Sundays

Sundays are my favorite day of the week. Yesterday was spectacular again. After clearing snow from the walks of our church at 7:30 am, I spent the next couple of hours just relaxing; reading the paper, listening to Christmas music, and getting ready for church. Church started at 11 am. The first hour and ten minutes was our Sacrament Meeting. In Sacrament meeting we listen to a couple of speakers, partake of the sacrament, sing hymns and pray. Today we listened to a recently returned missionary, James Scott, tell of the remarkable experiences that he had serving the people in Paraguay for the last 2 years. We then heard from an Apostle of the Lord, Elder Richard G. Scott, an Uncle to James. Both of them gave wonderful messages. The message that I took home from James was to "read, pray and obey". In other words, his mission was very successful because he first studied the Gospel of Jesus Christ; he then prayed about it; and he then was obedient to Christ's teachings. As a result he was able to change his own life for the better, and he was able to share that joy of change with the people of Paraguay. The message that I took home from Elder Richard G. Scott was to appreciate and marvel about the creations of God. He said that we should contemplate the goodness and the greatness of God. Basically, it is incomprehensible for us to completely understand the creations of God; like the creation of our world, of galaxies, of eternity and of the plan of happiness, which is here for us. After Sacrament Meeting, we were taught for about 40 minutes about the apostasy, as prophesied in the New Testament, and about the teachings of the apostasy and of a restoration as recorded in the New Testament. This instruction was given by another of God's servants, Elder John Madsen. I came home with a greater appreciation of the word's of Christ, Paul, Peter, Jude and John from the New Testament, and with a greater appreciation for the great work that the Lord asked Joseph Smith to accomplish, as the one called to restore all things in these days. We then spent another 45 minutes listening to a neighbor, Dana Tangren, teach us about managing our time in a way consistant with the teachings of Christ. He used a talk entitled "Good, Better, Best" by another Apostle of the Lord, Elder Dallin Oaks, as the basis of his instruction. I took away from this lesson the importance of prioritizing the many good things that we can be doing with our time, trying to make sure that we keep a proper order of our many responsibilities and spend the appropriate time on things that are most important, like our families.

After this wonderful three hour block of worship, a few of us cleared the walks around the church again from about another new 4 inches of snow.

We then went home and cleared more snow from our sidewalks and driveways, after which, we spent time with our family, visiting and playing games. It was a wonderful day.