Dear Dad,
Wow that sounds like such a blessing having that golf trip!! I'm so glad you gents were able to unwind for a season and enjoy each other's company and spirit! That makes me so happy that you're getting a break every once in a while from your labors! Tell the Bishop I love him and thank the Lord (almost) every night for him!! He's truly an inspired man and has been a huge blessing and influence for good in my life! He deserves a lot of love :)
I loved the quote from CS Lewis!! What quote from him isn't good I guess is the question. haha And that thing about clouding our eternal perspective is so good! That's a huge tactic the father of LIES uses!! He's constantly trying to destroy our agency I've come to realize while teaching people. Take any sin, and I'll point out at least 2 ways it's destroying your agency. This is God's greatest gift to us. Even Eternal Life can't be granted. Only through the gift of agency can we attain it! I guess a really close second is the gift of the Holy Ghost and covenants, but they require agency on our part again!
We had such an amazing lesson with this lady about the Plan of Happiness! First, when I prayed to know what to teach her, I opened with prayer then started to ask what we should teach. "Plan of salvation" I just wanna be sure... "plan of salvation" should we teach the gospel of Jesus Christ? " ...ABSOLUTELY nothing. Couldn't even feel the spirit". I thought, well I guess we're teaching the Restoration! haha We talked with her for about 10 minutes about her life (listening to the spirit). When we told her how the Plan of Happiness would answer some of her questions and silence a lot of her worries about this life, we started! When we told her that we used to live with God before this life, she was sooo surprised, but soooo excited!!! She said it really, really made sense. But she asked at least 100 times if we really did?! Then, as we went step by tiny step through the plan (it took about an hour and a half of meaningful discussion to get tot he 3 degrees of glory) she was hyped on life!! She couldn't believe what we were telling her!! She loved it sooo much and wanted it to be true soooo badly! It just really made me realize how we, as children of God recognize truth when it comes, because it's familiar to us. It's a gift from God to be able to feel truth! IT was amazing!
(to tanner) The baptism went soo great!!! ish...wow I just wish you coulda been there to see this! I'll get a hold of the pictures next week, but Sydney asked me to baptize him! What an honor that was! So we practice the hand-hold and what's gonna go down in the font, but when I finish the prayer, and go to baptize him, he wouldn't go back! Instead, he was fighting me to get on his knees! I was like "oh man, he just wants to go in vertically!! That still counts, right!?!?" But he got to his knees, then went back, and I felt like I almost drowned him trying to get everything submerged at one time! haha It was not your dream baptism, haha but then it was, because when I helped him to his feet, he turned and smiled a smile at me that I'll never forget. Who knew you could feel the spirit from a smile?? haha Then when we were getting changed, I asked him how he felt, and he said that felt whole, like a hole was filled that he didn't know was empty. That was really profound. What a blessing that was!
p.s. I love hearing updates about how Highland's doing! So, even though I don't respond to them mostly (focused on the work/no time) I appreciate them!
Love
Elder Judy
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