"Meet the Mormons"

We were privileged to attend a preview of "Meet the Mormons". It was so inspiring and worth watching. It will be in theaters Oct 10th. When people watch it, they will find out who we really are. We are all individuals striving to live gospel principles established by Jesus Christ himself. 

Watching it really helped me realize the diversity in the church. We as members need to embrace all those coming unto Christ and check our own attitudes about stereotyping others or deciding who fits in the church and who doesn't. If anyone thinks they do not fit, they are wrong. There is room for all the children of God in His Church, if they so choose to follow His commandments.

The theater was filled to capacity and some were standing along the sides of the entry hall. They had to turn many that were on standby away. All the money earned by this movie will be donated to charity. 

Fun night!

Following is part of a Letter I sent to my family & friends telling them some other happenings!

• attended our first district meeting - so fun to be with the Elders and Sisters and feel the strength of their testimonies in God and His Son Jesus Christ. They even ask our advice.
• Richard and I took part in the preparation meeting teaching about “receiving answers to prayers”.
• did sealings in the Mesa Temple with with our friends - their family names - special
• made it through the oral surgery without any problems- will have a new tooth implant before I get home - missionary discount was about half-price, a blessing it broke here in a way?
• Went to the mission tour and heard from Elder Gregory Schwitzer from the seventy and his wife. They were so inspirational. They taught us how to treat new converts. Like the parable of the lost sheep, Christ carried home the lost sheep on his shoulders comforting him all the way, he didn’t just toss him in the flock to figure it out by himself, he put him in the middle of them for comfort and protection. Food for thought.
• Having missionaries over for dinner often. Six go home in October. I try to have them all to dinner before they leave. Also, we share dinners with other seniors and ward missionaries. 
• Some new missionaries moved into the condos and we took them around a little to get them acclimated and find their office and took them to the FHE.
• We had two great Family Home Evenings. The first one we talked about the Rome Visitors Center with a power-point presentation. It has an amazing story of what went in to securing that facility and the temple there. The second one our Mission President shared a video of service dentists facilitate in 3rd world countries. We saw our Stake President from North Ogden, Paul Mackley, and his wife in the video. They were there with our mission president who is also a dentist. I think that is when our stake sent several quilts with him to donate. They all take items to give away. These people have no dental care. Without this service the youth can not be prepared to serve missions so it is a two-fold service. They set up in a church and turn it into a hospital/dental facility and do all sorts of oral surgery and dental work for 12 hours a day for 10 days. They go every 6 months and rotate locations. They had 101 volunteers that year. They see hundreds of people. The equipment is stored overseas and trucked to location. The organization is unbelievable! The video we saw was from Nicaragua in 2010. One surgeon found a tumor on a local missionary they saw because some scheduled persons did not show up (not a coincidence). He would have died from it. It was in his jaw. After surgery and treatment he was able to finish his mission.
• Elder Russell M Nelson, one of the quorum of the twelve apostles came to speak to us on Sat. Also from the seventy was Elder Bradley Foster and Elder Hansen. There were two missions, Scottsdale and Mesa, over 500 missionaries in attendance. The spirit was powerful. We were instructed, encouraged and inspired to live better lives. We were told to love our companions, be obedient, and accomplish much. Elder Nelson said “exact obedience brings miracles”, and “God uses the unlikely to accomplish the impossible.” Another gem is that “if we love the Lord first our capacity to love others increases.” The first 25 minutes of the meeting the three men shook every missionaries hand. Having them here to share the love of the Lord with us and the love from our Prophet is so uplifting. Elder Foster said to think about all the people who are praying for us. That is a great feeling. 
• The record rainfall of 4.41 inches caused havoc in Mesa and surrounding areas. We had no problems in the VC. The storage annex did flood but nothing we had stored out there got ruined. No problems at the temple either. Nothing like this last year when we were here. We are looking forward to cooler temps in the 90’s maybe? Oh 80’s would be even better. 
• Getting lots of questions about the Phoenix temple which begins their open house in Oct. I wonder if it will be as big as the Gilbert visitors was. 

Besides the normal meetings, daily missionary work, study, prayer, feeding missionaries, temple work, genealogy, cleaning the VC kitchen, ordering materials, scheduling, charts, other duties as assigned, these were the extras.