Week 57 in the Field - Divorce, Bee Hives, and Humility

Weekly Letter November 23rd
2015

Hey everyone, hope you've all had a fantastic week.

We've had kind of a wild week over here. Just about all of our investigators have problems with the law of chastity and need to get married or need to get divorced with their former spouse and then married with the current one. One of our investigators in fourteen and pregnant. One of our ward's recent converts was about to get his endowments but today, after a year of sobriety, he fell back into his old alcoholism. We had a beehive at our house and I sprayed it with bug spray and knocked it down, luckily only getting stung once. Anyways, crazy week.

On the bright side we had a week full of great ward activities. Monday was a ward family home evening, Tuesday ward temple trip, Wednesday bonfire and dodgeball, Thursday movie night, Friday talent show, Saturday pot-luck dinner and Sunday ward conference. We had six investigators at church and found seven new investigators. This week was like the Book of Mormon say, "And they did fellowship one with another, and did rejoice one with another, and did have great joy." (Helaman 6:3)

This week I'd like to comment a little bit on Helaman 4:13. In chapter 4 of Heleman the Nephites go to war with the Lamanites; but because of the wickedness of the Nephites the Lord ceases to bless them and protect them. The verse reads:

"And because of this their great wickedness, and their boastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength; therefore they did not prosper, but were afflicted and smittten..."

It was interesting to come across this verse this week in my personal study and read a related story in my ancestor Benjamn Franklin Johnson's book My Life's Review. At this point in his life Benejamin is in his early twenties and is serving a mission sometime around 1841. He finds a good field of labor in Union District, some miles north of Tononto. "I preached twice a week to large congregations," he writes, "and perhaps began to feel a degree of self importance not approved of by the Lord." In one occasion, Benejamin planned to address his congregation and speak about the prophecy of Daniel. "With a degree of self-confidence," he says, "I went to the stand with a feeling akin to exultation in the large congregation, and in what I felt so sure I should be able to say to them. I opened the meeting as usual, took my Bible and began to read from Daniel, but the scripture that had seemed so full of light was now dark. I turned to others, but all were dark. The light of the Lord had left me, and I stood there alone before that large congregation, alone in my own strength, and in my nakedness I almost felt a horror of myself. I stood there speechless, and mortified. And oh, the sense of ingratitude to the Lord that came over me. To think that He had helped me, and that all I was He had made me, and now I stood there in my own strength, and was humbled to the dust...I was but a plow boy sent out like the apostles of old, to preach by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and that without it, I was nothing."

Bejamin later asks God for forgiveness and receives the spirit again. In fact, just a short time following this incident, he has the spirit so abundantly that he preaches to a tribe of Mohawk Indians in their native language through the Gift of Tongues. But certainly in this occasion Benjamin learned the truthfulness of the Lord's warning in D&C 42:14 "And the Spirit shall be given unto you by the prayer of faith; and if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach."

Surely we must show gratitude to the Lord for what he gives us. If we fail to do so, God may leave us alone to show us how much we really do need him. President Joseph F. Smith taught, "The spirit of gratitude is always pleasant and satisfying because it carries with it a sense of helpfulness to others; it begets love and friendship, and engenders divine influence. Gratitude is said to be the memory of the heart. And where there is an absence of gratitude either to God or man, there is the presence of vanity and self-sufficiency."

Thomas Gibbons expresses the ungrateful man thusly:

That man may last, but never lives,
Who much receives, but nothing gives;
Whom non can love, whom noe can thank,
Creation's blot, creation's blank.

Let us all be more grateful towards the Lord for our bounteous blessings. As we do so we will surely be blessed with his spirit and will not be left alone.

I love you all, have a great week.

-Elder Dawson

Beehive in our House

Ward Talent Show

To Mom:

Is your zone/district going to get together to do anything? 

We are going to buy pumpkin pie and see if we can make funeral potatoes in the oven at the stake center. Turkeys are really expensive here but we might buy a chicken.

To Grandma:

Just wondering if you ever get to accompany on the piano at your meetings?  

No. There is a piano (but not an organ) but no one knows how to play. Fortunately it comes with all the hyms on it so you just find the hyms and press play and it plays itself basically. So we have a ward "pianist" but he just presses play on the hyms. I don´t have any time to practice so I never play hymns.

Also, were The photos you sent from the Mall---Is that Mall new or is it the one with a really nice theater in it? 

That mall is new, it opened less than a month ago. You may have went to Miraflores or Metra Norte? 

Any requests for your Christmas package?  Did your seeds produce anything?

If you could send some pictures that would be cool. Not sure if you still have pictures from the trips Jayden and I took with you guys when we were kids? We have the supplies for the garden project but we need to set apart some time to plant still.