January 8, 2018,
Dear Ones,
I can’t believe that we are eight days into the new year and I haven’t written to you all yet! My apologies. It is wonderful to live in the Technology age where I felt like I had a window into your New Years Eve celebration. Thanks, Talmage and Danae for hosting it, and thanks Sally for making the computer magic happen. At my age it was also nice to be able to turn the volume down as you rang in the new year. So fun to see you have a good time! And wonderful views of new baby Cora. What a little beauty!!
Just to follow up on my advice to think of the Book of Mormon as you plug in your phones to recharge, how about leaving your Book of Mormon by you charger. I know we all need a spiritual recharge as regularly as our phones. In Preach My Gospel there is a quote from President Gordon B Hinckley that I love, “Without reservation I promise you that if you will prayerfully read the Book of Mormon, regardless of how many times you previously have read it, there will come into your hearts . . . the Spirit of the Lord. There will come a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to his commandments, and there will come a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God.” I know as we read it’s pages the Spirit of the Lord can refine us, we will make better decisions, and we will begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Yesterday, I taught my new class about what it means to “hunger and thirst after righteousness”. We had a great story in the manual about a boy who came home to find two cookies left by his mother. One for him and one for his brother. He made a bad choice and ate them both. The lesson pointed out that righteousness is “choosing the right”. If this little boy had been as hungry to choose the right as he was hungry to eat that cookie, he would have made a better choice. I thought that was such a good definition of “hungering and thirsting after righteousness”
This was a busy week for me at the office. I needed to finish up the Mission History for 2017. I had typed up the last Zone Conferences, but I still had pictures to identify and mount. I also needed to take all the pages of the copy that is sent to Salt Lake out of their plastic covers. Salt Lake wants all the pages unconnected in any way. I am sure they probably have some way to digitalize them if they are free. The naked pages made a smaller pile that fits into a folding file. Finally, on Thursday I took both the “book that stays in the mission” and the folder of pages for Salt Lake and set them on the President’s desk. I was sure I could hear in my head a drum roll and trumpets as a gave my best effort of the year and laid it on the desk. I had to take a picture for my own scrapbook that I will enclose.
Speaking of a scrapbook, I realized that with all I have done to document the year for the mission – I had only stuffed things in a loose-leaf notebook for myself. So, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought myself a real scrapbook to put my mission memories in.
I hope all of you are off to a wonderful new beginning! I liked Sally’s goal for “the Living Christ” and Danae’s challenge to read straight through the Book of Mormon. I did that last year and found it helped to orient all that occurred into patterns. You really see the pride cycles doing it that way. I had just finished reading straight through the Institute manual on the Book of Mormon. I determined to go back and read both concurrently, so I have begun doing that at night. I am still studying in Preach My Gospel in the mornings. I love reading multiple scriptures on the same topic. I am so blessed to have time to do this. Grateful to be on this mission but will be glad to not miss family events like yesterday’s baby blessing. Love to Jeff, Cassidy, and baby Jane and to all the rest of you!
Love,
Grammie/Sister Shill
Dear Ones,
I can’t believe that we are eight days into the new year and I haven’t written to you all yet! My apologies. It is wonderful to live in the Technology age where I felt like I had a window into your New Years Eve celebration. Thanks, Talmage and Danae for hosting it, and thanks Sally for making the computer magic happen. At my age it was also nice to be able to turn the volume down as you rang in the new year. So fun to see you have a good time! And wonderful views of new baby Cora. What a little beauty!!
Just to follow up on my advice to think of the Book of Mormon as you plug in your phones to recharge, how about leaving your Book of Mormon by you charger. I know we all need a spiritual recharge as regularly as our phones. In Preach My Gospel there is a quote from President Gordon B Hinckley that I love, “Without reservation I promise you that if you will prayerfully read the Book of Mormon, regardless of how many times you previously have read it, there will come into your hearts . . . the Spirit of the Lord. There will come a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to his commandments, and there will come a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God.” I know as we read it’s pages the Spirit of the Lord can refine us, we will make better decisions, and we will begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Yesterday, I taught my new class about what it means to “hunger and thirst after righteousness”. We had a great story in the manual about a boy who came home to find two cookies left by his mother. One for him and one for his brother. He made a bad choice and ate them both. The lesson pointed out that righteousness is “choosing the right”. If this little boy had been as hungry to choose the right as he was hungry to eat that cookie, he would have made a better choice. I thought that was such a good definition of “hungering and thirsting after righteousness”
This was a busy week for me at the office. I needed to finish up the Mission History for 2017. I had typed up the last Zone Conferences, but I still had pictures to identify and mount. I also needed to take all the pages of the copy that is sent to Salt Lake out of their plastic covers. Salt Lake wants all the pages unconnected in any way. I am sure they probably have some way to digitalize them if they are free. The naked pages made a smaller pile that fits into a folding file. Finally, on Thursday I took both the “book that stays in the mission” and the folder of pages for Salt Lake and set them on the President’s desk. I was sure I could hear in my head a drum roll and trumpets as a gave my best effort of the year and laid it on the desk. I had to take a picture for my own scrapbook that I will enclose.
Speaking of a scrapbook, I realized that with all I have done to document the year for the mission – I had only stuffed things in a loose-leaf notebook for myself. So, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought myself a real scrapbook to put my mission memories in.
I hope all of you are off to a wonderful new beginning! I liked Sally’s goal for “the Living Christ” and Danae’s challenge to read straight through the Book of Mormon. I did that last year and found it helped to orient all that occurred into patterns. You really see the pride cycles doing it that way. I had just finished reading straight through the Institute manual on the Book of Mormon. I determined to go back and read both concurrently, so I have begun doing that at night. I am still studying in Preach My Gospel in the mornings. I love reading multiple scriptures on the same topic. I am so blessed to have time to do this. Grateful to be on this mission but will be glad to not miss family events like yesterday’s baby blessing. Love to Jeff, Cassidy, and baby Jane and to all the rest of you!
Love,
Grammie/Sister Shill
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