises, can invest it to produce returns for eternity.

Because of that moment I’ve come to understand something that happened to me in my early teens. I was in a hurry when I felt, not heard, a voice, an impression, which I knew then was from God. It was close to these words: “Someday, when you know who you really are, you will be sorry that you didn’t use your time better.” I thought then that the impression was odd, since I thought I was using my time pretty well and I thought I knew who I was. Now, years later, I am beginning to know who I am—and who you are—and why we will be so sorry if we do not invest our time well.

You will develop your ability to invest your precious time well by gaining three confidences. First, you must gain confidence that God keeps his promises. Second, you must gain God’s confidence that you will always keep the promises, not that you choose to make, but that he asks you to make. And third, you must help others gain confidence that God keeps his promises.

You can gain confidence that God keeps his promises by trying them. That’s why I so appreciate those commandments to which God has attached an explicit promise. I see those commandments as school masters. And I try to put them high on my list of things to do, because I know their value for changing my heart and building my power to invest my time.

One of those commandments with promise came to the top of my list awhile back. I was in a sacrament meeting in California. I chose not to spend my time, but to invest it. When the young priest blessed the sacrament, I thought of John the Baptist and Joseph Smith. I thought what it means to live in a time when the promise that young man made for me was authorized by God. He said that if I remembered the Savior, and kept his commandments, I would always have his Spirit to be with me. Because I made that promise with faith, and kept it, I had a remarkable week. God kept his promise, made by his servant. I hope those two young men in the Palo Alto Ward know that God honored the promise they spoke.

If President Benson has been successful in helping us sense who we are, there are a whole series of things you will be adding at the top of your lists of things to do, if they weren’t already there. Reading the Book of Mormon every day, and paying tithing, and paying a fast offering, and keeping the Sabbath will all be there. And when you carry out those commitments with faith, you will come quickly to know that God keeps his promises.

Now, you might say, “But Brother Eyring, you’ve just made my problem worse. Now, I’ve added new tasks to my list and I’ve put them at the top. If my worry before was that I might fail in my work, now I’m even more worried. You know that at least some of the people I’ll be competing with will put work first and spiritual things last, or never. Will I always be second-rate in my work if I’m a child of promise?”

You can take comfort. Whenever I’ve had unusual success in a financial investment, I’ve started with great partners. Although you are very much the junior partner, you have been invited to invest your time, not alone, but with God. Here is the promise he has made:

“But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted” (Jacob 2:18–19).

The promise to you and me in the last days is that after seeking God and serving his children with unwearyingness, we will come to know his will. The promise is not just that I will have the power to do what’s on my list of tasks but that I will know what to put there. On those occasions when I have known what should be there, I’ve found myself glancing at the list as a source of joy, not of anxiety.

Finally, our capacity for investing time well will hinge on our desire to offer others the chance to gain confidence in the promises of God. We’ve talked about investing time, guided by the promises of God and by our wanting what he wants. What he wants is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, so much of your time will be invested with the return to come to others. You can take that as a source of great optimism. First, and perhaps less important, the returns finally do come to you, particularly when you focus on giving instead of getting. You remember the promise in Luke:

“Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).

Now, I haven’t solved the problem of your busy schedules. You will still feel that you are in a hurry and you will still find yourself not reaching the end of every list. In fact, you may find your list changing and even growing larger. But you can have peace and confidence in your choices. I pray that you will feel that peace and that you will feel gratitude for having been blessed with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, with living prophets, and with the sure promise of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I pray that you will have confidence in God’s promises, gain his confidence, and offer to others the promises you have, as a child of promise.

5 minutes of the SuperBowl - 2-2-09

William,

As promised I sent a real live stamp on the envelope letter to you this week, so the spiritual message can be covered in that. This letter is just a casual letter from a father to his son. Did I ever tell you that I got contact lenses? Benson got them too. They are working out great for him. He hasn't worn his glasses since the day he got them. For me it hasn't been so easy. I have had to try about 3 different styles, and I finally have a set the works. The problem is that I still don't care enough to put them in my eye everyday. I have only worn them about 3 day, (half day each time) and then they feel to dry in my eyes.

Benson and I had to fix the leaking toilet yesterday. When Mary Ann and I remodeled the middle bathroom I didn't seat the toilet on the pipe properly so after a few months it started to leak. We had curry on Saturday. It has been several weeks since we have had it. Mary Ann actually asked me to make it. I forgot how delicious it is. Have you had any interesting foods living "down south". I hope that you get a chance to try grits, callard greens, mustard BBQ, and real fried chicken. I hope that you are getting a chance to use some of the seasonings that we sent you.

In you last letter you said that Elder Davis was a new District Leader, so do you have a new companion (the Spanish Speaking Elder) or are you in a threesome, or ???. Either way, how are things going with you spanish families? How about your other investigators, anything? We pray for you everynight, and pray that the people that you are teaching will understand the message that you have for them.

I was checking the internet for interesting things about the Newport News area and found a blogsite for Elder Greg Malone. He is also surving in the Richmond Mission. His letter tell about his past companions, places and people that he sees at church. After I read a couple more letters maybe I will ask if you know some people that he talks about. He has 8 months left and talks alot about how he loves the people in Virginia. I have been in contact with his Mom, she lives in Mesa, Az. so I asked if she knows Susie. I haven't heard back yet.

I have a facebook account now, Benson told me I needed to set one up so people at work could find me. I have about 35 friends, so I am feeling pretty popular. Of course Indy has more friends then me, so I won't be bragging to much.

Elder Mooker has been having some great times in Germany, He talks alot about the same stuff you talk about, Tracking, the great people, and praying that people will be open to the message that you have for them. But he also gets to see some of the sights in Germany. Matt so a picture of Susie in Las Vegas by the replica of the Effle Tower and the Arch d'Triumph, and told her that he got to see the real ones. Matt also said that with 5 months left to go on his mission he was going to start buying souvenirs and sending them home.

Well, I am just about out of things to tell you about, I hope that everything is going well for you. I hope that you are seeing success in your work, and I hope the you feel the love that we have for you. Take care of yourself, and make it a great mission.

Love and wishes to your success,
Dad, Mary Ann, and Benson

P.S. I watched a full 5 minutes of the SuperBowl. One of the teams was wearing Red. LOL

Hope Ya Know, We Had a Hard Time - 2-1-09

“Hope Ya Know, We Had a Hard Time”

Excerpts from Elder Quentin L. Cook talk in the Liahona, Nov 2008

We know from the scriptures that some trials are for our good and are suited for our own personal development.

We were traveling by car from San Francisco to Utah in June. The weather had been very good. As we started our ascent to the Donner Pass summit in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, suddenly and without warning an enormous snowstorm hit us. None of the drivers was prepared. A semitruck in front of us had jackknifed and was spread across two lanes. Other trucks and cars had slid off the freeway. One lane was open, and many vehicles, including ours, were desperately trying to gain traction to avoid the other vehicles. All traffic then came to a halt.

We were not prepared for this blizzard in June. We had no warm clothing, and our fuel was relatively low. I huddled with the two boys in an effort to keep us warm. After many hours, safety vehicles, snowplows, and tow trucks began to clear up the massive logjam of vehicles.
Eventually, a tow truck hauled us to a service station on the other side of the pass. I called my wife, knowing she would be worried because she had expected a call the prior evening. She asked if she could speak to the two boys. When it was the three-year-old’s turn, with a quivering voice, he said, “Hope ya know, we had a hard time!”

I could tell, as our three-year-old talked to his mother and told her of the hard time, he gained comfort and then reassurance. Our prayers are that way when we go to our Father in Heaven. We know He cares for us in our time of need.

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William,

As you look back on the last several weeks I hope that you remember that both your earthly Father and your Heavenly Father have been very aware of you, and the struggles that you have been going through. Through your struggles the Lord will develop you into the servant that he needs in this part of his vineyard. He is ready and willing to bless you as you strive to find those that he has prepared to receive his word. You bring honor to your family and yourself as you grow in the service of your Heavenly Father.

Keep up the good work, pray often, and rely on your companion for strength, guidance and for friendship. The life lessons that you will learn will come from your experiences serving the Lord as well as learning to live with these other fine young men.

I love you son, and I am so proud of the growth that I have seen in you these last several weeks. Remember, your Heavenly Fathers “knows you had a hard time” but he does hear your prayers, and does know your heart.

Love Dad, Mary Ann, and Benson