Spain 44th Week 16-22 Feb 09

Spain 44th Week 16-22 Feb 2009

Well, another week has come and gone! I know we only wrote the last blog a couple of days ago. This week was a very spiritual week as we had the opportunity to spend some time with Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife. President Robert C. Oaks, president of the European area, and his wife also attended. They arrived on Tuesday, came to the Temple for the 4:00 pm session (Tom had the experience of working very closely with them while they were in the Temple) then later that night they held a meeting for all Temple workers and their spouses. It was incredible and they spoke directly to the point of Temple worship and the blessing that are available to us as we faithfully attend.

Elder Bednar said many things that really hit home and made us appreciate the blessings that we have and can receive while serving in the Temple. With everyone present having a temple recommend, he could really talk candidly with us and we all came away with a greater love and understanding for the temple ordinances. He spoke of the difference between a faithful saint that suddenly appears and rushes into the Temple without prior planning or preparation and the one that faithfully attends/worships in the Temple being properly prepared and ready to listen and learn to and from the spirit. I think back and wonder how many times I had done exactly what he described? He also spoke about the Book of Mormon and Lehi’s dream and the number of times that Nephi is told to “look.” He spoke of the Temple being the Lord’s university on the earth and that we had opportunity to receive personal revelation. The interesting point was that most of the time we always want and expect to receive revelation/answers to our questions/prayers….but, many times we receive revelation/inspiration to ask or to know the questions that we should be asking, studying, pondering and praying about. This is not rocket science, but it really hit home with me. I know I have struggled on occasion wondering why I haven’t received answers to my questions, I now understand that perhaps I was not even asking the correct question and the inspiration that I was receiving was not properly interpreted because I was looking for something else-interesting point to ponder.

The following night, Wednesday, they held another meeting with all of the members from the Madrid area….it was more packed than stake conference had been and that was standing room only. He allowed the audience to ask questions for nearly two hours. We didn’t know prior, but the question was asked about how long someone should have to wait for their spouse to accept the gospel before taking other steps. He responded “isn’t it interesting that the Lord would send one of His Apostles here to answer this one question.” He comes from a family where it took his father 44 years to accept the gospel. His mother and siblings had been members for this entire time, but he would not budge even though he attended church every week with his family. His point was that he is the only current Apostle who did not come from an active family and that he had personal insight into this very question. His response was simple, yet pure “Our Father in Heaven is patient, He loves each one of us as His children, but will not force anyone to do something-that would be contrary to His teachings/law. “ He continued saying “his family truly tried to be an example, faithfully fulfilling all assignments, encouraging participation and being patient with his father and over time he [father] felt the spirit and one day called and asked David to come and baptize someone…to his amazement it was to baptize him“- this was the biggest shock of his life up until that time. There are many other things that we said, but none would be appropriate for the blog. By the way, Wednesday during the day, he spent three hours with the missionaries from the Madrid mission and the MTC missionaries, they said the time spent was truly magnificent. On Thursday, he and his party were off to Granada to meet with the members, on Friday he met with the members in Cadiz, then on Saturday and today he was at the stake conference in Sevilla. What a blessing it was to the members and missionaries in Spain to actually see and feel of spirit of one of the Lord’s anointed.

Last Monday, at Family Home Evening we had a treat in hearing from a retired church employee, Steve Clawson, who now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. He had been employed by the church for about 25 years and had been directly involved with the making of the Temple films and languages. I can’t say too much excepting that it was really amazing and you could definitely see the hand of the Lord in the production of the films. Just a note, the film is now available in over 80 languages.

The members from Cadiz were in town this week, they brought many workers (more than we have ever had from one area) for most of the week. It was really good to watch their Temple workers accomplish a lot of the work that the Temple Missionaries typically have to accomplish. Many of them departed for home (6-8 drive) on Friday so they could participate in the meeting with Elder Bednar and President Oaks that night.

Today, we had the privilege of speaking to the missionaries in the MTC. There are about 20 Elders and Sisters at this time (five of the Elders and one sister are here from the Russia, St. Petersburg Mission for their visa renewal). There is an amazingly strong spirit in the MTC and it radiates throughout our building and the entire Temple plaza. This is the fourth time we have spoken and they haven’t thrown rotten tomatoes at us yet? It’s kind of neat to be able to give basically the same talk every six weeks (with slight improvements) to a new group of missionaries. Today, the spirit was particularly strong and you could see that all of us were touched. After the meeting we were invited to eat with them, President Gene Hill and Sister Joan, his wife. Later tonight we went, as usual, to listen to their weekly Sunday evening concert in the plaza of the Temple.

We are so blessed to be here in the beautiful country of Spain, to have the opportunity to learn from the people and the spirit of the Lord. We are humbled each and everyday as we enter into the House of the Lord. Our respect and understanding of what we are doing grows everyday and we truly love the work. We know we have missed a few important events at home with our family, but we know we are doing what we should be doing and hopefully, learning what we should be learning. We know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be the only true church on the face of the earth, that God lives, Jesus is the Christ-our Savior and Redeemer, we have a living Prophet on the earth today and the Book of Mormon is true. We are deeply indebted to each and everyone of you for your love, support and prayers but mostly to our Heavenly Father for His confidence and His blessings. May you know of our love and admiration for Him, His Son and the Holy Spirit. God be with you til we meet again is our prayer.
Love Mom & Dad/Nana and Papa