An Allegory

There once was a man who wanted to find gold. He looked over the land and found a promising spot an built a cabin. He was upstream from an area where gold was found. He would go looking for gold and one day the wind blew a lot of tumbleweeds on his property so they covered half of his house. He spent some time getting rid of them. They came every year and kept him from looking for gold for a while.
Occasionally there would be hailstorms which kept him from his goal.
In the winter snow covered the ground it was hard to look for gold then.

Years passed and he died. He had requested to be buried on his property.

They dug a grave and were surprised to see about 2 feet down there was a big load of gold. He had the gold all the time but did not look in the right place. He only needed to dig a bit in the right place.

Each of you purchased the property (the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In order to gain a firm unshakable testimony you have to dig in the right place by reading the scriptures and pondering and praying.
The distractions that come in ever increasing numbers and variety are represented by the tumbleweeds, hail, and snow storms keep people from finding the gold of unshakable conversion.

When one goes to the internet or listens to podcasts it is often the winds of adversity which keeps us from listening to the spirit. Christ promised us that He would not leave is comfortless.

Using the revealed words of the scriptures we can have the spirit of the Lord to assure us of the gold of the gospel. We will not have to wait until we are in the spirit world to realize we were sitting on the gold all the time.

There will always be opposition to the truth. There are only two choices: God or Satan.

It had been prophesied that in these days and those that follow we will not be able to live on borrowed light. We will have to receive the gold by reading to scriptures and following the prophet.

Find the gold.

Love,
Grandpa

Walking Dead

 No this is not a commentary on the comic book series or the movie.

This is about mortality. Man is created with a body and then the Lord placed a spirit into the body, so we live in a mortal world with two bodies.

You can probably see where this post is going.

I read the news on four sites. There are a number of articles about people who are the walking dead. They shoot and kill. They rob and shoplift. They get drunk and get impaired and drive and kill or injure people. They abuse spouse and children. They are immoral and run the risk of serious disease. They try to change the way they were created by their Father in Heaven.

How do they bring their spiritual body back to life?

When we try to resuscitate a mortal body we use artificial respiration and we may try cardio version by applying an electric shock to the heart.

The way to resuscitate the spirit is to turn the heart to the Lord by keeping the commandments and repentance. Then place the spiritual feet on the covenant path. The mortal feet allow us to move forward. Thus to regain spiritual life we need spiritual feet to lead us forward. Next we move up the spiritual body to the heart. We have to turn our hearts to the Lord for a cardio version.

Thus we can no longer be the walking dead.



They are the walking dead. Their bodies are living, but their spirits are dead as to what is their potential and how the Lord created them.

Transmitter Receiver

 I have on my iPhone an app called find my friends. With it I can track the location of my children and those that allow me to follow them. If they turn off their phones I can no longer see where they are. If my phone is off then they can’t see where I am. Each phone is a transmitter and a receiver.

This is a little like our communication with our Father In Heaven. The Holy Ghost is like the internet enabling
two way communication with Heavenly Father.

To turn off the voice of the Holy Ghost we just need to stop our transmission of prayer and reading the scriptures. Our location transmission is always on. The Lord always knows where we are and what we are saying. We cannot hide from Him. That is how He cares for His children.

In order to receive transmission from our Father we have to tune in to the proper frequency. When I was growing up we had a radio with a dial we could turn to listen to different broadcast stations

One of the message on one station said, Don’t touch that dial. Listen to Blondie”.
Some times there was a loud noise that made it difficult to hear. We called that static.

By transgressing the Lord’s commandments we introduce static in the reception from the Holy Ghost and so we change the channel and lose the message from God and listen to worldly voices.

The more we pray and prepare for inspiration by immersing ourselves in the word of God to recognize His voice the clearer the transmission will be and clear up the static.

The Supposed Calling Envy

There is no inequality in the gospel of Jesus Christ and his true church. All are children of God and are equal before him as long as we keep His commandments.
Let me illustrate how inappropriate thinking can keep us from understanding how the Lord administers His kingdom.

Before we moved to Lander the stake president needed to call a bishop to serve in the Lander first ward. He and his counselors cleared the individual with the high council and submitted the recommendation to the first presidency. He then informed the individual to expect the call. The first presidency informed the stake president the he should find another candidate, because this man was employed at a job that required him to work on Sunday. That was a big blow to the man. He later served on the high council. When I was the stake president the stake Sunday school president moved and we needed to replace him. I felt inspired to call this brother to serve in that calling. I understood that he felt that this was a demotion and shortly after this he moved to the big horn basin I heard that he had hard feelings toward me. He didn’t know that he was no less serviceable in that position.

We had a neighbor who went to high school with me. She was much younger and we went to church together. She married in the Idaho Falls temple the same day we were married. Her father was at one time on the high council. After awhile she was upset that her husband was not “promoted “ to a leadership position in the church. They eventually divorced and he married a girl that I took to a high school dance on my return from my mission in 1957. She joined the church and as far as I know she is active even after he died two years ago. The first wife is inactive.

We do not have a church where every member is unimportant.
We need every calling and they are needed for the body of Christ. Metaphorically speaking we cannot be without a single toe.