Hello!
Sorry the email is a day late but this is transfer week so P-day switches to Tuesday and our district meeting was on Monday. We found out last night that Elder Marini and I are both staying here in West Cleveland. No one is leaving our district except for our district leader, Elder Waterman, who has served his 2 years and is going home. Elder Carter (from the Parma area to the south of us - he is the one who acts just like Elder Chris Nestman) will be our new district leader. We should find out tomorrow who will be replacing Elder Waterman in Strongsville to be Elder Brown's companion.
Good job at the youth duck hunt everyone! It sounds like it was zounds of fun. I can't believe dad would wear a BYU shirt in public! Just kidding, I knew there was some good in him the whole time. Tell me how feeding the Sisters goes.
That's cool that Nate had his farewell. Does he do all his MTC time in Provo or is there an MTC in Argentina he will be going to for a while also? How many weeks is he going to be in the MTC?
That must be confusing keeping up with 2 different parts of the Book of Mormon's storyline at once! What part are you reading other than 1 Nephi? It is good to hear that you are still doing family scripture study (and prayer, I hope), though.
Sorry to hear about Lauren's wrist. I hope it gets better soon. Is a buckle fracture better or worse than a normal fracture? It sounds like the zoo was fun. We went to a zoo a couple weeks ago for P-day, but there wasn't anything that great there.
Too bad Delaney won't get to play in Satan's orchestra, but I guess you don't want to have too much on your plate at once and bite off more than you can chew. School is more important.
I like that quote about families - it is pretty cool. (note from Patty-the quote is "A missionary leaves his family for two years...so that the people he teaches can be with theirs for an eternity".)
Yes, please send me the coat liner pretty quick since it is beginning to get colder. I could also use a beanie or some other kind of warm hat. Did I leave any boots behind other than my hunting/hiking ones? If not I will probably have to find some. Also, please send a scarf. I am pretty sure I had one or two laying around.
Thank you for praying for me and for the temple prayer lists, I wouldn't have thought of that. If you are putting my name down that must also mean that you are going to the temple, so good job!
We didn't have much success this week overall, and Elder Marini hasn't been feeling well, but he is starting to get better. We talked to a less active member yesterday who recently moved into our ward who I think is going to start coming back to church so that brightened my day. Then we visited a media referral who had requested a free bible. It turned out to be a Baptist pastor. At first he just wanted to bible bash with us, but when he realized that we weren't going to get belligerent with him and our response to everything was just to testify of Jesus Christ, he mellowed out a little. I am glad we didn't try to bash with him, since that would drive away the Spirit, but I couldn't help looking up a bunch of scriptures that I wished I could tell him about once we got home.
Like I said, we didn't have much success this week. Our "teaching pool" consists of basically 3 investigators, but the only one we have been able to teach this week was Dorothy. We had a good lesson with her early in the week, but she wasn't there for our next appointment, and her phone has been shut off for a couple days. Tenika we have been able to contact, but she hasn't been there for the last two appointments we had set with her. She seems to really enjoy talking to us, but I think she just forgets, even when we call and remind her. Pauly we have not been able to contact all week. We talked to the man she lives with, Merle, and he is pretty nice, but he said that Pauly just has a meltdown every once in a while and disappears for a few days or weeks. I guess we will see her when she gets back. In addition to them, please pray for Elder Marini to get better.
We haven't found Mike yet, but we are still looking. Not much else to report.
I am way excited for conference. Sister Frisch (From the North Royalton area in our district) said it is like "Two days of Christmas in a row". The sessions are two hours later here because of the time difference, so we will get home late from the Priesthood session. That is weird. We will be watching conference at the church, I found out.
I love you! Thank you for your prayers!
Love, Elder Smith
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Letter to Costanza Family
Dear Costanza Family,
Thank you for the beautiful picture of the rainbow you drew me.
Thanks for sharing my letter with mom and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Carl Anderson was an Amazing tour guide. He knew just about everything about Kirtland and obviously enjoyed sharing it with us. He asked if any of us had ancestors who had lived in Kirtland, and some of the other missionaries names off some names. He knew something about Every One of them! He and the Community of Christ tour guide obviously both had strong testimonies about the manifestations at the temple, and I will never forget singing "The Spirit of God" in the same room where angels, prophets, and the Saviour had all stood. The Spirit was so strong there! I have talked to some people who said they didn't feel the spirit when they visited the temple, so maybe the tours the Community of Christ tour guides usually give are not very inviting of the Spirit, but ours was amazing. The School of the Prophets was even better. After we left, Elder Farmer (He came out with me and was in my MTC district. He is a spiritual giant and has an amazing testimony of the atonement.) and I were talking about how amazing the Spirit was and how being there in the School of the Prophets felt just like being in a temple. I can see why we are encouraged to take investigators to Kirtland.
Year, there are some pretty rough areas here. We usually take our bikes everywhere, though. We have locks and everything. Interestingly, Elder Marini says that "Jesus people" like us are pretty well respected in the projects. From what I've seen so far, he seems to be pretty much right. With some exceptions.
Every transfer cycle is 6 weeks. Since I am a "Greenie" I will probably be with Elder Marini for 1 or 2 transfers. He and I are the only missionaries in our apartment.
How was your Labor Day? You probably read about "zoned out" on the blog. We also ate dinner at a less active member's house that day. His wife is a really good cook. She made barbecue ribs. Have fun at Swiss Days. I am SOOOO Jealous.
Again, thank you for your prayers! I wish I had prayed as often as I do now before I came on my mission. I can definitely see that as I try to "Counsel with the Lord in all (my) doings" like it says in Alma 37:3-37, He makes good on His promise to "Direct (me) for good".
Lots of Love,
Elder Smith
P.S. I am getting much better at speaking black. If you "axed me" "What time is it, dawg?" I would totally understand now. Other, more complex phrases, are still hard though.
Thank you for the beautiful picture of the rainbow you drew me.
Thanks for sharing my letter with mom and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Carl Anderson was an Amazing tour guide. He knew just about everything about Kirtland and obviously enjoyed sharing it with us. He asked if any of us had ancestors who had lived in Kirtland, and some of the other missionaries names off some names. He knew something about Every One of them! He and the Community of Christ tour guide obviously both had strong testimonies about the manifestations at the temple, and I will never forget singing "The Spirit of God" in the same room where angels, prophets, and the Saviour had all stood. The Spirit was so strong there! I have talked to some people who said they didn't feel the spirit when they visited the temple, so maybe the tours the Community of Christ tour guides usually give are not very inviting of the Spirit, but ours was amazing. The School of the Prophets was even better. After we left, Elder Farmer (He came out with me and was in my MTC district. He is a spiritual giant and has an amazing testimony of the atonement.) and I were talking about how amazing the Spirit was and how being there in the School of the Prophets felt just like being in a temple. I can see why we are encouraged to take investigators to Kirtland.
Year, there are some pretty rough areas here. We usually take our bikes everywhere, though. We have locks and everything. Interestingly, Elder Marini says that "Jesus people" like us are pretty well respected in the projects. From what I've seen so far, he seems to be pretty much right. With some exceptions.
Every transfer cycle is 6 weeks. Since I am a "Greenie" I will probably be with Elder Marini for 1 or 2 transfers. He and I are the only missionaries in our apartment.
How was your Labor Day? You probably read about "zoned out" on the blog. We also ate dinner at a less active member's house that day. His wife is a really good cook. She made barbecue ribs. Have fun at Swiss Days. I am SOOOO Jealous.
Again, thank you for your prayers! I wish I had prayed as often as I do now before I came on my mission. I can definitely see that as I try to "Counsel with the Lord in all (my) doings" like it says in Alma 37:3-37, He makes good on His promise to "Direct (me) for good".
Lots of Love,
Elder Smith
P.S. I am getting much better at speaking black. If you "axed me" "What time is it, dawg?" I would totally understand now. Other, more complex phrases, are still hard though.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Hello Mom and everyone else,
Whew! I was worried that I wasn't going to get an email today. The only emails I had when I got here were my weekly reports. So sad... So alone... No one loves me... just kidding. I guess now I know how you felt on Labor day when I didn't email until Tuesday, mom. Luckily your email arrived right as I finished writing my weekly letter to President Sorenson.
Good job everyone for their hunting success. How did Macy get the ducks? Did Colton hunt? Did you go, mom? Well done pawning the ducks off on Chris Neu, by the way. Super sneaky! How come I never got promised a quarter for every time I shot? I'd be a rich man!
That is pretty cool that Delaney's orchestra is good. It should be fun to play with Satan. (note from Patty - they will be performing with Michael Ballam at their Christmas concert.) It sounds like there will be some pretty amazing performances.
I was disappointed to hear about the game against FSU. Plus I heard that Utah also lost and Bingham got beat in Dallas. Too bad.
Yes I remember Sis. Bird. It's nice of you and Peyton to do service for her. I guess that's why we have visiting teachers. By the way, home teaching here is way different than at home. These last two Sundays we have gone on home-teaching splits. All it involved was stopping by inactive members' houses and trying to ascertain if they still even lived there. Of the four people on our records that we stopped by, two of them were Catholic, one was "not interested", and I think only one of them even realized that they were a member of the Church. I think there are something like 900 people or so on our ward list (its 21 pages long), and only about 200 come to church.
I think Elder Lambson might be the concert pianist I was telling you about. Elder Anderson was in my MTC district. We would call him Mr. Anderson because he looked a little like Neo from "The Matrix". He always looks like he is plotting murder. Not because he's mean or anything - he is really nice - but his face just seems to be stuck in a perpetual glare of deadly anger.
For conference, I think we will be going to the church to watch, but I am not sure yet.
It's okay that the letters take a while - nothing you can do about it. I still enjoy getting them a ton. Elder Marini and I are always excited to check the mail. We are always so happy when we come home and see the mail truck parked in front of our apartment. Thank you for all the letters that people have sent, they always brighten my day. By the way, thank you for the package Katie & family, it is awesome!
I am sorry to hear you are getting laid off, Lori, but I am sure you will be okay. I hope you find a great job in NY.
As a matter of fact we do have some new prospects. We got a call the other day from Elder Brady, a "Spaniard", or Spanish-speaking elder, to give us a referral for 2 people named Pauly and Merle. I guess Pauly chased Elder Brady down to talk to him. So we met them on Saturday and found out that she had talked to missionaries about fifteen years ago. We talked more and we found out that she has read the whole Book of Mormon. She also said that she had prayed about it and knew that it was true. So we started talking about the Gospel - Faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end - and she said that she wanted to be baptized. Merle didn't seem as interested as her, but he also asked questions and participated. I have a lot of hope for them. We talked about the Word of Wisdom, too, (Yeah, this lesson went all over the place. We had planned on just teaching about the Restoration, but we ended up teaching parts of lessons 1,2,3,and 4, since that was what we felt like we needed to talk about. The Spirit was really strong.) and she smokes, but she said she wants to quit, so I would really appreciate if you guys could pray that she will have the strength to quit smoking, since I am sure that won't be easy for her between the physical addiction and the fiery darts that the adversary (or Michael Ballam) will be throwing at her. Usually we don't even count people on our records unless we have taught them at least twice, but Elder Marini and I are super hopeful about Pauly and Merle. We are still teaching Tenika (I think I talked about her last week), and she seems happy to see us and she reads what we ask her to read, but I am worried that she doesn't have a testimony of the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith yet. We will keep trying and praying with her.
Trevor Haines (Haynes?) (the guy from the funeral) and his wife fed us this week. That was good. I learned that burritos and fajitas are not Mexican food - they are "Texican". Bro. Haines went to Mexico on his mission and he said down there they roll up their tortilla and take a bite of food then a bite of tortilla, and so forth. I guess if you put your food inside your tortilla they laugh at you and call you a gringo. We are still getting fed a lot. I think we have 11 meals lined up for the next week - 8 dinners (one day we are going from dinner at a members house to a ward barbecue that we are going to invite some of the less-active members we are working with to.) plus 3 people who have said they would like to take us out to lunch. I am going to get so fat. I have already gained five pounds, but I am hoping that is because I am working out so much more now.
I'm good, the food's good (and plentiful), it's all good.
Love you!
Elder Smith
Whew! I was worried that I wasn't going to get an email today. The only emails I had when I got here were my weekly reports. So sad... So alone... No one loves me... just kidding. I guess now I know how you felt on Labor day when I didn't email until Tuesday, mom. Luckily your email arrived right as I finished writing my weekly letter to President Sorenson.
Good job everyone for their hunting success. How did Macy get the ducks? Did Colton hunt? Did you go, mom? Well done pawning the ducks off on Chris Neu, by the way. Super sneaky! How come I never got promised a quarter for every time I shot? I'd be a rich man!
That is pretty cool that Delaney's orchestra is good. It should be fun to play with Satan. (note from Patty - they will be performing with Michael Ballam at their Christmas concert.) It sounds like there will be some pretty amazing performances.
I was disappointed to hear about the game against FSU. Plus I heard that Utah also lost and Bingham got beat in Dallas. Too bad.
Yes I remember Sis. Bird. It's nice of you and Peyton to do service for her. I guess that's why we have visiting teachers. By the way, home teaching here is way different than at home. These last two Sundays we have gone on home-teaching splits. All it involved was stopping by inactive members' houses and trying to ascertain if they still even lived there. Of the four people on our records that we stopped by, two of them were Catholic, one was "not interested", and I think only one of them even realized that they were a member of the Church. I think there are something like 900 people or so on our ward list (its 21 pages long), and only about 200 come to church.
I think Elder Lambson might be the concert pianist I was telling you about. Elder Anderson was in my MTC district. We would call him Mr. Anderson because he looked a little like Neo from "The Matrix". He always looks like he is plotting murder. Not because he's mean or anything - he is really nice - but his face just seems to be stuck in a perpetual glare of deadly anger.
For conference, I think we will be going to the church to watch, but I am not sure yet.
It's okay that the letters take a while - nothing you can do about it. I still enjoy getting them a ton. Elder Marini and I are always excited to check the mail. We are always so happy when we come home and see the mail truck parked in front of our apartment. Thank you for all the letters that people have sent, they always brighten my day. By the way, thank you for the package Katie & family, it is awesome!
I am sorry to hear you are getting laid off, Lori, but I am sure you will be okay. I hope you find a great job in NY.
As a matter of fact we do have some new prospects. We got a call the other day from Elder Brady, a "Spaniard", or Spanish-speaking elder, to give us a referral for 2 people named Pauly and Merle. I guess Pauly chased Elder Brady down to talk to him. So we met them on Saturday and found out that she had talked to missionaries about fifteen years ago. We talked more and we found out that she has read the whole Book of Mormon. She also said that she had prayed about it and knew that it was true. So we started talking about the Gospel - Faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end - and she said that she wanted to be baptized. Merle didn't seem as interested as her, but he also asked questions and participated. I have a lot of hope for them. We talked about the Word of Wisdom, too, (Yeah, this lesson went all over the place. We had planned on just teaching about the Restoration, but we ended up teaching parts of lessons 1,2,3,and 4, since that was what we felt like we needed to talk about. The Spirit was really strong.) and she smokes, but she said she wants to quit, so I would really appreciate if you guys could pray that she will have the strength to quit smoking, since I am sure that won't be easy for her between the physical addiction and the fiery darts that the adversary (or Michael Ballam) will be throwing at her. Usually we don't even count people on our records unless we have taught them at least twice, but Elder Marini and I are super hopeful about Pauly and Merle. We are still teaching Tenika (I think I talked about her last week), and she seems happy to see us and she reads what we ask her to read, but I am worried that she doesn't have a testimony of the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith yet. We will keep trying and praying with her.
Trevor Haines (Haynes?) (the guy from the funeral) and his wife fed us this week. That was good. I learned that burritos and fajitas are not Mexican food - they are "Texican". Bro. Haines went to Mexico on his mission and he said down there they roll up their tortilla and take a bite of food then a bite of tortilla, and so forth. I guess if you put your food inside your tortilla they laugh at you and call you a gringo. We are still getting fed a lot. I think we have 11 meals lined up for the next week - 8 dinners (one day we are going from dinner at a members house to a ward barbecue that we are going to invite some of the less-active members we are working with to.) plus 3 people who have said they would like to take us out to lunch. I am going to get so fat. I have already gained five pounds, but I am hoping that is because I am working out so much more now.
I'm good, the food's good (and plentiful), it's all good.
Love you!
Elder Smith
Monday, September 14, 2009
September 14th Letter
A few pictures of Matt's apartment:
A seldom used stove
Matt's "desk"
A nice clean tub/shower!
Hello,
A seldom used stove
Matt's "desk"
A nice clean tub/shower!Hello,
It has been pretty warm here, too - I think it was in the 70's all week.
Good job to dad on getting an antelope-can you send me a picture? For what unit is Randy's elk tag?
We eat a lot of chicken, but there is a good variety. I think my favorite meal was probably with brother and sister unknown. I don't remember their names-they are a young married couple and he is in his 1st or 2nd year of graduate school for podiatry. Anyways, she made orange chicken and sweet/sour chicken and it tasted just like Panda but better. Then she had an ice cream pie for dessert. That is one nice thing- just about everyone who has us over for dinner feeds us dessert as well. That is nice, but it is a challenge for Elder Marini, who has decided this week to start trying to lose weight. So he is dieting and I am helping him with morning workouts. We are kind of limited with what we can do for workouts in the morning, though, since it isn't light enough to go outside at 6:15 and our apartment is above someone else so we don't want to make much noise that early in the morning. Usually they consist of pushups, situps, and leg lifts.
The youth duck hunt will be awesome! I am glad to hear that you are so excited and enthusiastic about going! Don't worry, it isn't that early - you can probably sleep in the car anyway. And don't let dad scare you with his horror stories about these alleged "mosquitoes". Next thing you know he will have you believing there are alligators and snakes in the swamp, too. I'll bet Cody will limit out in 20 minutes and Delaney and Peyton...will have fun, which is really what matters.
So how many wards or stakes do the sister missionaries cover back home? Our area is only half of the Cleveland 1st ward, but then again, you could probably fit 10 or 15 Utah stakes in the area of our ward. Remember to make them dessert!
That is so cool that like everyone I know is going on missions! How long will Nate and Eric be in the MTC? Do they spend time in South American MTCs once they get there? Tell me what Nate talks about at his farewell.
Good job to Delaney for getting into a super cool orchestra. How much cookie dough will she have to sell to pay for this stuff? Going to Los Angeles and San Diego should be cool, though.
Thanks for working on the debit card. I will need the liner of my coat pretty soon, but I don't know exactly how cold it gets here yet, so I don't really know how to prepare. I'll find out what kinds of hats and gloves I am supposed to have.
I'm glad Delaney likes having a phone. Are you going to get her a text plan? Good job figuring out the mysteries of the texting world in only five minutes! That is funny that she didn't receive it though-I wonder what happened? Too bad about Cody's team. Is Cody doing well, though? Has he had any awesome plays or hits?
Did you read Alma 56-58 in family scripture study you mean? Those are some awesome chapters. "they did observe to perform every word of command with exactness", "they did not fear death", "they fought most desperately". They truly had a LOT of faith. I am always trying to develop faith that will be just like the sons of Helaman and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. Those two groups of people are like my role models of unwavering faith. What a blessing I have to have been taught by a mother just like they had.
OK, I am running out of time so I must make this quick now. People we are working with and could use prayers (still no progressing investigators unfortunately, but I am really hopeful about a couple of these people):
Tenika: Book of Mormon media referral who we have taught several times. We taught her about the restoration and the gospel, and she seems interested, but doesn't have a testimony about Joseph Smith or the B of M yet. She works most Sundays so hasn't come to church yet.
Jim: Less active member. He was a convert a few years ago and was the ward mission leader for a while. From what I've heard he was the best ward mission leader ever.
Jerry: Hasn't been active for something like 25 years. We just found out the other day that he still reads the bible and B of M every day, though, so that is encouraging.
Rochelle: Bible media referral that we met on Saturday. We talked about the Bible and the restoration and she seemed interested. We will be teaching her again later today.
Mike: haha...I haven't met this person yet, but I am sure he will be one of the elect and ready to receive the Gospel message, so I will look out for him. (Note from Patty: We accidentally prayed for Mike - even though that wasn't a name Matt had given us)
So, we don't have any progressing investigators. So sad. Oh well. "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed...ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence...and it shall remove" Mountains don't have agency, though. People do, or else we could just "faith" them until they got baptized, received the holy ghost, and endured to the end.
I have to go, but I will give you a rundown of an average day in a letter. I sent letters out today. I haven't received dad's letter yet, so still waiting on that. Mail takes forever because it has to go to the mission office and then they forward it to me.
Love,
Elder Smith
Friday, September 11, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Letter to Katie - Sept 3rd
Dear Katie,
Yes, I am adjusting just fine to Cleveland. It was actually a pretty smooth adjustment for me to get used to Cleveland. It reminds me a lot of Downtown Salt Lake City. Just dirtier. Also, the streets that run East-West never have numbers, just names. It has been tough for me to try to memorize where all the streets are in my area.
Yep, the last few weeks of doing no teaching and all finding are starting to pay off. We have a few people who might be interested enough to progress more. While we've been tracting I've noticed something: most people seem willing to talk to us once we say the word "Jesus", but not too many of them understand what we are talking about. They just nod their heads, smile and say "Amen!" and "I love Jesus!". So I have not yet had a door slammed in my face, but few people seem to comprehend anything more than "Jesus loves you".
It is indeed a blessing to have temples all around you. I am realizing that more and more now that I won't be able to go to the temple for 2 years. (I did get to go to the School of the Prophets in the N.K. Whitney store at the start of my mission and will be able to return there at the end of my mission. It is a temple where endowments have been given, revelation recieved, and where Jesus Christ has appeared.)
It sounds like everybody loved the dedication. Presidents Uchtdorf and Monson are a great combination, I love both of their talks. Unfortunately we were not able to watch the dedication; we had to be about our Father's business. Which is a good thing, of course.
Thank you for your prayers. Please keep them coming. Even though I have only been here a short time, the Lord has really started showing me my weaknesses.
Helaman 13 is a great chapter. (although you guys will probably be in 3 Nephi by the time you recieve this letter. 3 Nephi is my favorite book in the Book of Mormon.) It really illustrates that the more we have been given to know about the gospel, the more responsibility we have to live by its principles and share it with others. I'm not sure if it was Joseph Smith, but one of the latter-day prophets has said that riches and pride will be one of the greatest stumbling blocks for the saints in the last days. Sometimes I wonder if we who have been born into the church truly realize the importance and eternal magnitude of the gifts that we have been given. Are we like the man in Matt 13:45-46 who after finding a "Pearl of great price" (the gospel) gave all that he had to get it, or are we more like the man in Matt 19:21-22, who when asked to forsake the world and follow Christ, was not willing to pay the price?
Good job on your Scripture reading! 5:30 a.m. is really early, but keep it up! You are coming up on some really good parts. I especially like 3 Nephi 10 and 11. They really "bring it all together" for me.
Love,
Elder Smith
Yes, I am adjusting just fine to Cleveland. It was actually a pretty smooth adjustment for me to get used to Cleveland. It reminds me a lot of Downtown Salt Lake City. Just dirtier. Also, the streets that run East-West never have numbers, just names. It has been tough for me to try to memorize where all the streets are in my area.
Yep, the last few weeks of doing no teaching and all finding are starting to pay off. We have a few people who might be interested enough to progress more. While we've been tracting I've noticed something: most people seem willing to talk to us once we say the word "Jesus", but not too many of them understand what we are talking about. They just nod their heads, smile and say "Amen!" and "I love Jesus!". So I have not yet had a door slammed in my face, but few people seem to comprehend anything more than "Jesus loves you".
It is indeed a blessing to have temples all around you. I am realizing that more and more now that I won't be able to go to the temple for 2 years. (I did get to go to the School of the Prophets in the N.K. Whitney store at the start of my mission and will be able to return there at the end of my mission. It is a temple where endowments have been given, revelation recieved, and where Jesus Christ has appeared.)
It sounds like everybody loved the dedication. Presidents Uchtdorf and Monson are a great combination, I love both of their talks. Unfortunately we were not able to watch the dedication; we had to be about our Father's business. Which is a good thing, of course.
Thank you for your prayers. Please keep them coming. Even though I have only been here a short time, the Lord has really started showing me my weaknesses.
Helaman 13 is a great chapter. (although you guys will probably be in 3 Nephi by the time you recieve this letter. 3 Nephi is my favorite book in the Book of Mormon.) It really illustrates that the more we have been given to know about the gospel, the more responsibility we have to live by its principles and share it with others. I'm not sure if it was Joseph Smith, but one of the latter-day prophets has said that riches and pride will be one of the greatest stumbling blocks for the saints in the last days. Sometimes I wonder if we who have been born into the church truly realize the importance and eternal magnitude of the gifts that we have been given. Are we like the man in Matt 13:45-46 who after finding a "Pearl of great price" (the gospel) gave all that he had to get it, or are we more like the man in Matt 19:21-22, who when asked to forsake the world and follow Christ, was not willing to pay the price?
Good job on your Scripture reading! 5:30 a.m. is really early, but keep it up! You are coming up on some really good parts. I especially like 3 Nephi 10 and 11. They really "bring it all together" for me.
Love,
Elder Smith
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