Being a Missionary. . . Has so many thoughts. . . .

    Living the gospel by thinking of others before yourself. . .  Is being a missionary.

    We had our Stake Conference this last week-end and as you know they are wonderful.   Ours was no exception.   A young sister missionary, newly returned home, spoke.   She served in the San Diego Mission. She told of an investigator  who was having trouble with the Joseph Smith story.   They had come to visit him and his family when they meet him on the street and he was drunk.   He was saying terrible things to the Sisters, yelling and cursing them.   She ask Heavenly Father to help her understand this man and what they should do.   She also ask God to let her see him through his eyes.   How could anyone love someone such as he.   She felt a warm come over her and she felt a love that only Heavenly Father could give.  She felt as if she were in a bubble, and she couldn't hear anything the man was saying.   She knew she loved him as before this had happened and she knew that Heavenly Father loved him no matter what he said or did.  She knew Heavenly Father loves each of us, it doesn't matter what we say or do.  We are his son or daughter and he wants each of us to return and be with him, just as we want each of our children to be with us, (those of us who have children.)   As a missionary,( we are all missionaries,) we can see the Saviors hands each day in our lives.   We must learn to recognize his hand in our life and know that we are never alone.  We must ask for his help in all we do.   We must ask for help to be worthy of the help from our constant companion, the Holy Ghost.

   We must make the Book of Mormon more important in our life.   Many of the problems the early Saints had was because the Book of Mormon wasn't considered that important in their lives.   The Book of Mormon was written for our day, the answers we seek each day can be found in it.

   Many times when we receive promptings we may feel or wonder why.  Another story was told of a man who was on a business trip and he was impressed to take a Book of Mormon with him.   He sat by a gentleman who was reading, so this man thought he would ask the question, "Do you like to read?"  of course, the gentleman liked to read and so as the conversation went on the man ask if he could give him a Book of Mormon.   He explained what the book was about.  But the answer was "No".  The business man ask several more times but the answer was always no. . .   He felt discouraged, exited the plane and went on to his meetings.   Several days later as he found his seat on the plane going home, a gentleman sat down next to him.   One of the first things this gentleman said was that he had sat in front of him on the flight there and he had heard the conversation about the Book of Mormon and wondered if he still had it, and if so, could he have it.    We never know when we act on a prompting just what is in store, but we must try to always act on them.   After all,  Heavenly Father only has us to do his biding.

 

Here we are toward the end of October and our Boooootiful Nauvoo is coming this Saturday.  Tonight Elder Horlacher and myself will go and carve pumpkins,  we have artists draw the faces and designs and then we get to carve them.   We have around 500 altogether, so it will be very interesting.
We sure get to do fun things, ha ha.

The autumn leaves looking from our porch toward the temple.  The leaves are starting to be beautiful, even though, many have fallen without color.

This picture with the Doying was taken back in May before Elder Doying had medical issues, and they had to leave the mission.   He is home from the Huntsman Cancer Center and in rehab now,  it will be a while before he is fully recovered, but the good news is that he is on his way.  We love you both, Ray and Barbara Doying.

Nauvoo On The Road,  This time we
went to Hannibal Missouri, to the Folklife Festival.  We had close to four hundred folks visit us and around 40 ropes were made.  It was a fun time, however, it was pretty cold.  We were able to take our coats off around 4:00 pm as we were packing up to come home.   Main Street of Old Nauvoo just about Dawn, on our way to Hannibal.

We love you all and remember you in our prayers, we thank you for your support and pray our Father in Heavens choicest blessing are yours.   We are going into the Holiday Season with many activities here in Old Nauvoo, as you come into each season we wish you joy and happiness and pray we will all have gratitude for the many blessing with are ours and for our Savior Jesus Christs birth.