Christmas is here bringing good cheer to one and all...

Kia Ora Whanau and Ehoa!

Christmas is tomorrow! Unless you are you. and then it's the day after. :-) I'm pretty excited to call home. :-)
I have received a Christmas present from Grandma Putnam. Thanks grandma! If you are not amongst that list, then you did not send it early enough! :-) So, it might not be until January that I get it. Lol...

Concerning Zone Leaders, Roads in New Zealand, Pronunciation, Gangs, Potential Investigators and Investigators, pictures, and Ward Activities

Dear Whanau and Ehoa!

 

New Zealand is great!

This past week has been a great one!

Concerning Schooling, Christmas Lights, the Christmas Devotional, New Member Discussions, and Christmas gifts

Hello Whanau and friends!

It's been a pretty good week this week!

Of Baptisms, confirmations, slacking fathers ;-), district splits, nature hikes, and pack-rats

Well! I recieved some letters from people, which was nice! I will try to respond to all of them today, but I might not get to it. But I shall most certainly try!

Well, anyways! This past weekend has been fan-jolly-tastic! Wero, April, Tyesha, and Chantelle were baptized! It was awesome. I finally did get some pictures of them, which I will include. 

Of new baptismal dates, poverty, family drama, Shopping Malls, and Luaus

Hello Whanau (Fah-now, i.e. Family) and friends!

New Zealand is fantastic! I love it. :-) I think that I could easily live here in New Zealand. The people are mean (awesome), and everyone is nice. Unless they live on Semple street in Huntly. Then, not so much. :-)

Of tradeoffs, L&P, solar eclipses, popcorn, and miracles. :-)

So, it has been a great week. So much has happened. It doesn't seem possible. So much stuff happening in just a single week! Oh! And I Got letters! So, it takes something close to 16 days from the time it posts to the time that It enters my hand. Or something like that. Just so you know. Also, so to get me something for Christmas, send it by the 2nd, to be safe. :-)

Malo i le lei! (or something like that. I don't know how to spell it. It's in Tongan)

Kia Ora! 

The time is really just shooting by! Good gracious! It's awesome over in in Aeoteroa!

Baptisms coming out of my ears! Kinda...

Hello everyone! 

It has been a great week. We have a baptism coming up on Tuesday for an older lady named Nani. She is basically, I think the term is, a dry Mormon. She believed it basically from day one. She has been living with her either daughter or niece, I'm not sure. She is originally from the Cook Islands, which, as it turns out, has a different language from the Maori's. It's similar, but different. Kia Oratu as apposed to Kia Ora. Or something like that. Anyways, she has been a super golden investigator from day one, supposedly. Well, It will be really good that she gets baptized. 

Cache's First Full Week in New Zealand

Hello correspondents! 

There has not been too much happening. Just kidding. There had been quite a bit of stuff happening. We had another Baptism on Saturday. Her name was Caroline. She is a 60 or 70 something year old Maori lady. She is a little hard of hearing, and I don't recall if I wrote about her last week. Anywho, I'll just tell about her. She lives with a recent convert, Rosalie. Rosalie was baptized a year ago last Monday. She has been a huge support for Caroline. Rosalie and Caroline work at the NGA (Ngaruawahia) High School. 

Which is actually not called a High School. I think it's called Course or College or something. That's another thing. College and University are not the same thing here. So, I have to tell people that I went to Uni or University before my mission so they know what I am talking about. College for them is like Junior and Senior year of High School for us. 

Anyways, back on the subject. They are basically the Janitorial staff there. Rosalie ran into the missionaries, and wasn't interested. But then something changed, and she actually went looking for the missionaries. They hadn't been in contact for a while because she had moved. So now, she was super keen on the gospel. She was baptized shortly after. 

Caroline wasn't interested either. She belonged to a belief called Ratena. Or something like that. They believe in God and Jesus Christ, but they believe in a great man named Ratena who helped bring NZ to a greater standing or something like that. He inspired a lot of people and gained a lot of followers. 

Most people here do not go to a church. They are just good people. Our calling as missionaries is to find those who will receive the gospel, and who might've already accepted it, expect they knew not where to find it. Anyways, a lot of people are willing to hear our message, but don't really want to change. 

Caroline was in the hospital for a while, and actually "died" for a little bit until the machines and doctors brought her back. She believes that the people of Ratena brought her back. When Caroline finally became interested in the gospel long before I got here, she agreed to be baptized, but she said that she was going to have to thank the people of Ratena on a special day, January 25. It's special because it is a big day for the followers of Ratena (I don't know why), and because it's her birthday. Anyways, the missionaries kept trying to get her to be baptized.

Shortly before I came, she went to the VC (Visitor Center for the Hamilton temple) and really felt the spirit, and set herself for baptism. During Taylor's baptism, she again felt the witness that she needed to be baptized, and again committed herself to baptism. She had a few problems though. She has been a smoker for a very long time, and she drinks coffee. So, after a long time, the Wednesday before last Saturday (the day she was baptized), she gave us her cigarettes and her coffee she traded us for Milo (Milo is a New Zealand style of Hot Chocolate that is about a bajillion times better that American Hot Cocoa.) that we gave her. So, she gave up smoking and coffee cold turkey, and was baptized.

Oh. If you have sent me a letter, I have not yet received it. I am speaking Specifically to my family and to Bethany. I only have a few opportunities to get mail from the Zone Leaders, who get it from the Mission office in Auckland. So, it might be 2 weeks or so before I get mail from you guys, primarily because it takes forever to get to NZ in the first place, and because it takes forever to get to Ngaruawahia from Auckland. So don't despair. I will write everyone back that sends me a letter. Unless it's family. Then I'll just email you. Because that's so much easier, and my hand won't cramp up. ;-)

Every morning, with our Ward Mission leader, Bro. Waters, and others, we do an hour work out. Today it was boxing stuff. That's the only time I can punch my companion and not get sent home for it. ;-) Another day, it's ab workouts, and other days it's other things. It's pretty good.

I've attached some pictures, and I will explain the pictures that I sent last week and this week.

Last week:

1. Picture with other guys in suits: my district as we stepped out of the terminal into NZ Airport. From left to Right: E. Reese (my MTC comp), E. Niederer (Needer, the more Er's that a person had on their name, the poorer they were in the town that his ancestors lived in), E. Hirsche (went on his mission to NZ, but got sent home because of a very serious sickness, almost cancerous. But now he's back out, which is all that matters.), E. Smith (from Canada, eh?), E. Loffhagen (from the U.K. We like to immitate his accent and get him to immitate ours.), and myself.

2. Pink colored computer screens looking like NASA's Houston or something: The TV screens on the backs of all the seats on the flight to NZ. We couldn't watch TV! Lol... It was difficult.

3. The white circle with a red outline with 100 written in it: a speed limit sign. In km/hr.

4. Sheep: Well, pretty self explanatory. They are sheep. There are so many of them here. Oh! They have lamb burgers at McDonalds here! I have yet to try one. I wonder if they are good or not. :-)

5. Exit sign: Things are in km.

This week:

1. The elders going to Portland, Oregon in my district. 

2. The elders going to Auckland, New Zealand in my district.

3. All of the elders in my district.

I'll send more pictures, but I am limited, so I'm lazy. ;-)

Hmmm... what else... 

I had the opportunity to fix our neighbor's computer. She's been in Perth, Australia for the past few weeks. They give about a quarter of their house to us missionaries in Ngaruawahia. Anyways, She got home, and found out that something was wrong with her computer. She didn't know it was a virus, but she asked my companion and I if either of us knew computers. I replied that I did. I proceeded to work on her computer, and I shortly found out that it was a virus very much like the virus I fixed on my computer. So it was an easy fix because I had done it before. She told us that she had prayed that morning to get helped, because getting it fixed by a technician is rather expensive. 

You think it's expensive in the USA? Holy Smokes. Everything is more expensive here. Except for Kiwis. Kiwis are much cheaper here. I like Kiwis, so that ends up working out pretty well for me. :-)

We eat so much here. It's crazy. The members, especially the ones that are Polynesian, love food, and expect you to eat heaps. So, I'm getting fat.

I'll try to get some pictures of missionaries and of my investigators, but I might forget. I keep forgetting to do it. Whoops. :-)

With lots of love and stuff,

E. Staheli

P.S. Mom, send me pictures of the family. I think I might've already said that in an earlier email, but this is a safe guard or whatever. :-)

Elder Staheli Passes Through International Dateline Wormhole, Comes Out on the Other Side

Kia Ora! (greetings! in Maori)

 

It is really great here in New Zealand! It is so incredibly green it's crazy!!!

New Zealand, Visas, and the Power of Revelation

Cache called us last night from the LA airport saying that he would be making the 13-hours flight to New Zealand, so he is probably just arriving there, having crossed the International Date Line and skipped right through Tuesday. I told him that that sounded like the recent Star Trek movie, and I hoped that he made it out on the other side...

Cache's patriarchal blessing says that "you need to remember that the Lord issued your call to missionary service".  That's quite interesting in light of how it came.  He reported this neat little story to us a day or two ago:

Final E-Mail From MTC

Here's what turned out to be Cache's last e-mail from the MTC before he flew out to New Zealand.

This is my second P-day! Wow! Time goes really slow at first, but goes by fast later! Time really doesn't make sense in the MTC. It goes by slow, but super fast! Weeks turn into days, days turn into weeks, and all that good fun stuff. It doesn't make any sense until it actually happens to you. And then it begins to make sense.

So, how about that conference!! Wow!!! I already know that a lot of girls I know will be going on missions. Wow. Good luck! I wonder how the outside world reacted. I know that the MTC reacted crazy like! Be we calmed down as soon as the chairs were returned to their upright state, the people climbed down from the rafters, and the knocked out people were revived. ;-) Jk. there was just lots of shouting and lots of loud celebratory noise. :-) Still, we thought it was just about the coolest thing to ever happen, or something. :-)

What were all of your guy's favorite talks? I have a really hard time picking that. I think that E. Holland is always fantastic, and the same goes for the First Presidency, and also for E. Bednar. :-) By the way, he came and spoke to the MTC on Tuesday and talked to us about how better to study and apply the talks from Conference. He gave us this advice. We need to find and listen to the Doctrines in the Talks and the Principles that are found in the talks. Then, we need to look at the Invitations that were given to us in the talks. Finally, we need to look at the promised blessings given to us by the speakers and realize that if we take the invitation to do something, we will receive the promised blessings. So, for example, E. Bednar talked about how we need to put down our weapons of rebellion, and then we will be incredibly blessed. I can't remember exactly the blessing that E. Bednar talked about, but the thing that he mentioned in the address on Tuesday was that we need to pay attention to the spirit more so than the speaker. The spirit is the one that will teach us, not the speaker, even if he is P. Monson.

Just a side note. If your name is Bethany Anne Millet, and you have not yet received a letter from me from last Thursday, then I DO NOT have your address, and my letter did not make it to you. I will not be sending the letter I wrote today until I receive a letter from you with your address on it. DearElder messed it up, so I had to guess at the address. So write me a letter with your address, as you would write it on a letter, otherwise, I can't write you any letters. I don't know your address, so send it to me. I need it like, a week ago. Thank you for your time. :-) Write fast! The same goes for everyone that writes me a letter on Dear Elder.com. Make sure that you include your address in the letter. I know that DearElder puts a return address at the top of the letter, but it is commonly illegible and jumbled. So  put your addresses in the body of the letter. :-)

So, my companion's name is E. Reese. I know I said that already, but I'll give some more background. He is from SLC. (Holladay, Utah more specifically). Me and Him are good buddies. He has been a member all his life, just like me, and he is pretty much awesome. :-)

About my investigators:

• Arnold is a volunteer at the TRC. He likes to talk a ton. Like, a ton. He always interrupts with stories about how he was in the wild, with a spoon, and it started to rain... Or something like that. We taught him four times, with yesterday being the last time. We taught him as a group. It can be challenging to teach as a group, because not everyone has the same agenda. Anyways, yesterday, we got Arnold to commit to coming to a baptism and meeting with the missionaries more to get him to be baptized. So that should be good. :-) He is really interesting to talk to, and he has (too) many good stories to tell us. We don't have all the time in the world, but he is a good guy. :-) He worked in jails for a long time, and he can tell when people are lying to him. So he believes that what we are saying is true. His wife and a daughter were killed in a head-on collision a long time ago, and he is interested in knowing more about how he can be with them again. He is interested in the prophet, and he feels like Pres Monson (Moses, as he calls him a lot) really knows that what he is saying is true. He knows the world is in trouble, and he is genuinely concerned about the members of the church, especially with families.
• 
  
• Sara-Ruth and Alfred- We never got the chance to meet Alfred. But they are both less-active members referred by their bishop. They have gotten a little tired and too lazy to come to church (her words, not mine.) since all her kids grew up and started having their own families. They both know what is right, but they just have gotten to tired to go to their normal ward in Santaquin. they usually just go to a child's ward or stay home. We got her to start praying again with her husband and to go to church. She listened to conference and knows they need to go back to church. She is a great person, and is just an example of how Satan will trick you into giving up small things, but, like was said in conference: "Would you sell your soul for a nickel?" Both her and Alfred's former spouses were killed. Sara-Ruth's was electricuted on the job accidentally, dying painlessly, and Alfred's wife was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. Sara-Ruth and Alfred met and had a lot in common. Sara-Ruth stood in as a proxy for Alfred's wife so that he could be sealed to her. Sara-Ruth was already sealed to her husband in the SLC temple. The reason she wants to become active again is so that she can go witness her son's marriage. And just to be able to have a temple recommend again.
• 
  
• Cody is an agnostic college age student. He is engaged and will be married soon to his agnostic girlfriend. He wants God more in his life, but doesn't understand why he needs to be a Mormon to be saved. We have committed him to baptism, because he knows he needs to do it, and he is reading. 
• 
  
• Richie was a Meth addict for 13 years. He has been sober for over 80 days now, and is trying to become stable again so that he can see his son again and be in good standing with his family. He understands that he really needs the atonement in his life, and he responds well to our helping him to understand that the Atonement can make him just like it never happened. Jesus Christ understands all that he has ever done and will ever do. He's possibly my favorite investigator. He has trouble reading, but understand that he can pray for help. He now knows that the spirit is not a big huge experience all the time, so he now knows that he can feel the spirit. 

Well, I'm almost confident that I used more time that 30 minutes. There are no timers on the ones in the Laundry Room, So I can't really tell...

I am basically out of stamps, so I will answer some really short letters in here.

Grandma Putnam: Thank you so much for the Honey Caramel things. Everyone loves them, and they are delicious. Thank you so much for the birthday gift. It took me a bit to understand how the card worked, but as soon as I figured it out, it was really cool. :-) Oh, and my roommate says send more. ;-):-D

Kiara: Yup! It's free! So I recommend you sending lots now, because it gets expensive to send them to NZ. The investigators do a really good job of playing the part, and the spirit doesn't care that it's "fake." This is the way the the Lord wanted us to learn to teach, so he makes it feel as real as possible.
Wow! He gets home today! That's crazy! Insane!! I see Jonah all the time. We take lots of pictures together. I'm sure he'll send some home.
Conference was crazy! Wow... Maybe you would've gone on a mission if that announcement had been sooner!
Thanks for the letter! :-)
BYU will be empty. :-) I think it's funny. There are lots of memes, I've heard, that describe it hilariously. :-)

Well, I am severely out of time. Bye!!! Love you all! Hope you all have a fantastic day!! Good luck with life!
Sincerely,
E. Staheli
P.S. Write me. A lot.
P.P.S. Read the first P.S.

October 4, 2012

This is my first email from the MTC. Turns out that I will only be able to send two of these before I go into New Zealand. I will be leaving on or very close to the 15th of October. So, I would advise you to send and letters through DearElder up till that point, probably even more than that. It's free to the MTC, as far as I know. But it will get more expensive to send them to New Zealand, so all of you should send letters now, and keep sending them. Like I said, it's free now, so if you can only manage to send a few letters, it would cost you nothing to send them to me now. So do it.

The MTC is kind of stressful at times. We are busy all the time. We basically learn from 8am to 9pm. We wake up, eat and get ready from 6-8. And we get ready for bed, plan, and write in our journals from 9-10:30. It is pretty much that we are on the go all day long. It's pretty intense. So, anyways, my companion is named E. Reese. There are 10 Elder's in my district, including me, and 6 of us are going to Auckland, New Zealand. The remaining 4 are going to Portland, Oregon.

We teach some "investigators" pretty much every day. By investigators, I mean that they are actually usually just people acting like someone that they know and Love. If it is our teachers acting, then it is someone that they had the opportunity to teach on their mission. There is something called the Teaching Resource Center, or TRC, that people volunteer at. These people are generally members that volunteer, but occasionally, they are actual investigators. We just never know. There are 3 types of TRC appointments: Less-Active, Investigators, and Referrals. The referrals can be by anyone. Anyways, at the present time, our district is teaching a man named Arnold. We teach him as a group. It can be tough. Also, Arnold really really really likes to talk. We can barely teach him anything before he interrupts and tells us a story about the spoon he carved, the time he was stuck in the mountains, his wife dying, his children, being in the outdoors, etc. Anywho, he is clearly someone acting, because he tries to give us huge hints about what to teach him all the time. Like, on his spoon, there were these divets that formed because a branch had to be held up. Easily could be related to bearing up  burdens, etc. Anyways, it is still pretty hard to teach him as a group, because we all want to go a certain way, and often times those ways are not the same.

Another investigator, Richie, acted out by one of our teachers, was a Meth addict, and is really receptive to the gospel, especially the Atonement. It really fits with him.

Another one: Cody, is not very receptive, but could be taught the plan of salvation because he is getting married at the end of the Month (also acted out by one of our teachers.)

We have a less-active older couple that know that the gospel is true, and they know that they should be coming to church. We meet the husband on Tuesday, and that should be fun.

We have so many awesome speakers here at the MTC. We have a devotional every Sunday and Tuesday. We also have Church, Mission conference, and other talks on Sundays. Sundays are very spiritual days for all of us. It is pretty nice, I think. Anyways, I am running out of time, because we are only supposed to spend 30 minutes on our emails and only on P-day. So I'm gonna try to stick to that rule, because we are supposed to be obedient to every mission rule, otherwise, we don't get blessed as much. Basically, it's just a better idea to follow the rules.

Anyways, Love you all! Write me lots!

In case you never knew my address, which you should, it is in a million different locations, it is:

 

Elder Cache Franklin Staheli

MTC Mailbox #145

NZE-AUC 1015

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT, 84604-1793

First Day - Family Pics

Cache left for the MTC today.  Here are the family pics before the kids went to school:

And just before we left for final errands, lunch, and the MTC!  (Thanks Shauna Morgan, photographer)

Cache's New Zealand Addresses

For Letters Only

Elder Cache Franklin Staheli
New Zealand Auckland Mission
PO Box 33-840
Takapuna
North Shore City 0740
New Zealand

For Packages

Elder Cache Franklin Staheli
New Zealand Auckland Mission
7A Auburn Street
Takapuna
North Shore City 0622
New Zealand

If you send anything before October 5th, it will likely beat Cache there!  ;-)

MTC Address

This is my MTC address:
Elder Cache Franklin Staheli
MTC Mailbox # 145
NZE-AUC 1016
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

I report this Wednesday, so that should be good. :-)

Farewell

Had a great farewell! I'll post my talk on this post just so anyone that is interested can read it.
Just so everyone knows, the stuff that is underlined was not in my talk, but is background stuff that I thought I might include. Some underlined statements are shrunken down, and if you really want to read them, you have to copy and paste them somewhere so you can read them. Enjoy!

Missionary Work and the Atonement

So, I gave my very first 15 minute talk in Church last week. Also, it was the first time I used notes instead of writing down every word that I would say. Terrifying. Well, I have to do it again, and I don’t think it will be any less terrifying. Wish me luck! My name is Cache Staheli, and, being called to serve a mission, I have been asked to speak in church. For those of you who don’t know me, I was called to serve in the New Zealand, Auckland mission. I will report to the MTC exactly one month from today. I have been asked to speak on the topic of Missionary Work and the Atonement. Specifically from an address Elder Holland gave to missionaries in the MTC in 2000.

·         The Atonement is central fact, crucial foundation, and the chief doctrine of the plan of salvation.

·         All members (every member a missionary) and missionaries are called to teach the atonement.

·         Elder Holland said:

The Prophet Joseph Smith once declared that all things “which pertain to our religion are only appendages” to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. ¹  In like manner and for the same reasons, every truth that a missionary or member teaches is only an appendage to the central message of all time—that Jesus is the Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, the Holy Messiah, the Promised One, the Savior and Redeemer of the world; that He alone burst the bands of death and triumphed over the captivity of hell; that no one of us could ever have those same blessings without His intervention in our behalf; and that there never shall be any “other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, [except] in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.” ² 

·         Everything that we do in all aspects of the gospel: The prayers, the hymns, the talks that are given—all ought to be focused on the significance of the Atonement of Christ.

·         To explain the atonement a little (background):

·         When we were created, God built mortal limits in our bodies.

o   This is so that when our bodies were taxed beyond what they could endure, something would intervene.

o   This merciful release can take the form of death, unconsciousness, emotional breakdown, and other things.

o   Christ, being part God, had the ability to push past this limit.

o   Atonement: Infinite = reach, all-encompassing scope, power, but also of the infinite pain Christ suffered and the infinite time it took take upon Himself the sins of the world.

o   Christ-push infinitely beyond this limit

·         As a wrestler, I have felt total and utter exhaustion. Workouts are designed to push you past the point that you ever wanted to go. The actual matches are worse though. For all of 2 minutes per round, you are working your absolute hardest. I heard it once said that out of all sports, wrestling is one of the absolute hardest. If you make it all three rounds, all you want to do is fall over and die. However, this is like comparing an atom to the size of the solar system.

·         We cannot possibly understand the suffering Christ went through.

o   As He described in his own words, from D&C 19:

“…how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. For behold, I, God, have ^asuffered these things for all, that they might not ^bsuffer if they would ^crepent; But if they would not repent they must ^asuffer even as I; Which ^asuffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might ^bnot drink the bitter cup, and shrink— Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and ^afinished my preparations unto the children of men.

·         The amount of suffering that would be required to bleed from even a single pore would be so great that a mortal man would almost certainly pass the limit of mortal endurance.

o   Christ would’ve died from the weight of the sins He placed on Himself, the guilt he felt, and the horrible stress that this placed upon His body.

o   He took on every individual feeling that every individual has ever felt. He felt absolutely everything that we will ever feel. It was extremely hard for him.

o   Although given help from an angel during it, ultimately, He needed to do it alone.

o   Possibly the most excruciating experience was being denied the Holy Spirit because of the sins He carried.

§  Not being able to commune with the Father—Never happened to him before.

§  Prophets believe that this caused His heart to break—ceasing to work.

§  Every fiber of being taxed more than we can possibly imagine.

o   He spent the rest of His life: His betrayal, trial, and finally, His crucifixion, without the companionship of the Holy Ghost, a thing which he had never experienced before. He wished the cup to pass from before him, but, He submitted to the will of His Father.

o   Ultimately alone in the Garden, He began the process in which he would die. The only thing that kept Him alive when He should be dead was His divine son-ship.

o   When his side was pierced by a spear on the cross, Water, mingled with blood came forth. For this to happen, his heart had to have critically failed hours before, in the Garden, because of the immense suffering he went through, particularly from His being denied the Holy Spirit.

·         Although it is impossible for us to truly comprehend the suffering in the Garden, we can almost visualize what the cross felt like, and as such, I won’t go into too much detail about the crucifixion.

o   Know that crucifixion was a form of torture, not a speedy execution.

o   Designed to make the victim live as long as possible before they died.

o     Nerves pierced-constant excruciating pain.

o     Unable to take deep breaths—arms above head. Only way to satisfy desire for breath was to push up on nailed-in feet, crushing nerves, so that you could intake air.

o     Couldn’t stay up, pain would make you collapse back into unsatisfying, ragged breaths.

o   The sufferer would live, usually, for days without finally dying, and usually, not before their legs were broken, causing them to be unable to push up, therefore the victim would suffocate and die.

o   Christ could have endured as much pain as could be inflicted, but His work had been completed, and, after hours, as recorded in the gospels, He uttered: “It is finished. Father, thy will is done, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” And then he gave up the Ghost. He had accomplished the Father’s work of redeeming us from spiritual death.

·         As we know, the story doesn’t end here, and so that physical death could not claim us, after He was taken down and buried, He rose up and was resurrected on the third day.

o   Written in 1 Corinthians 15:20-22: But now is ^aChrist ^brisen from the dead, and become the ^cfirstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came ^adeath, by man came also the ^bresurrection of the dead. For as in ^aAdam all ^bdie, even so in ^cChrist shall all be made ^dalive.

o   We are all made alive through the atoning blood of Christ. Without His mediation, it would be impossible for us to enter into heaven, for no unclean thing can enter into His kingdom (3 Ne. 27:19)

·         Christ was the only one that could atone for our sins. He was the only perfect person ever to be born down into earth. As such, he was the only person that could sacrifice Himself for us.

·         As Isaiah says throughout Isaiah 53:

He is ^adespised and rejected of men; a man of ^bsorrows, and acquainted with grief…Surely he hath ^aborne our ^bgriefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was ^awounded for our ^btransgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities… and with his ^cstripes we are ^dhealed… He was ^aoppressed, and he was ^bafflicted, yet he ^copened not his mouth: he is brought as a ^dlamb to the ^eslaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth…for the ^btransgression of my people was he stricken And he made his grave with the ^awicked, and with the rich in his ^bdeath; ^cbecause he had done no ^dviolence, neither was any ^edeceit in his mouth…his soul an ^boffering for sin… my righteous ^bservant ^cjustify many; for he shall ^dbear their iniquities…he hath poured out his soul unto ^adeath: and he was numbered with the ^btransgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made ^cintercession for the transgressors.

·         Christ felt everything that we have felt. Every pain, sickness, sorrow, pang of guilt, every moment of nervousness, even our joys: everything. He knew everything about us. He saw us individually, our faces, etc.

o   He can empathize perfectly with us. He knows us perfectly, and He knows exactly what we are going through. This is our message of the Gospel. It is not of the pain he felt, but that we can return to our Heavenly Father through his saving grace. Christ made it possible for all of us. This is our gospel.

§  As Holland said: “The word gospel [means] literally “good news” or sometimes “glad tidings.” The “good news” was that death and hell could be escaped, that mistakes and sins could be overcome, that there was hope, that there was help, that the insolvable was solved, that the enemy had been conquered. The good news was that everyone’s tomb could one day be empty, that everyone’s soul could again be pure, that every child of God could again return to the Father who gave them life.”

·         This is the message that we are taught, and that we in turn need to teach to those who do not know the good news!

o   It’s not going to be easy. There will be trials and challenged. That is part of life. As Elder Holland said:

Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?

·         Elder Holland goes on to suggest that it is because salvation is not a cheap experience. It never was easy. There is this picture of Christ that my mother had put in the basement. It had an inscription that read as follows: I never said it would be easy. I only said that it would be worth it.

·         How could we, as the Church of Jesus Christ expect or believe it to be easy if it was never easy for Him? God cannot look on sin with any degree of allowance.

·         Those who preach and teach the gospel have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. They have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

·         Don’t give up hope though; although salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us, remember: we are not the first one to ask why there isn’t an easier way. If you wonder why’s there’s not, someone a lot greater and a lot grander a long time ago wondered the same thing.

·         Now don’t get all downhearted and depressed. It is not impossible. As it says in Preach my Gospel: As we rely on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, He can help us endure our trials, sicknesses, and pain. We can be filed with joy, peace, and consolation. All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As Christ says: Come unto me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Life is easier than it would’ve been had Christ not suffered and atoned for our sins. Also, much easier than if we were doing something bad. Wickedness might seem more fun at the time, but in the long run, Wickedness never is happiness. It is only through righteousness that we can be truly happy. Only through the gift of the Atonement can we return to live with God.

After my talk, we had a luncheon type thing at my house. It was pretty well attended, and It went pretty well. Thanks to everyone that came! The food was great, and if you didn't come, you missed out on really good food!