second day at the MTC Provo

Well we received our flight plans today.  They had us flying out on the 20 but changed that since we had already done our medical training.  We fly out on Saturday morning and arrive in Mexico on a nonstop flight arriving at about 3:00 pm.  OK I hope I am ready for that  I need to learn Spanish big time and I would love to be able to practice the piano just 20 minutes a day.

I have a goal to be useful everyday.  I would like to feel confident to be able to teach the gospel to investigators and I want to be able to help the young elders and sisters feel good about their missions.  From what I have seen at the MTC in Provo those young people are on fire and are ready and willing and capable of being disciples of Christ.  I am going to have to take a lesson from them about commitment and enthusiasm to spread the gospel. 



We had a wonderful devotional tonight by the general Relief Society President, Lind K. Burton and her husband. She and her husband have served as mission presidents in Korea.  Dennis sand in the choir and it sounded great.  She told us about listening to the spirit and doing as prompted.  She mentioned that she was to speak in the last general conference right after president Boyd K. Packer.  She was given the last two paragraphs of his talk and could see the teleprompter so she knew when to walk down and be ready to speak.  After his last two paragraphs he continued to speak and she pointed out that what he said was prompted by the spirit.  Then she read to us what he said that was not in the original talk it was impressive.  I have printed in bold that which impressed me the most and which was the point I think she wanted to emphasize. 



" I bear witness that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of the living God. He stands at the head of the Church. Through His Atonement and the power of the priesthood, families which are begun in mortality can be together through the eternities. The Atonement, which can reclaim each one of us, bears no scars. That means that no matter what we have done or where we have been or how something happened, if we truly repent, He has promised that He would atone. And when He atoned, that settled that. There are so many of us who are thrashing around, as it were, with feelings of guilt, not knowing quite how to escape. You escape by accepting the Atonement of Christ, and all that was heartache can turn to beauty and love and eternity.

I am so grateful for the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the power of procreation, for the power of redemption, for the Atonement—the Atonement which can wash clean every stain no matter how difficult or how long or how many times repeated. The Atonement can put you free again to move forward, cleanly and worthily, to pursue that path that you have chosen in life.

I bear witness that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that the Atonement is not a general thing that is for the whole Church. The Atonement is individual, and if you have something that is bothering you—sometimes so long ago you can hardly remember it—put the Atonement to work. It will clean it up, and you, as does He, will remember your sins no more. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Brother Craig P. Burton was also very effective in speaking to the missionaries.  He spoke of growing as you domissionary work.