Hi All,
     Sorry.  I fell behind in publishing Jantzen's last 2 emails.  I just posted Aug. 10 and Aug. 17.  Enjoy them!
Janis

August 17, 2014

Mom, Dad, and Family,

This week was a blast!  Elder Depew and I had a ton of success.  We were able to get a lesson in with Hugo and his wife, Grace sat in and participated as well.  It was an awesome lesson.  We brought a member with us and they got along really well.  The Bro Pedroche is Filipino and so is Grace, so some times they were talking in Tagalog.  But Bro Pedroche also served a Spanish speaking mission so sometimes he was talking to Hugo in Spanish (Hugo is Mexican).  So Elder Depew and I just kind of listened...not understanding.

The Spirit was there though, and I think they felt it.  They both said they wanted to come to church (they didn't make it though) and we have a return appointment with them and Brot Pedroche again this week.  So pray it happens.  They're a great family.  Eli was just kind of running around outside.  Which is understandable...he's five.  It was a blessing to be there.

We also had a great week for teaching members (less-active and active).  We taught a quite a few less actives and they seem to be doing better and a little more motivated and receptive (maybe just more receptive...we'll get motivated later) than before.  So that was good too.  Something we're trying to do with our less-actives is get them to come to see Elder Nelson for stake conference since they don't really want to come to regular church.  An Apostle is cooler than we are.

Speaking of church.  I sang the Lord's Prayer yesterday and it was a good time.  Bro Pedroche accompanied me (we're pretty much best friends.  That...and he's just the best piano player in the ward).

Sounds like things with Saho are going well.  I loved the picture of you all driving in the car.  It looks like Saho is comfortable with the family.  Haha, she and Rylie were passed out.  It made me laugh.  I also got the pictures of Rylie and the Cougarettes.  I didn't know Rylie could do a split that well. Pretty impressive and painful looking.  But maybe it gets easier.

We also had a lesson with a new investigator this Sunday who is a member of a friend who comes to church and activities every now and again.  Get this.  He's Jewish, he has studied different religions, and he lives in Fullerton Orange County.  And his undergraduate degree was audio engineering.  Go figure huh?  He's pretty awesome and super open to anything.  He has very little understanding of Christ though and of the need of a Savior in general.  Which makes sense.  We taught Gospel Principles and the lesson was on the Atonement.  He asked the best questions.  And we spent most of class answering them.  Luckily we had a few return missionaries in the class, because I wasn't sure on some of the answers.  But he seemed to understand after a while.

Today was pretty great as well.  Every P-Day, Elder Depew and I go over to some other Elders' house (they have a washing machine) early and have breakfast parties, and then we study together before we go out and do P-Day kind of stuff.  It's a blast.  We think we'll keep the tradition.  We make pancakes...I like pancakes.

Today, we also went up Mt Baldy (this time not to clean up) to a member's house.  It was soo good to be up at a mountain.  We had a ton of fun and there was...air...fresh air.  It was a beautiful experience.  I think I'll keep it (the experience).  We took a lot of pictures.  It's weird..you'd think missionaries had never seen trees before.  I took a picture next to a random plant.  I thought it looked cool.

We had Zone Conference this week too.  It was awesome.  And this week, we get to see Elder Nelson.  We're excited.

I miss you all and love y'all to death.  Remember not to touch hot stoves.  You've all taught me so much.  I've learned this week that prayer is so important.  Like, sincere prayer.  And then acting in faith.  Sometimes it can be hard.  But it's always worth it.  I pray for you all and hope all continues to go well. 

ILYMTLI,

Elder Russell

Don't forget to look up!

August 10, 2014

Mom, Dad, and Family,

So...I was not aware how much jam I use when I have it...and in this past week...I've eaten an entire jar.  It was glorious.  And I finished the cookies...which were also glorious.  I think I'll keep eating.

Ooo, sorry to hear about Corynne and Bryce.  That does not sound like a good situation and I will definitely keep them in my prayers.  That is pretty terrifying to have happen.  I'm counting it conspiracy--because let's face it, how many engines just explode and spew hot oil everywhere?  Not many outside of movies with Tom Cruise.  You might want to call the IMF and see what's going on.

This week was good,  I was sore from Mt. Baldy for about four days and still have a pretty nifty bruise (I'm almost hoping it doesn't go away because it looks so crazy).  Needless to say, it was not easy getting up in the morning (it's needless because it's never easy getting up in the morning).  However, my companion and I have been able to do it all week long--and we're still alive, so you gotta count that as a bonus.

We didn't find any new investigators this week, which was kind of a bummer, but the week was still great.  It's pretty much true that as long as you're just committed to serve, you're successful.  We worked pretty hard this week and I would say it's been a stellar week.  We had an awesome weekly planning session--best I've had since I've been out (and I have been out a considerable amount of weeks).  We taught a couple of our investigators and they're reading the Book of Mormon, how cool is that?  The sad part is they won't be our investigators for long because we have to pass them off to the YSA ward, but that's okay because we are still seeing them progress, and that's what matters.

We found this lost sheep last week who hasn't been to church in a decade.  Apparently he joined the church and shortly thereafter was offended by the guy who baptized him and fell away.  So he told us (we were on splits, so a member of my ward and myself) some crazy stories from his life and a little bit about his conversion story and we invited him to come to church.  We told him that as part of our baptismal covenant, we've promised to take care of people like him and to be there when he needs us (huh, I didn't think about it then, but that was what my farewell talk was on).  He told us he'd try and get to church.  It was kind of a "meh" commitment, so we gave him our number and told him to call us if he needed anything.  Typically, they don't call.  No one calls missionaries.  The only time missionaries get called is by their families on Christmas and Mothers Day when the initial call from the missionary gets dropped.  So we didn't really expect him to be at church...and he wasn't.  But then today (like...just a few hours ago) he called us and said "Sorry I couldn't make it to the services man, I got all tied up on Sunday."  Only, it sounded cooler when he said it than it sounded just now because he has a Jamaican accent.  My jaw just about dropped.  That never happens.  So we set up an appointment and we're going to go see him this week.  It was pretty awesome.  He's a good guy.

So this week in Sacrament meeting, I'm singing either The Lord's Prayer or O Divine Redeemer (thought Dad my like to hear about that).  The Pianist actually reminds me a lot of Dad in terms of how he likes things performed.  I handed him Savior Redeemer of My Soul and said that we could play that because one of the Sister Missionaries in the ward plays the violin.  We get half way through the first verse and this guy says "This is boring, Elder.  You don't want to sing this."  And pulls out O Divine Redeemer.  I almost died from laughter.  And  then, on the 31st, we're singing my arrangement of Abide With Me; Tis Eventide.  And get this, the tenor of the quartet knows my friend's mom.  Yeah, he's my friend's mother's bridesmaid's husband.  Go figure, right?  It'll be fun.  But then, also, on the 23rd of this month, I'm going to be in a choir that sings for Elder Nelson  who's coming to the mission and for the Stake Conference here in Upland.  Pretty crazy stuff.  I'm singing every weekend for the next three weeks.  It's like paradise.

We were talking to this former investigator (who is the wife of a less-active) and we were talking about her involvement with the church.  She said "Yeah, we're not church people.  Just not part of our lives at this point in time."  So we got talking about her listening to the missionaries.  "Yeah, at one point in time we were way into it and I was going to get baptized and everything.  But then, for some reason, it just didn't happen."  I thought that was interesting, and so we started asking her "So at one point in time you felt it was right and decided it would be a good decision, right?"  She's said "Yeah I did."  And we asked, "So at some point to felt that it was the true church and that the Book of Mormon was true."  And she said "Yeah."  So something just must have happened and she fell out of the swing of things and never got back into it.  So we set up an appointment and she seemed really happy about us coming over.  We're pretty excited.

But other than that, the work has just been great!  Sounds like you all had fun in SoUtah!  It's a pretty place.  I miss Utah a lot.  How long were you all there?  What're the plans for the fall?  Any other crazy places you are all going to travel?  I recommend a trip to Southern California.  Just kidding.  That would be weird.  I already feel at home here though, it's kind of bazaar.  It wouldn't surprise me if I accidently went tracting when I got home, just because it feels so much like home here with all the people that know people that I know (that sentence didn't make a whole lot of sense, huh?

How's school going to go down this fall?  Are Taylor and Rylie going to do the Harmony School in Happy Valley?

So is my Book of Mormon reading I read Jacob this week.  I'm studying humility this time through and I think it's interesting to see how humility plays out in different people.  For example, we know that  Nephi was humble, and I think Nephi is probably one of the more calm, humble people in the scriptures.  He only did some crazy things every now and again.  Jacob, on the other hand, was a little more harsh than Nephi.  Take Jacob 2, 4, and 7 for example.  However, anytime he does something, Jacob always gives credit to God first.  I thought that was interesting.  Good stuff though.  I love the Book of Mormon.  I think if I were ever stuck to read just one book in my life, it would be Harry Potter One.  Just kidding.  Probably the Book of Mormon.  It's awesome.  I really do just like reading it.  It's like...fun.  So when people are like "I don't really feel the drive to read."  I just kind of look at them like o.O

I love and miss you all, you're all the best!  Keep reading, praying, going to church and the whole nine yards.  Life is awesome and I love being a missionary.  You're all a great example and I miss being around you and the love you all show to others.  I look up to all of you.

ILYMTLI,
Elder Russell
Don't forget to look up.
© 2014 Microsoft Terms Privacy & cookies Developers English (United States)

August 5, 2014

Mom, Dad, and Family,

I woke up this morning...and had toast.  With jam.  It was great.  Thank you.  Yes!  I did get the package and the cookies with it.  I'm doing my absolute best to eat them in moderation and not glut myself.  But it is not the easiest thing.  Thanks so much for the package.

This week was nuts.  I guess I should start off by telling you why I didn't email you yesterday.  I slept in.  No just kidding.  I would never do that.  The real reason was because President Hobbs cancelled P-Day for most of the valley.  Yeah, weird right?  But just like with everything else President Hobbs does, there was totally a reason for it.  All of the Upland Zone, and some of the Rancho and Ontario Zones were asked to cancel P-Day and go help victims of a mud slide on Mt Baldy (Upland).  On Sunday, there was a terrible mud slide and it destroyed a lot of homes, completely buried some cars, covered roads, and even took the lives of some hikers and drivers.  So we were pulled out at around 9am and were up digging until about 5pm.  The house that I mainly worked on was filled with mud in the kitchen and had water and mud damage throughout the rest of the house.  There was so much mud that in the part next to the door, mud had piled up all except for maybe the top two feet of the door.  We started near the front door and slowly made our way through the house toward the back.  We shoveled the mud into wheelbarrows and then had to carry the wheelbarrows down a flight of stairs outside to wheel them to a dumping point.  There were about 56 missionaries up working there in total and it was a truly humbling experience.  The residents there bought us lunch and asked us who we where.  They managed to keep smiles on their faces while we were there and were very kind.  I guess you really can feel the Spirit digging in the dirt.  It was an incredible experience and I wouldn't trade it for any P-Day.

 

As for the rest of the week, it was a blast!  I got the stomach flu!  It was great!  Well, other than the fact that we couldn't go out and work it was great.  It was intense, because I vomited so much that I would dry heave because there was nothing left in my stomach.  It was the bomb.

 

We've also been finding some more.  This week we found three investigators.  It was pretty rad.  One of them came out of nowhere.  It was weird because Elder Depew and I are doing a sweep of the area with tracting.  But one day it looked like we weren't going to have all of our time filled up.  Well, we wanted a small street to fill up that time so we could tract the whole street in the half hour extra we had.  So we decided to tract a little area--but we didn't actually get to it.  I had had some thoughts about it during the week and anytime I would think about something to do in a small time frame I would think about tracting that street.  Well Friday came and we had two service projects AND weekly planning.  It was about an hour and a half into weekly planning and we were just about fried.  We hadn't done any contacting, teaching, or anything but service all day.  The Spirit wasn't there and we couldn't focus.  So we decided to go out an work.  We tried to see everyone we had planned to see that day in about a 5 minute time frame.  Then we came back and ate a quick dinner and I still was feeling out of it, so I begged Elder Depew to come out again and he said "What do you want to do"  instantly I got the impression (though it seemed like just a thought at the time) to tracted this small street.  So we went and started that street.  In 10 minutes, we found an investigator and sat down and had a lesson.  We asked her if we could share a message "Sure," she replied.  "Well is there a good time we could come back and share it?" we asked.  "Now works."  So we went out back and taught her for about an hour.  It was pretty awesome because I know missionaries who are going home who have never had that happen.  She may not be the most solid, but she's willing to learn.  It was a blast, and we were actually late for exchanges because of it.

 

Saho sounds like a blast.  Tell her I say hi.  Ask her all about running for me and what kind of shoes she wears and everything.  I kind of miss running...like...a lot actually.  I know a few runners that are probably still around over there in Grantsville that she could probably go with.  And if I don't I know people who do.  So we can get her running again.  Haha!  Wanna know what else she probably hasn't had too much of?  Mexican food.  And I know dad can make some killer Mexican food.  Which is saying something, because there was a lot of really good Mexican food in Ontario.  I would know.

 

And Rylie's at a Cougarette Camp huh?  Sounds like a ton of fun!  I bet she'll love it and I'll have to follow up with her on that.  I bet her dancing skills are pretty awesome considering how much time and effort I've hear her put into it.  And oh my gosh, she's getting so pretty.  When you sent me pictures last we I thought it was Cambria in the pictures, no joke.  It was nuts.

 

All in all, the week was just great.  Lots of success and lots of fun.  We have our first progressing investigator, as of yesterday, in months.  It's not a fast progression, but it's progression.  Haha, whatever fast means.  When compared to Maggie and Erik, there aren't a lot of people that are 'fast' progression.  But it's totally the bomb here.

 

Some facts:  I've seen the Robbins family 3 times in the past two days.  And then also on Saturday.  They're all over the place.  That and I tracted into the guy that Brother Robbins bought his practice from a decade ago.  I sang in Zone Meeting today.  The Zone I'm in is one of the finest on the planet.  Life is good.  I get to see Elder Russell M. Nelson three times in a week from Saturday.  Reading the scriptures and praying are super super important.

 

In fact, I was thinking about the simple stuff (like reading scriptures and praying) we read in Jacob about looking beyond the mark and I was reminded of a talk Bednar gave.  He was talking about being led by the Spirit and how sometimes it's way over thought.  Pretty sure he's right.  He said that to be led by the Spirit, all we need to do is to keep the commandments, honor our covenants, go to church, read our scriptures, pray, and just try and be the best person we can be and if we do that--we will be led by the Spirit naturally.  I have a testimony that that is true.

 

I love and miss you all.  I pray for you guys.  Thanks so much for all you do.  For the ties, jerky, jam, and the cookies.  You're all the best!

 

ILYMTLI,

Elder Russell

Don't Forget to Look Up

July 21, 2014

Mom, Dad, and Family,

It was so weird to see Sister Robbins and Brooke and Julia last week.  I knew I was going to see them soon, but I didn't know how soon.  And that was way soon.  I was with Elder Depew at our church building to go meet some German exchange students that are here for a month.  There were two outside of the church and so Elder Depew and I started talking to them about the church and the Book of Mormon.  They seemed interested enough and were asking us about missionary work when the Robbins came out.  Julia was hilarious!  She was like "I wanna hug you but I can't.  Can I touch you?  Let's get a picture!"  We talked for a little bit and then they left and I turned back to the exchange students.  One of them said "You guys are famous."  Elder Depew and I started laughing.  But she honestly thought we were celebrities.  So, because of the Robbins, I achieved celebrity status in less than five hours in Upland.  It was pretty sweet.

But then we got to the apartment.  Man...that was a disaster.  Poor Elder Depew, he had lived there for a transfer already and his last companion didn't want to clean the entire time they were there.  So we spent a lot of time cleaning and fixing things.  We even had to fix the AC.  We rearranged everything and threw a whole bunch of junk away and organized and redid the area book.  The area book still needs a lot of work, but it'll get there.  It was nuts.  We've probably spent a solid 10 hours cleaning this week.  But now the apartment looks pretty good.  I'm proud of it.

But the rest of the work is going well, too!  Elder Depew is the bomb.  He's super humble and kind to everyone (we're like total opposites).  I don't think he's ever not picked something good out of everything.  He's like Polyanna...except...he's male.  But it's so awesome being with him.  He's also so willing to work.  He doesn't complain (like I said, we're opposites), and just works.

So we decided to tract our entire area.  It's not very big and we thing we can do it all in this transfer.  And we're instituting the Gandalf principle.  The Gandalf principle was made up by a couple of my Zone Leaders when they were companions.  They were talking about investigators and potential investigators.  But then Elder Simpson was like "But what about the people that are nice to you but tell you they're not interested?  Where do they go in the area book?"  Because you have records for potential investigators and investigators, but not just nice people.  So Elder Ercanbrack and Elder Simpson came up with this idea for the area book.  They never did it, but they decided it would be cool to have a section in the area book for people you tract into that are nice but not interested.  Because there are people all the time that tell us they're not interested but will ask us if we need water.  So they go into this record of people that are nice.  Elder Ercanbrack said "It's kind of like you're Gandalf.  You just kind of wander around, and you know everyone, and everyone knows you, but you aren't really close or anything and you don't really associate with one another except for brief periods of time."  And so Elder Depew and I (since we're tracting our entire area this transfer) are instituting the Gandalf principle so we can keep tract of nice people in Upland.  And if we ever need water or anything, we just stop by one of their houses and ask for a drink--so we can build friendships and what not.  It's super nerdy and crazy hard to update, but it's fun.

Other than that, the missionaries in the past haven't been doing a whole lot of teaching and their teaching has been more like visiting (which is kind of a problem in missionary work) and so we're working on fixing that.  And they were visiting the wrong kinds of people as well.  But that's all changing, and this week we found the first investigator this ward has had in a month.  It was cool.

We went to visit this less active last night.  Elder Depew went off pure inspiration.  And this less active hasn't been home all week long.  Well,  he was last night and everyone was home.  Now the only non-member in the home is his wife.  For the past couple of years, he's been trying to get her to listen to the missionaries.  But she won't because she drinks, drinks coffee, and smokes and she doesn't want to give them up.  But we walked in and sat down and asked if she wanted to join us.  She said not really, but she sat down for a little bit.  We said a prayer, and started talking with her.  We taught her a few points and she left the room.  Later she came back a listened for a few minutes and then left.  Finally she came back and looked at me and said "Here's the deal, friend--because I like you--you come up with something really good and really convincing and I'll sit down and listen to you.  If I like it, I'll keep listening.  If I don't I won't listen to you."  I thought fair enough, you weren't really listening to us in the first place so we don't really have anything to lose.  "But I'm not setting up an appointment."  She said...don't know why that was important, but she said it. "It'll be the challenge of your mission."  "What?  You'll be the challenge of my mission?"  I asked.  "Yes."  She replied.  I looked her square in the eye and with a smile said "Challenge accepted."  We all had a pretty good laugh.  It was fun.

We have lessons set up with four potential investigators this week.  Which is pretty crazy.  We're going to teach some of the German students as well and give them German Books of Mormon.  I'm excited.  It'll be great.  The work is going well.

So there was a promise that was given by Elder Bednar to Missionaries one Christmas in the MTC.  He said that if we read the Book of Mormon with a specific question in mind concerning an attribute of Christ we would like to develop, and we highlight and mark our Book of Mormon with passages that stick out to us and the Spirit prompts us to concerning that attribute; at the end of that read through, if we write a page about what we've learned we'll develop that attribute a lot in our lives.  So I started doing that and it's awesome.  You all should give it a try.

I love and miss you all so much.  Upland is pretty cool.  I'm happy to be here and to work hard.  I pray for you all.

ILYMTLI,

Elder Russell

P.S.  I heard the Robbins family is coming to visit you all.  Tell me all about it.

July 13, 2014

Mom, Dad, and Family,

This week has been a blast.  Quite frankly, the transfer has flown by way too fast.  But if it were going slow, that means it probably wasn't good.  So the fact it went fast is positive.  I don't know if that made any sense.

The Lord blessed us so much (probably too much) this week.  We fulfilled almost all of our goals (which is a rarity...Elder King likes to set high goals--and I like his optimism, it helps me), and we superseded some of them as well.  We found some investigators that really kind of came out of nowhere.

The first one is Randy.  Randy's name isn't really Randy.  It's like Shoiniati (all I really know is it's Thai).  He moved here from Taiwan just about a year ago if I remember correctly, and instantly joined Jehovah Witnesses.  Well, I don't know if he got the memo about not looking at religious propaganda, but he made his way over to Mormon.org and ordered a bible.  So we delivered it and that was how we met.  I'm not sure how exactly it happened because neither one of us could understand each other (my Mandarin is a little rusty) but somehow we set up a return appointment.  Well we got there this week and we helped him order a Mandarin Book of Mormon (which again, I'm not sure how we did it because we changed the website to Mandarin).  Clearly God's hand was in all this.  We taught him the last half of the Restoration and set up another return appointment.  He's really cool and has a lot of faith and knowledge.  He was asking us about the Book of Mormon and was taking notes as we answered his questions.  He probably has the Book of Mormon already and knows more about it than I do.  So that was cool.

The next one we found was also part of a referral.  We got a referral for a less active member in the Spanish ward (which I thought was a little weird, but maybe they thought we had the gift of tongues or something).  She was less active but the rest of the family were non members.  So we took a little bike ride over there and popped in.  Well, Sister Razo was very happy to see us and spoke English (which made it easier for me to translate).  She was expecting us.  Apparently she was the one who sent the referral (which I think is pretty cool, because not a lot of people refer themselves).  Turns out she has a 6yo grandson living with her who has a severe bone disease that could take his life.  It is on the up and up, but they still wanted a blessing.  He has a little sister, an older sister, and his parents with him.  After the blessing, his mom went to work, grandma watched the baby, older sister was on the tablet, and he zoned out.  So we taught his father.  It. Was. Awesome.  This experience has changed his life, humbled him, and made him look to God for help.  He was so invested in the lesson, it was amazing.  All of his questions were honest, all of his answers to ours were sincere and true.  He is just ready.  We're teaching his family when we go over this week.

The last investigator that we found we tracted into (I actually like tracting more than any other missionary I know.  Because it works when my faith is in the right place).  Anyway, this guy opens the door and his name is RoShawn.  It sounds like the last name for a football player who plays for an Eastern college team.  He's tall too.  So he opens the door and we didn't say much but we set up an appointment for Sunday.  Went over, taught him a lesson and he says he wants to read the Book of Mormon.  Pretty sweet stuff.  He's a good guy.  He said things like "Well the church has been corrupted since the renaissance," or "Everybody understands the bible differently, so I don't like the controversy between the churches," or "God would teach in a way we could understand," or "We should go to God for truth."  We're like...yeah...you got it pretty right.  It was way good.  We're seeing him this week too.  We have a lot of lessons set up with people this week.  More than we ever have before.

But I got moved today.  I'm now serving in the Upland 5th ward with Elder Depew (It's pronounced duh-pew--which also sounds like a college football player's last name).  He's a way happy guy and loves serving here.  It should be a great transfer.  I'm glad you got the text from Brother Mejia.  He's the bomb diggaty.  One time his wife (a recent convert) took a month to go to Texas.  So he had like nothing to do.  So he'd go for 4 hour splits with us every night.  It was pretty great.  I'm gonna miss that family.

Andrew, one of our less active members, since we started working with him, has been coming to church.  We've taught him just about every lesson there is in Preach My Gospel and he's eaten it up.  He now reads his scriptures, prays, attends church, and is one of the best guys I know.  The Bishop pulled him in a couple of weeks ago and talked to him about going on a mission.  Andrew said he'd pray about it.  Well yesterday he told me he got an answer and he'll turn in his papers as soon as he can.  It blew me away.  I'm gonna miss him too.

The Cortez family is doing pretty well.  John (oldest son) is struggling doing what's right.  Pray for him.  Pray for the whole family, but especially him.  He's a good kid, he just needs help.  That help is with God, but I don't know if he realizes that.

But the new ward I'm serving in is in the Robbins' stake.  I wanted to go to Upland 3rd, but there are Sisters there right now.  One of the Sisters was in my district for the past two transfers.  She's super cool.  Her name is Sister Riley.  Tell the Robbins to treat her well.  We had a lot of fun in Ontario.  Maybe I'll see the Robbins some time, because I think we have Stake Conference coming up here in Upland.  That will be cool.

So there's this missionary I was room mates with last transfer.  His name is Elder Fenn.  He has a lot of talks from General Authorities, and motivational speakers like John Bytheway and Hank Smith (the guy who does the Dos and Don'ts of Dating and Running Down Your Dreams).  Well he was playing this talk by Hank Smith about temptation killers and he was speaking about scriptures.  One of the thoughts he had concerning the scriptures came from Matthew 4--the commencement of the Savior's ministry by way of fasting.

Well in the chapter, as we know, Satan comes to tempt Jesus.  Now the first temptation makes sense; Jesus has been fasting for forty days and is probably hungry (I get hungry after four hours).  So Satan tempts him by saying "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."  Christ, in his strength of Spirit answers back with scripture and resists.

In the next temptation, Satan and Jesus go up to the top of the temple and Satan says "cast thyself down..."  Now, I've never really been on top of a temple, but to me it would never be tempting to jump off the top of one.  Of course the temptation has to do with misuse of Christ's power and authority and charge over angels to keep him safe.  Nevertheless, Jesus doesn't cave.

Now the last temptation has never really made sense to me.  The Devil takes Jesus to a mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me."  To me, that has never made sense.  Christ knows that the kingdoms don't belong to Satan anyway.  They aren't Satan's to give.  So why would it be even remotely close to tempting for the Devil to say that.

But Hank Smith made sense of it for me.  He said "Here's what I think he's really saying.  He saying 'I'll give this all to you.  I won't even try.  I'll stop tempting and creating sin in the world and turn it over to you, if you just give up.  You won't have to perform the atonement.  You won't have to feel pain.  I will give you the world without sin, if you give up and worship me.'"  I thought that was powerful.  I had never thought that that was the true temptation for the Lord.  Not of material possessions or power on earth or position in the world.  But the offer for your adversary to quit, if you give up.  That must have been a struggle.

I think there are a lot of things in our lives that Satan does that with.  "Sin here.  If you sin here, life will be easy for you.  I'll make it easy."  That's probably one of the only reasons sin is enticing after all.  "Keeping commandments is unnecessary.  You don't need that burden.  I'll make it easier for you.  Just give up."  But giving up is a surrendering of agency.  We cannot be happy if we give up.

I love you all and thank you for all of your support and prayers.  They really do work.  I miss you, and pray for you everyday.  Keep living righteously.  Keep the commandments.  I'm excited about my new assignment, but I'll miss my old ward. ;)

ILYMTLI,

Elder Russell

Pics July 7th 2014