1.12.2015 - Another week in the Texas Dallas Heaven

Oh my, what a week it was here in the Texas Dallas Heaven.

We had our first new member lesson with JO! It was wonderful. We watched the Restoration with his family and had a great discussion. Both his parents bore their testimonies about Joseph Smith, and it was beautiful! Oh I just love JO.

After that we went and saw JA. We were talking about the priesthood and family history work. We logged him onto familysearch.org, only to find that he wasn't connected to anyone. Oh we worked furiously for an hour to try to help him get connected to his mom and grandparents at least, but to no avail. It made me realize how blessed I am to have my family tree nearly complete. Maybe my days as a youth family history consultant weren't as bad as I thought they were.... I think I've finally repented for not liking that calling. I wish I knew more now, so that I could be able to help JA and his family!

Tuesday we had district meeting and we decided we wanted to go out for lunch afterward. However, the tiny town of Quitman, Texas where we hold our meeting has a very limited supply of restaurants. But we ended up going to a little place called Seth's. It was so fun! Definitely just a bunch of southern food. I got crawfish tails, hushpuppies, and gumbo! Do I even know what any of that is? Not really ... but that's okay. It was delicious! A couple of the elders got frog legs, and one got alligator and let me try it! It just tasted like steak.

Oh boy, then after lunch we had a lesson with RI. He came to church on Sunday, JO's baptism on Saturday, has been reading and praying about the Book of Mormon, basically doing everything that he was supposed to. But he told us that he didn't want to join the church, even of finding out if it was true. So that was really discouraging. He told us that he just loved the company and loved comparing the Book of Mormon to the Bible, "studying with us", and that he could honestly just study for 2 years. He didn't feel anything at church and yeah. Oh we were sad. I told Sister Parkinson, "My heart hurts. And not because I had fried food for lunch." But we will continue to pray for him. Also, we will see him every week at our service at the food pantry as well. But oh it was sad.

We had a wonderful, wonderful lesson with TO - per usual. We talked about making vision statements for ourselves and having righteous goals in mind. He told us that this year, he is GOING to get the Melchizedek priesthood and he WILL go to the temple to receive his endowments. Oh we are just so happy for him. Our weekly meeting with him is easily my favorite of the week.

A new investigator told us that the Book of Mormon and the Plan of Salvation answer the questions that she has asked her whole life but has never been able to find answers to. She has a rough situation, but we hope to be able to work through it, and help her be able to participate in the fullness of the gospel.

Thursday night I was able to try gumbo again! This one was super delicious. I'll have to get the recipe...

Friday we went down to Big Sandy to see MA and to go tracting to try to get some more contacts for the week. We brought Brittany Miller with us and had a good time. Oh, this one house had a really creepy shrine on it... I can't even describe it.

Friday night we met with BR and RA. They are doing well. Life is still hard for them since the loss of their son, but they are doing okay. They told us that Faith and gospel have truly been what's sustained them through the past couple of months. It's so good to hear that they have turned to the Lord and the Atonement to make it through their trials and struggles. I love that family dearly.

Saturday was also awesome. Good lesson with JA about the prophets! When we were getting ready for our lesson before hand, I was singing "Follow the Prophet." I couldn't remember the Noah verse for a while, but then I finally got it. Well, on Sunday we were looking at a Primary song book. I realized that I had totally made the words up, but they were pretty good regardless.

"Noah was a prophet called to build a boat
People in his city said it wouldn't float
They were busy sinning, Noah preached in vain
They wished they had listened when they saw the rain." Oh well. haha.

Saturday night the youth in the Gilmer stake had a fireside/dance to kick off the new year. They invited President Taylor to speak at it. We found out that MI was going to be there, so we got to go! Oh it was joyous to see President! He called us up on the spot.... and we got to share our thoughts about Doctrine and Covenants 4:2 - Embark.

This is the email that keeps on giving..... sorry.

Sunday was good. Somehow, responsibilities got mixed up, and no one had brought bread for the Sacrament. But luckily, the YW Pres. had brought some hamburger buns for sloppy joes for the youth for after church. So we took the Sacrament more than halfway through the meeting, after a speaker, and using hamburger buns. It was unique, but definitely a testimony builder to me that the Sacrament is powerful and important.

Okay, now this is the most important part of the email:

We found out that at the end of the month, our mission will be blessed to have a visit from a general authority.

Elder Russel M. Nelson will be visiting the Texas Dallas Mission on.......my birthday.

Oh I am so excited I can hardly stand it. We are going to be purifying ourselves to prepare for a prophet of the Lord to come. I am going to focus on being more charitable and using this motto: "it's better to be kind than to be right."

Oh what a good day. What a good life. And what a glorious gospel! How thankful I am that we can build on a firm foundation, Jesus Christ. My testimony echoes that of the the hymn,

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, I'll never, no never,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake!

How grateful I am for the Savior, for His Atonement, and most importantly, His love.

I love you and pray that you will have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sister Gilbert

Hello! Hello! 1.5.2015

Hello to my beautiful people!

It has been a wonderful week! The weather here has gotten quite cold (like this morning it was 34) so we are just trying to enjoy the Utah-like weather. It's nice though.

So the highlight of this week was definitely JO's baptism! Oh it has been so wonderful to get to work with him from the beginning and help him progress to baptism. That boy definitely has a testimony of Jesus Christ and a knowledge of the gospel! After he got baptized, he was just grinning from ear to ear. It was a beautiful service.

In preparation for JO's baptism, we wanted to hit "standards" (the averages or normals for the zone. I don't really know how they make them... but regardless). The standards are pretty high, but we wanted to do our best. We ended up not hitting all the standards, but we did work very hard regardless. We taught 20 lessons, and 6 of those were LTMPs. (Lessons taught with a member present.) It was wonderful. Definitely some miracle lessons that's for sure, but it's good.

Tuesday night the bishop's family was having a bonfire, so we got to go to that. One of our investigators was there and there were also a bunch of other great people. It was a fun opportunity to socialize with the ward.

Wednesday we started volunteering at the local food pantry here. It's ran by the baptist church, but there are a couple LDS people who volunteer as well. We are excited to start helping out there every week. Yay for service opportunities!

So there is a family in the ward that took us out for dinner on New Years Eve. They have a son who served a mission and two grandkids. We've had some really good conversations. Turns out that their daughter-in-law's grandmother is in my home ward! (Sister Taysom). (Mom and Dad- the only way I figured this out was by just figuring out where she lived then looking it up on lds tools....haha). Cool little connection right there.

Here's a funny text from our zone leaders this week: #gilmergirlsgoin'forgold. We enjoyed it.

Friday we were able to teach MI again. (The 14 year old who was a referral from the Wadsworths.) We taught her the plan of salvation and she said that it just made so much sense. When we were teaching about the spirit world, she said, "I always wondered about those poor souls who  never got to hear about Jesus while they were on earth. It makes so much sense that they get the opportunity to hear about him after they die!" oh I was jumping for joy. On the inside. :)

RI was able to come to JO's baptism and to church! Oh it was wonderful! We continue to pray for him and seek to help him understand better. He's having a hard time understanding the priesthood, but we're trying to help.

Speaking of church - church was awesome yesterday! So here's everything that happened before the sacrament was blessed and passed: 

JA (my recent convert) was sustained to receive the Aaronic Priesthood
JO was confirmed a member of the church and received the Holy Ghost

A baby was blessed
Another baby was blessed. This baby (Miya) has a set of grandparents who do not speak English. They were in attendance. So the brother giving the blessing would say a line, then a different brother would repeat what he said, but in Spanish. ! So awesome.

So basically there were a bunch of priesthood ordinances happening. It was so perfect that RI was at church.

But wait there's more. So then, it was time for the testimony portion of the meeting. The testimonies were very powerful and centered on the Savior and on the priesthood. Then a sister in the ward who is originally from Ecuador got up and said that the bishop had invited her to bear her testimony in Spanish. Then her mother (who is a recent convert) also bore her testimony is spanish. And another guy did it too in Spanish. I had no idea what they were saying, but the Spirit was so so strong! Oh my heart was full. It was such a testimony builder that the Spirit speaks to our hearts, not always to our minds. We were sitting by JO's family during Sacrament meeting. His little brother was sitting by me. During all the Spanish testimonies, he leaned over to his mom and said, "Mom, what am I feeling?" She told him that it was the Spirit. He said, "Well I feel really warm and hot inside. It feels really good." I thought it was a wonderful teaching moment for this little boy.

Oh it was just so wonderful.

I tried lots of new foods this week! Elk steaks (not bad actually), a bajillion different chili at our ward chili cook off, and on new year's we had black eye peas (for good luck), steamed cabbage (for money) and good old cornbread. it was a fun tradition.

As I continue to read the Book of Mormon each day, I find that I don't want to put it down once I've read the assigned chapters for the day. I want to continue reading and learning.

Oh how blessed we are to have the gospel!

I love you!
Love,

Sister Gilbert

12.29.2014 - Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Hello hello! What a beautiful, beautiful week it was.

JO our little investigator, is getting baptized on January 3. He passed his baptismal interview and everything. I sure do love that little guy. He is a wonderful example to his family. His younger brother, SE, turns 8 in February. Hopefully we can help him get ready to be baptized as well.

Tuesday: funny story. We had a dinner appointment with an elderly lady in the ward. So we called her Monday night to remind her, and she was so grateful that we did. So then on Tuesday we went over to see her, and she kindly invited us in and we chatted with her for a while. We just kept waiting and waiting for dinner..... but then she asked us if we could share a message with her. So we read a scripture, discussed it, and then she shooed us out the door. Yep, that's right. She had totally forgotten about it. I mean, we aren't ever hungry. Ever. But it was still the most hilarious thing. Oh boy. We were also able to spend some good time with some less-actives and make Brazilian candies with them.

Christmas Eve was nice! We got to eat dinner with a whole bunch of our favorite people and play some games. The members here in Gilmer have been soooo good to us. We've definitely felt spoiled and loved a whole bunch. There has definitely been an outpouring of LOVE.

Christmas was good! We had a zone meeting, then chatting with our fam fams on Facetime, and another dinner. Oh, I just love the people here in Gilmer. They sure do make it easier to be away from home. But definitely the highlight of the day and month and basically season was talking to my beautiful family. Oh I love them.

Friday we texted one of our investigators, MI, to see how she was. She texted back and told us that she has been reading the Book of Mormon and that she has come to know that it is true! She said she was reading some verses that her friend had marked, and it just "clicked" and she knew it was all true. So awesome! We also talked to JA about going to do baptisms for the dead. We are going to help him get a family name ready to go for their youth temple trip in February. I'm excited for him!

Sunday night was good also. We saw RI, had a great dinner, and saw two less-actives. He is coming along okay, it will definitely be baby steps with him, but I'm willing to take them.

Also, we went to Longview today. I stepped foot in a target for the first time in MONTHS. Ha.

I'm reading the Book of Mormon again. We're trying to do it in 40 days as a mission. I'm highlighting every time that it has a reference to Jesus Christ in it. It is amazing to see how every page and even every column has reference to Christ. How grateful I am for that. Another cool thing is that as I'm more actively reading, I'm gaining more understanding. Like, I was reading the Isaiah chapters this morning, and they made much more sense! yay.

oh how grateful I am for the Savior and for everything he's done for me. I love Jesus Christ, and I hope that through my actions that I can follow him more fully.

Have a wonderful week. I love y'all!

Love,
Sister Gilbert

The Living Christ

Gretchen's mission memorized "The Living Christ" by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Here's a message from her mission president: 

We bear testimony of the divine power of our Savior’s great Atoning sacrifice and its grace in these sacred words.  Through deeply planting these words in our minds and in our hearts, we are coming to know our Savior in a more personal ways. We are Becoming One with Him. We are striving to serve Him with all of our hearts, might, minds and strength!

The link below is our Christmas gift to you!  We hope you will watch it over and over and over again!  Our missionaries are excited for you to see each of them bearing witness of His holy name. We love and honor our Savior, Jesus Christ. We declare that The Church of Jesus Christof Latter-Day Saints is His Church. Our love and gratitude for Him knows no bounds. “God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son.”

 

12.22.2014

So we had our Christmas/Transfer meeting in Dallas on Tuesday! Holy cow, it is just so wonderful to be gathered will all the other missionaries! I just love them dearly. It was hard to say goodbye to all my missionary friends who went home, but the meeting was great. We got to watch Charlie Brown's Christmas and also the Angels From the Realms of Glory by the Piano Guys with David Archuleta! That was a highlight. We then just had a musical devotional where a bunch of missionaries shared their Christmas musical talents. So great. We did have to wake up at 3:45 am to be able to make it to Dallas on time, but it was well worth it! Also, I saw a wild hog dash across the road on our way home. Super cool! I love East Texas!

Wednesday we had the most wonderful lesson with TO again. He taught us about faith and did a fantastic job! He definitely knows way more about the gospel than he lets on to. We then had a wonderful discussion about our gifts and talents and how we can overcome our weaknesses. It's amazing to see how less-actives and investigators can answer questions to your prayers. It's definitely a "learning together" sort of experience. We strengthen them and they strengthen us. Love it. The 3rd ward had a baptism that we were able to attend, and oh it was just a wonderful day.

Thursday: we ran into RA at the gas station when we were taking a quick break. She had been having a really bad day, so it meant a lot to be able to run into here. I definitely know that it was NOT a coincidence we were there.

Friday was the roughest day. Everything just was not not not working out. But we did have a couple of good things. We were able to contact down in Big Sandy for a while, and we were able to meet the Millers' son, who just got home from his mission in Nevada. I love that missionary spirit! It's wonderful. Also, at our dinner appointment that night, they brought out this HUGE HUGE HUGE Italian Cream cake. So we were eating it and it was pretty good. Then they told us that they found it on the side of road! WHAT? He went on to explain that it was still all wrapped up and packaged, frozen solid, and sitting on dry ice, but just laying there. SO funny! So, needless to say, we ate roadkill cake.

Saturday was great! Do y'all remember me telling you about RI? Well, we had another fantastic lesson with him. He told us about a very spiritual experience he had at a football game, and that he truly felt like God was telling him to be more loving. He told us with tears in his eyes that he loved us and cares for us. It was seriously just the nicest thing. Then we answered a bunch of questions that he had about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. They were all very earnest questions, and he wasn't trying to cross us, but he just wanted to know. Then we talked briefly about faith, repentance, and baptism. He told us that he didn't want to get baptized just to join a church. He said that he's only a member of Christ's church, and any other church isn't worth it. We were able to bear testimony that our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church again on the earth and that it is operated and functions the same as Christ's church. It was a very very spiritual moment for me, and while I was testifying, I felt the spirit testify to me that my words were true. RI then said, "It may take me a while, but how long are you willing to continue meeting with me? I'm not naive to what your purpose is (I think he meant like baptism....) but I want to continue meeting with you." And the prayer that he prayed was softer and different. It is just amazing to see how the Lord is preparing people and softening hearts. On top of that, RI doesn't have any problems with drinking or smoking or any of that, so that makes a big difference. Oh, I am just excited to see how things pan out.

Sunday was also good. The members here are so loving and we truly got spoiled and gifted out! All I want for Christmas is to skype with my family, but the love that I have received here in Gilmer is amazing. Oh I just love it here.

Well, that's about it! But I want to bear my testimony, that I KNOW God lives and that He loves us. I want to second my testimony to that of the apostles given in The Living Christ. "His way truly is the way to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come. God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son!"

I love y'all so much! Have a blessed week and a very Merry Christmas!

Love,
Sister Gretchen Gilbert

12.14.14 My Texas Life

Hello hello! What a beautiful 60 degree mid December day it is today. Ha! It's been a good week, and I've definitely seen and felt the Lord's hand in my life this week. How grateful I am for that.

Here are some of the miracles that I've seen this week.

Monday: So on Monday we were driving to our appointment with Da (a recent convert) to teach him his last new member lesson. The phone started ringing, so Sister Parkinson answered it. Turns out it was a ward member, Sister Wadsworth. We had a dinner appointment with them the next evening, so she was just calling to confirm that. But then, after we worked out details for dinner, she told us she had some exciting news. Two weeks earlier at a dinner appointment with them, we had invited their family to extend 2 invitations to their friends/family members to listen to a message from us by the time we had dinner with them again. So on the phone, Sister Wadsworth told us that both people they had invited to listen accepted the invitation!! (Look at these wonderful members doing their missionary work!) So one of them was their grandmother who is from Louisiana, and they are going to get her set up with the missionaries out there. The other one is is a 14 year old named Mi who is a good family friend (I'll tell you more about her on the Thursday miracles). We were seriously SO excited! Oh boy, Monday was truly wonderful.

Tuesday: We had a wonderful district meeting talking about light and truth. We sang "Lead, Kindly Light." I love this hymn. Here are part of the words.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th'encircling gloom;

Lead thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home;

Lead thou me on!

Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene--one step enough for me.

We also talked about how in the scriptures when it invites to ask, seek, and knock, it is similar to being a PRO. Ask = pray. Seek = read. Knock = obey. COOL!

Jesus Christ truly is the light. I was reading in 3 Nephi 18 this morning and also found this to go along with it.

16 And as I have prayed among you even so shall ye pray in my church, among my people who do repent and are baptized in my name. Behold I am the light; I have set an example for you.

24 Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do.

It's so good. I love love love the concept of light and truth and how all good things come from it. It also reminds me of the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 88:40 - "For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light;"

Wednesday: This was such a wonderful day! Everything just went well, and oh boy, I was so tired by the end of it, but it was amazing. First thing, we helped Sister Duvall set up her Nativity scene. Her health is doing a little bit better, so that was wonderful to see. After lunch, we visisted Sister Fairbrother. She's pregnant and just found out that she's having a boy. Her husband was out of town this week, so we went to check up on her. We had a wonderful conversation with her. Then we met with To and had an awesome discussion about the Atonement and the Plan of Salvation. We had planned on teaching him about faith, but when we went in there, we started talking about the Resurrection and just went off on the plan. Oh it was wonderful, and we parted ways feeling so uplifted. After dinner with the Dixon's we taught Jo another lesson. Oh we are so excited for his baptism on January 3rd!  After dinner, we went snowflaking (it's like doing the little heart attack, but with snowflakes) to the Elders and to some less-actives and a couple of our investigators. When we got home, Ti (investigator) texted us and told us that the snowflakes meant SO much to her. She was so stressed and busy and sad because her husband couldn't come home from work, and she said the snowflakes and us just thinking about her meant a lot to her.

Thursday: we started the day off with a lesson with Ri, the new investigator that I found whilst on exchanges with Sister Griffin. Our meeting with him last week was kind of rough, so Sister Parkinson and I prayed really hard that we could have the Spirit with us to direct the conversation. I definitely felt strengthened and our testimonies were confirmed by the Holy Ghost. Ri still isn't quite sure why there needs to be another book of scripture, but when we were testifying about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and the priesthood, I could see the cogs working in his mind. Thursday evening was probably one of the highlights of this week. So we went back to the Wadsworths to have our lesson with Mi! So, at the Yamboree back in October, Dallin and Eden Wadsworth (ages 15 and 12) met this girl named Mi. They had a really good time with her and hung out with her all weekend. So the Wadsworths and Mi had a good friendship going. Mi commented several times to Sis. Wadsworth that she just loved the feeling in their home and said it was peaceful. Dallin told Mi a little about their beliefs and also gave her a Book of Mormon. Well, she said she was willing to listen to the lessons to see what we all believe in. So, Mi is a baptist, but she was willing to listen. We talked about prophets and the priesthood and the apostasy and Joseph Smith and she said that it all just made so much sense to her. It just clicked. Then we watched the Restoration DVD, and I think it helped solidify it even more. We were very real and honest in our testimonies and in our personalities, and I think it really helped Mi realize that we are real people, and that we do good things. We have a return appointment with her tomorrow, and oh boy I am excited!

Friday we had our ward Christmas party! Benji Dawson (whose mother passed away the beginning of November) got his mission call and opened it at the party! He's going to the Utah Salt Lake West Mission. That was really fun and brought back lots of memories.

Saturday: we made cookies with Sister Whittemore to deliver to less-actives and such. It was so great! The 2nd ward had a baptism that we were able to attend, and then we finished up the evening by going caroling with the Elders. It was seriously wonderful.

Sunday: we had to teach gospel principles on the fly. It actually ended up being good though. We taught about the Spirit World, and it went well. So here's a little confession: I'm definitely picking up on the Texas Twang. Yikes! Also, the line of when it's appropriate to use "when" or "whenever" is getting very blurred. Ha. But, during our lesson yesterday, I said, "My life...." but it definitely came out as "Maiy Laiyfe." Oh boy.

What a wonderful week! Also, in Acts 5:38-39, it talks about how the works of men will cease, but the work of God can't be overthrown. I loved it!

Sorry for the novella.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas week! I love you so much!

Love,

Sister Gretchen Gilbert

12.8.2014

Hello hello! Another week and has come and gone. And actually this week has felt like the mega longest week of my life. Maybe not, but still. It was pretty conventional, all of our normal appointments and visits.

Wednesday night to Thursday afternoon we got to go on exchanges with the sisters who are serving in Tyler. Sister Griffin came here and we had a great time. Let me just tell you: tracting is super awkward in some parts of our area because the houses are so far spread apart. So with Sister Griffin, we just hopped in the car and drove down the street from house to house to talk to people. We actually ended up getting a new investigator from exchanges! He's a nice man who knows a lot about the Bible and is very comfortable in another church. But, he is interested in the Book of Mormon and is willing to listen to what we have to offer. So we will continue and press-on there. We also visited a bunch of widows. That's always an adventure to be had.

Thursday evening when Sister Parkinson and I had been reunited, we went out with a girl in the ward who recently got back from her mission. We had an appointment with some potential investigators, but they weren't home, so we went around trying to visit some other potentials. One of our investigators was home though! So we got to see her and share He is the Gift with her. She really enjoyed the video! Also, we got REALLY lost trying to get home. Once again, the adventures of Sister Parkinson and Sister Gilbert. Hahaha. We dropped the member off at her house, and I was certain that I could get us home the back way. (Well I was actually only about 85% certain and part of me was thinking that I needed to just drive home on the main roads, but I ignored that and went along my merry way.) So we're driving along and we're just passing houses every once in a while and mostly it was just us and the trees and finally we get to an intersection of the roads Cherokee Trace and Chipmunk. I didn't recognize the name of the street Chipmunk, so we pulled out our handy dandy map (which isn't so handy or accurate) to try to figure out where we were. Turns out we were definitely not in our area anymore...... So we turn around, drive for a while, find the street Armadillo and eventually make it back home. We were laughing pretty hard by the time we made it back there. Oh goodness.

Friday we saw MA and had a fun lesson with her. We all shared our favorite scriptures and why they mean a lot to us. Friday night was the highlight though: After we had finished for the evening and planned for Saturday, we definitely got in the Christmas spirit! Some less actives gave us one of their old Christmas trees along with decorations and we got to put it up! Our halls have officially been decked.

Also, a member called us up on Saturday morning. Her husband has some disabilities and she has been very sick with pneumonia and hadn't been able to put their Christmas tree up. So she gave us a call and we got to serve her and put her tree up! Pretty much the best service project I've ever done. :) So good. Also, she gave us some of those delicious lofthouse sugar cookies.

Sunday was also good. Our fast and testimony meeting was very spiritual. I love when pure testimonies are born and you just feel strengthened and uplifted after the meeting. We also got to go caroling with a family in the ward and it was just a grand time.

I am so grateful for Christmas! It's so wonderful to have an extra special reason to share our message with people and to invite people to come unto Christ.

A scripture that really stuck out to me this week was Romans 8:25-26
 25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
 26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makethintercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

One last thing, at the end of the Book of Mormon, the Nephites are ridiculous. I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again. In 3 Nephi 6, the Nephites had just barely gotten saved and preserved by the Lord. But they start to go wicked again. But in verse 14 it says,

...The church was broken up in all the land save it were among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith; and theywould not depart from it, for they were firm, and steadfast, and immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of theLord.

Let's strive to be like the Lamanites! Firm, steadfast, immovable.

Well, I love y'all! I hope that you have a most wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Gilbert