NEWS of the WEEK

This week has just flown by.  It has been MOVES week, Transfers week.  Left:  one our our favorites, AP Elder Paul Jentzsch from Germany.  

Six of our best missionaries were given honorable releases and have flown home.  

And we have another new Assistant to the President. Below:  New AP Kirk Katseanes with AP Mason Zemp

Four new missionaries, two elders and two sisters, arrived yesterday.  There has been much activity in the office.  We've had fun and been BUSY!  

And yet our minds have been drawn more and more to spiritual spheres....  We have increased our efforts to be more faithful, prayerful, obedient ....  It is wonderful.  It is more humbling than we have words to express.  

Also, we are preparing ourselves to fast for several purposes this Sunday:  for our children, individually; for those we know who are struggling with difficulties; and for a replacement office couple to be found who can come to England and be able to afford to live here, and arrive here ahead of our release with, we hope, about a month's time for us to train them.  

Because of these things, taking the Sacrament on Sunday is becoming more meaningful in recent weeks, and so what we are including in the blog this week will be something different:  a quote from Elder David B. Haight that we hope will touch you as it has touched and instructed us.  We love you all and appreciate your support.

"Living God's commandments obligates a person to a life of goodness—goodness to society and a genuine helpfulness to humanity, and excluding from one's life hatred, enmity, immorality, selfishness, drunkenness, jealousy, and dishonesty. "May we experience the joy of regular attendance at sacrament meeting and feel the blessings of eternal progression in our personal lives through wholehearted compliance, in spirit and actions, with the sacred words of the sacrament. "The Prophet Joseph Smith taught: 'Reading the experience of others, . . . can never give us a comprehensive view of our condition and true relation to God. Knowledge of these things can only be obtained by experience through the ordinances of God set forth for that purpose. Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject.' (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938, p. 324.) "The sacrament is one ordinance that allows us to experience a personal relationship to God and enlarges our knowledge and understanding of Him and His Only Begotten Son. "Our personal reward for compliance with the covenants and obligations in the ordinance of the sacrament becomes the companionship of God's Holy Spirit. This is the light that leads to eternal life. The divine virtues associated with the partaking of the Lord's Supper are to keep His divine life ever in mind; to love the Lord with all our heart, might, mind, and strength; and to labor to bring to pass His ultimate purpose—the eternal life of man."  [Elder David B. Haight, Ensign, The Sacrament, May 1983, p. 14]

We pray for blessings upon your heads, even a multiplicity of blessings.  We pray for your own progression in relationships with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, and with the Holy Ghost, whose companionship we cherish.  We sent you our love.  We bear you our testimony of the truthfulness of the Word of God in the scriptures and in the Gospel we practice and preach.  We know these things to be true, and to be great blessings in our lives.  And we pray for you and hope for you a 'heart/soul/spirit-touching' experience this week, that you may know the love of God for you individually.  Elder and Sister Hawley