Beneath the Wraps

  On Friday one of the counselors had called Richard about another matter but ended up asking if he could give a talk yesterday.   The theme for the talk was to be Doctrine and Covenants section 19 as this is the reading topic for last week’s Come Follow Me.  Richard based his talk on one of Scott Woodward’s videos here *.    I really enjoyed the last speaker’s talk.   She said she had wanted to speak on Section 18, particularly 9-16 ( here ) focusing on the worth of souls.   During the course of her talk she used two different parables.   The first of these parables is found in Matthew 20:1-6.   It is one I’ve mentioned before in this post.   It doesn’t matter what hour we enter the vineyard, our worth is the same.      She also mentioned the Good Samaritan found in Luke 10.  She read some and paraphrased some – never using actual names; she is not that kind of person to point fingers – and yet I heard them...

               We had another convert baptism in our ward today.  Two of his cousins were baptized over a year ago.  Their mom is a member but does not attend as English is not her native language and so she does not always understand what is being said.  All of her children are bilingual.             The member who gave the first talk felt prompted to bear his testimony in Spanish.   The Spirit was louder than his words (for me) and tugged at my heart strings (which evidently are wired directly to my tear ducts) and I was touched.   I think the family was as well.            I thought about many primary baptisms I ’ ve attended in the last ward I was in – all of which I have mentioned in various posts.  The bishop ’ s son made a paper airplane out of the program which reminded me of the most irreverent baptism I ’ ve ever attended.  I was also remi...

          On Sunday we drove to the Big City of Roseburg to attend a special conference for several regions in the northwest.  Most of the meeting was televised, but we did manage to get a seat in the chapel rather than what Roland calls the “nose bleed seats”.  I also saw at least six other people from our ward seated in the chapel.           Our stake president started off the meeting before the broadcast was aired.  I enjoy listening to our stake president.  He gave a comparison of feeding a campfire to fueling our own testimonies.  The choir sang a number and then the broadcast was shown after a long five-minute countdown.            It was announced that the broadcast was coming from the Conference Center – though I don’t know which part of the Conference Center – not what one normally thinks of when hearing “Conference Center” – ...