Hi, everyone. Don is adding a note, rare as this is--or may be. We are winding down our preparations to get everything ready to leave. Both houses, cars and stuff. But we are getting more excited about the mission every day. The Lord must laugh at us on a regular basis and extends His patience to us as we work through our fears and all of the things we deem important to do before we leave. Portia made a great dinner for Father's day and added a fantastic new device as a Father's Day gift. She gave me a KINDLE. Amazon.com's new electronic book reader that allows one to down load books electronically. It is quite a new gadget and I had a great time getting it to work and now have the scriptures, Glen Beck, and a book on ending overeating in America. This will be my pass-time activity on the flight to London.

I taught the High Priest's Quorum this past Sunday. The lesson was on The Redemption of the Dead. Such wonderful and just doctrine revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I found that Paradise is a place where the Spirit of the Gospel is present in its fullness. Those there have the gospel and are living it. They are out of the influence of Satan. All other spirits reside in "hell" or spiritual darkness, a place of suffering and torment, but more a place of great learning, repentance and change. As they have the gospel preached to them and upon there repentance and worthiness they are allowed to accept the ordinances of vicarious baptism and are set free of this prison, this hell, and are allowed to reside in paradise. See Thoughts on Redemption of the Dead in the side column for a more comprehensive look at this subject.

We are learning a great deal from Preach My Gospel. I wish this had been used when I was on my first mission some 45 years ago in Germany. We love you all and are firm in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. He it is that loves us and is our hope. In deed we are, like the Primary song, "trying to be like Jesus."