"He will rule as King of Kings and reign as Lord of Lords" (The Living Christ - The Testimony of the Apostles) - August 9, 2021

 Spiritual Thought

The reality of our mortal existence is that the world we now live in is fallen.  Mortality is being experienced in the Telestial world, not yet the Celestial.  Inherent to such a state is the reality that we are subject to all of the heartache and sorrow that accompany an imperfect world.  Satan has been given power to tempt and deceive all who enter this experience.  None of us will escape the feelings of betrayal, grief, and sorrow.  Sickness plagues far too many and evil men inflict harm on those around them.  However, the reality which gives hope to these fallen circumstances is that we are anxiously awaiting and preparing for the return of the Hope of the World.  What a day that will be!  In that day when "He will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords" (The Living Christ). His coming will not be relegated to a stable floor and the cold cradle of a manger.  He will come in power and glory.  In that day the heavens will be His throne and the earth His footstool.  In that day His coming will not be attended by mere livestock.  Rather, all flesh will see Him together.  All will know of His coming and all will bow before Him.  In that day sorrow and sadness will come to a close.  In that day sickness and suffering will be done away.  In that day every wrong that has befallen the faithful will be made right.  In that day each of us will look into His loving eyes and answer to Him for our choices made in mortality.  May each of us diligently prepare for that coming day.

The subject for this week's thought is taken from a document entitled "The Living Christ - The Testimony of the Apostles".  This document was released on January 1, 2000 in commemoration of the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ.  As the title implies, The Living Christ is the testimony of each of the apostles and bears their signatures.  I invite each of you to incorporate this document into your gospel study this week.  I possess a deep love for this testimony.  I do not carry with me the title of apostle, nor do I ever wish to seem to aspire to such a responsibility.  However, I, along with all others who have accepted the covenant of baptism, carry with me the solemn obligation to stand as a witness of Christ at all times and in all things and in all places.  In light of this responsibility, I wish to symbolically add my signature to the bottom of this document and testify to the authenticity of all that this testimony entails.  Jesus is the Christ.  He is the Living Son of the Living God.  Only through the ordinances and covenants of His Gospel may each of us return to Him.  He will one day return to the earth to accept His kingdom.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

Weekly Update

Hello everyone,

This week has been, at the same time, both incredibly uneventful and also extremely interesting.  Many of the people we are teaching are out of town before school starts again.  We are hoping that we will be able to teach more regularly in a week or two when school starts.  

Elder Divelbiss and I are teaching a nine year old girl.  She has been taught for almost a year now.  During that time she has learned everything necessary for baptism and has progressed very well.  The only thing stopping her from being baptized is that her dad will not bring her to church.  The home she comes from is extremely dysfunctional, to phrase it delicately.  Her dad claims that he stopped using hard drugs five years ago but everyone who knows him doubts that is true.  He has openly admitted that he does not want a stable job because it will keep him tied down.  He typically feeds his two kids on twinkies, gatorade, and caffeine (his own words).  I could go on but you get the picture.

One of the days this week a woman who lives in his same apartment complex flagged us down.  She asked if we visit with this person and what we knew of the situation.  We told her what we are allowed to.  She then told us that she is very confident that the dad is selling drugs.  People will go into his apartment at strange hours, spend five minutes or less inside, then come out and leave.  She says she can frequently smell marijuana and meth coming from inside the house.  She also suspects that the children are being abused.  In the next few days she is most likely going to call child services.  This person has already had his children taken away once so the odds are not in his favor.  There is a chance that we would have to testify in court which would be sad but also exciting because the trial would be in Salt Lake and we would get to leave the mission. We will see what happens as far as that is concerned.

We received a referral yesterday for someone named Adrian from Hong Kong.  We called the person who sent the referral and they said that they were the Uber driver who took him to an AirBNB in our area.  They talked about the gospel on the drive and Adrian mentioned he had read The Book of Mormon like it was a novel.  He seemed interested in learning more.  There were some problems with the address but we ended up figuring out which was the correct house.  There is a lady that goes to the Spanish ward and rents her basement as an AirBNB.  We were really excited until the story started to unravel.  The person staying at the AirBNB was from Hong Kong but was named Marco, not Adrian.  This lady texted him to tell him we were there and his response was "I didn't ask for missionaries.  I don't want any religion.  Tell them to go away."  It is confusing as to why the two stories are so different.

 Also, our district leader had his car taken away this week.  There is never a dull moment as a missionary!

I am reading back over this email and realizing that all of my stories sound really depressing.  I promise that this week was not as gloomy as the email may sound but what I have written about is the most exciting parts.  Hopefully I will have stories that sound a little more cheerful next week!

I hope you all have a great week,

Elder Payne

We saw a snake on Saturday so I decided to pick it up.  Elder Schiel has now started calling me "Crocodile Dundee". 

The snake before I picked it up.

There was a tremendous amount of smoke in the air on Friday from a fire that started in Parley's canyon.  This picture doesn't do it justice.  You could not see the mountains at all.  Someone told us that for a few hours Salt Lake had the worst air quality in the United States.

This week there were three deer in a field we walk by.  This is a female (doe) and two babies (fawns).  The doe is the furthest on the right.

We drove past the construction site for the Layton temple last P-day.  Sis.  Johnson said that it is supposed to be dedicated next fall and that missionaries will be very involved in everything leading up to it.  They will also be given VIP tours of the temple.  I hope I make it to Madagascar but it would also be fun to be here for the open house.

The entire mission went to see "Witnesses" last P-day.  It was neat to see the story of the three witnesses depicted.  I have heard from someone who will remain anonymous that the actors on this poster are hot.  All I will say is that the actor for Joseph Smith has a seriously chiseled jawline and kept flexing it the entire movie.