My report on how to live life

Today is the 27th of August, 2012. 18 months ago, I got out of my parent's mini-van and walked into the Missionary Training Center. I spent 3 weeks there, and then flew to the most foreign land in the United States of America, Texas. Now, in exactly 6 months from today (not that I am counting down) I will go to the Dallas Temple, have testimony meeting and dinner with the departing missionaries, and go to sleep for the last time as a missionary in Texas. This is crazy.

It's rough whenever people ask "how long have you been out?" or "how long do you have left?" because then I start thinking about home and stuff, and I don't want to be trunkie in any way.  

This week was one of those weeks where you just wish people would just use their agency in a way that allowed them to progress. I mean, you wish that every week, byut this week was rough. Tons of punched appointments, nobody came to church, everybody had an excuse, and it was just disappointing. I mean, life goes on, but still, it was just a more dry week than normal. Except with the weather. It has been a really weird August for Texas, we have had a lot of rain this month. yesterday during studies it was sprinkling, then right before we walked out the door to go to church, the sun came out and heated everything up, and it was really humid. We got to church, went to YSA sacrament, then went in for Ward Council with the family ward. During ward council the primary president came in and was soaked, she said it was raining hard. We got out and it was a downpour. It rained like that for most of church, it rocked. That was the hardest rain so far this month, but we've had longer rains that were less intense several times.

 We also got out on the bikes more this week. We live on a big 4.6 mile loop (hence the street name Harmony Circle) and we decided to get the bikes out and ride around it to talk to people and knock on doors. It's a country area, so there is some distance between houses. Most are futher apart than Grandma Stoker's neighborhood. It has been good when we have done that. I love riding the bikes, it just bites trying to convince myself to do it.

 Well, that's about it for this week. I love y'all! Have a great week! Find someone for the missionaries to teach!

 

--Elder Braxton C Foust--

The Doctrine of Christ

"This is my report on how to live life. They say the best way is just to live one day at a time. If you try to live seven days at a time, the week will be over before you know it." - Sally Brown (Peanuts)

 This week was awesome. We are really seeing miracles start to happen. We have been finding a lot of people that have allowed us to come back and teach them. The only problem, which is the same problem missionaries seem to have all over the place, is getting them to come to church. One thing I have noticed is that we invite and invite and invite people to come to church all the time, and it is like pulling teeth. But some random person they meet once says "hey, you should come check out my church" and they go there. It is so dumb. That is why members are so important in this work. Because when a member invites them, they are more likely to come. So invite your friends to go to sacrament meeting with you! 

On Wednesday we had our Zone Conference. It was awesome. It was held at our stake center and Denton Zone came down, so I got to see a bunch of people I was up there with before, including Elder Phister. It was a ton of fun. I got to conduct the meeting, so I sat with the APs up front and had to get up over and over again. And the Elder that was suppose to play piano got lost on the way from Denton, so President asked me to play piano as well as conduct. That was interesting. "we'll now have an opening hymn, #72 "Praise to the Lord, The Almighty." Sister Facer will lead and I will play piano" and then I walked across the front to the piano, and had to sight read a song tha I do not know how to play. If I had known I was going to have to play it, I would have been practicing it. Oh well, it wasn't a big deal. But if you ever get to see the person conducting the meeting have to walk back and forth to the piano, it is pretty funny.

Zone Conference was incredible. I love listening to President Sagers teach and train, because nobody does it like he does. He knows everything there is to know about the scriptures. We talked about the Fall of Adam, and about how we are all fallen, and we need to overcome our personal "falls." He talked about how when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden they left to the East (because Cherubim were placed in the East at the entrance where they left through) and how the tabernacle in the Old Testament was set up with the three doors facing to the east, and how it is symbolic of moving back in towards God's presence. Then he described and explained a lot of the sacrifices and ordinances that took place in the Old Testament tabernacle, and how it is similar to the Temple today, and how it is symbolic of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I loved it. That was just one subject. It rocked.

We had some great lessons this week. A couple weeks ago we got a referral from a man in St. Louis who said he had been working with a family for a while and they are ready to meet the missionaries now. I will call this family the Keller Family. We had been trying to get in for a while, but they have a gated driveway and we didn't have the code, and the phone number we had didn't work. We were able to get her Cell phone number and then got to set up an appointment. We went in there not knowing anything about this family other than they were "ready." Boy, are they ready. As we were talking about some stuff, the daughter mentioned the "puppy book," whcih we obviously had no idea what she was talking about. So they pulled out a three ring binder (the over of which has puppies on it) and opened it up. Inside were pages of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price that had been marked, cut out, and put into page protectors sorted into subjects. Sister Keller told us that as she read those books she would mark stuff she loved, but then couldn't find it again later on, so she bought another one, and as she finds stuff she likes she cuts it out of one and sorts it in the Puppy Book. She has already read the standard works. She loves it. I have never seen anything like this in my life. And their daughter is brilliant, she is 11 years old, but has a strong understanding and love of the Bible, all from personal studies. I am excited for this family, they are great. Brother Keller has not done nearly as much research, but he is open to learn too.

The reason my title is the Doctrine of Christ is simply this. Everything we do, teach, learn, and apply goes back to the fundamental doctrines that Christ himself taught. Faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, Repentance, Baptism by immersion and by the priesthood authority for the remission of sins, the laying on of hands for the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end of our lives. Anyone who does not strive to increase their understanding of these doctrines cannot develop their relationship with their Father in Heaven, and cannot fully partake of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The Atonement covers both the physical aspects of our existence and the spiritual, but without the full Doctrine of Christ, aspects of each of those are lost. If we want to come unto Christ, we must follow his Doctrine. We must live his gospel. My invitation is for you to study Faith this week. Study what Faith really is, what it does to affect both our behavior and our nature, and what you need to do to increase your faith. Study with prayer, and I promise you will have a greater understanding of what faith really means.

I Love Y'all! Have a great week!

--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Egg Rolls and Cake

This week was pretty exciting, and also very stressful. We had a good amount of success and taught some great lessons.

Tuesday was fun because I was on exchange with a brand new district leader to train him on how to fulfill his responsibilities. He is going to do great. We taught some great lessons together too. We taught one of our eternal investigators, I will call him Caleb. Caleb is a strong Baptist. He constantly reminds us of that fact. He has told us several times "I was saved in 1974." Well, Elder Moore and I have taught him a lot and he understands that those are our beliefs, but he hadn't had a moment where he realized that we weren't just teaching our beliefs, but that we are teaching truth. That we are teaching God's beliefs. So on Tuesday we started to teach about Baptism, and he asked how we baptize. Once I told him about the physical aspects, I explained (again) the need for authority. Finally something clicked. He started to ask more about the need for authority, and eventually I had broken down that this is the same organization that Christ had. He is the head, he was 12 apostles, there are 70s (found in both the old testament and the new) who report to the apostles, and then there are units in the different areas, like in the NT there was Corinth, there was Philipi, there was Ephesus, there was Jerusalem, etc. Today there are groups in Weatherford, in Fort Worth, in Dallas, in Denton, etc. Once he saw the organization of Christ's church, and I again explained authority by the laying on of hands by those who have authority, he realized something and said "so basically what you are saying is that my pastor had no authority to baptize me, and my baptism wasn't valid."

This can either be a really good turning point or a really bad one. Fortunately with Caleb, it was fine. He said he'd study the Book of Mormon and pray about it and about authority. We'll see what happens.

Wednesday was our Zone Training. We had a really good training and even had one of the members of the YSA ward come because she is preparing for a mission. It was a really good meeting. With this over, some of our stress for the week was taken care of. But not all of it yet.

On Saturday we had a full day. We had lessons lined up from the morning until dinner. Then after dinner was what I thought would be the scariest thing of my mission so far. In our meeting with the Stake President a few weeks ago he asked us to speak at Bishopric training on how the ward leaders can help member-missionary work, and have a Q&A about it, and do it all in 15 minutes. This may not seem like a big deal at first, but let's look at some key points. We are talking to a bunch of older men, who hold priesthood keys, and who know a lot more than we do. At the same time, they assume they know more about missionary work than we do, but forget that our mission is nothing like theirs was. President Sagers instructed us to teach out of Preach My Gospel, which we did practically nothing but quote Preach My Gospel. The worst part about it is simply that no matter how we present this message, someone will not be happy, and they will let us know. We have to do all we can to help the work progress, and not step on any leader's toes. We did the training on Finding, and talking about how missionaries work with members, and how the ward leaders can help that go forward. It went pretty well. Bishop Bell, who we live with, said he was impressed and loved it, so that's really the one that matters. I'm just glad it's over.

And now this morning was crazy too. The Bell's have had missionaries in their garage apartment for 4 years now, and it has taken some damage due to high traffic 19-21 yr old boys living there. So they are remodeling it. So our morning was spent packing up, moving out, and tearing up the carpet, the padding, the carpet tack strips, and the base boards. All in all it took about 4 hours. Now tonight they are going to be painting, and then the tile guy comes tomorrow. We should be back in by this weekend, but it'll be crazy.

Yesterday was an eagle court of honor for 5 guys in the ward. We didn't go, but we had to do our sunday night reports and got there as they were cleaning up, so we got some left over food. Egg Rolls and Cake (hence the subject line). It rocks. 2 of the boys are brothers, and their parents are from Cambodia. They actually escaped during the war. The Father in the family has told us stories about being near the killing fields (like Elder Nielsen talks about) and stuff, it is crazy. His wife makes really, really good eggrolls. I am going to go home and eat some today.

I Love Y'all! Have a great week!

--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Tastes like Chicken

Actually, in case you're wondering, Guinea Pig does not taste like chicken. The taste is more like Pork Loin.

This week was a really good week. Transfers went smoothly, everyone is ready to go, and we found 3 new families to teach. All of them have a lot of potential.

 One of them is an Army recruiter and his wife. They are really cool. The lesson we had there was incredible, the spirit was strong and they felt it. Now we'll see if that keeps up. I will call him Joe

The next family we found is a large family, they have like 7 kids total, kind of a his and hers deal. We are not sure if the husband is going to be very receptive, but the wife likes what we've shared so far a lot.

The last is an elderly couple. At the moment the wife is not interested, she is 7th day Adventist or something, she goes to church on Saturday. But he loves what he has seen of the church and what we have taught. He is an excommunicated Jehovah's Witness (long time ago) and he hasn't found anywhere he feels like he belongs. But he came to church yesterday and loved it. I'll call him Jerry.

Gus is back in the hospital. He wasn't being taken care of very well and got dehydrated, and he had bad affects from his medication, and his kidneys shut down. We haven't heard much, and we're not sure how well he is doing. We're praying for him a lot.

Last Wednesday we did baptismal interviews for a companionship in Cleburne. It is a family of three, so we both got to do interviews. The coolest thing about it was that they are from the Marshall Islands and speak Marshalese, and no english, so a marshalese member translated for us. It was really cool.

 ZLC was on Friday, it was also incredible. We talked about "Where we are," "Where we want to be," "How we are going to get there?" and "When will we do it?" for the mission about several things. Baptisms,  lessons, investigators at church, our teaching skills, our conversions, and a couple other things. It was really good.

I love teaching people. The second scariest thing in the world is knocking on someone's door. The scariest is when they sat "come in." That happened twice this week. But I love it once we get passed the initial contact, because this is the most important message in the world. I learn a lot as I teach people, because as I listen and hear what they feel, think, hear, and see, I understand how to teach to them, and how to help them understand. One way that happened was talking about Prophets this week. Prophets are called of God. They are ordained by someone who has authority from God to do so. They receive the Priesthood authority through that ordination. They also receive revelation for the whole world when they receive this ordination. As they receive revelation they write their words down, and it becomes scripture. When Moses wrote the 5 books of Moses, he wrote the history and the revelations given to man from God that had happened to that point. He also added what revelation he had received all the way up to the moment he left this life. Then Joshua took on the role, and continued to write a history and revelations. His words did not remove the previous prophets' words, but added to them, and testified of them. This continued all throughout time, throughout all the dispensations. Although there were periods of apostasy in between books of scripture, God continued to call prophets. When Christ came, he fulfilled the role of prophet, and he is also the savior of the world. He prophesied, received revelation, received and used priesthood authority, and spread the gospel. His words were written by apostles, and after his death, they continued to write scripture as they received it. Again, these writings added to the previous writings, and testified of them. But eventually, the apostles were all killed. When this happened, Priesthood authority given to man, and Revelation for the world ceased in Jerusalem. People still had the writings of all the holy prophets, but continued revelation ceased. They had the words of Christ that had been written, but without continued revelation, how could they be kept pure as they had in the past? The answer is simple. They could not. And with this we see the prophesy of Amos come true from chapter 8:11-12

It is not that people can't find the Bible, because that would be silly. The Bible is everywhere. But people can't find the words Christ is speaking right now unless they hear a prophet’s voice. There are 14 million members of the church worldwide. Not all of those listen to the prophet’s voice, and other billions of people in the world do not either. They (and maybe you) are living in fulfillment of Amos' prophesy. If you are not hearing the words Christ is speaking today, you are "running to and fro not knowing where to find it." Even if you don't think you are.

There is a prophet of God living on the earth today. He has been called of God, ordained from on high, and receives revelation from above each and every day. If you do not choose to listen to his words, and follow the commandments Christ gives to him to give to us, as Christ has with all the prophets before, you are choosing to miss out on some blessings. We have to be 100% obedient in order to receive 100% of the blessings. The only way to receive the highest degree of glory is through 100% obedience, through submitting our will to our Father. And how can you submit your will to God if you do not listen to what that will is? You cannot. And no one can be saved in ignorance. Choosing to be ignorant is choosing not to follow Christ.

So, let us do as he asked when Christ said "Come, follow me."

--

--Elder Braxton C Foust

Finally some consistency‏

For the first time since January, I get to keep the same companion for another transfer. I went from Lao, to Fibke, to Fa, to Phister, to Moore. And now I'll be with Moore for another transfer, so that rocks. Before Lao was Pipher for 2, but before that was Brindley and Sare for 1 each too. I have had so many "one and done"s that it's not even funny. Apparently I have a lot to learn from a lot of companions, so I go through them quickly. But it must be a good sign, because President leaves companions that don't get along together to help them grow and get over it, so at least I'm not in that boat.

Another point of consistency is concerning the Zone. There are very few things happening with this transfer. They are closing two areas in the Zone which is sad, and two Sisters are going home, but we're getting a New Missionary with one of those sisters, and a fairly new one to replace the other. And other than those 4 areas having a change, the rest of the Zone is the same. It's nice to have consistency.

Crazy story of the week. Almost as good as Demon Spiders in Cambodia.

We have an Elder that used to serve in Peru, until he got a really bad stomach flu that got him sent home. Lucky for him once he recovered they sent him to the BMW to finish his mission. So he is speaking Spanish here in Weatherford. Well, one day he decided he wanted to make some Peruvian food, but unfortunately there isn't much of a Hispanic market or anything like that here. And there was a specific dish he wanted to make, one that he had had in Peru several times.

Guinea Pig.

So they made a stop at Pet smart. In order to not waste anything, we now all have little homemade lucky charms, but instead of Rabbit's Feet, they are guinea pig feet. This Elder used to go hunting back home, so he knew how to skin and gut the thing, and now they have a pelt on their wall, lucky charms, and of course, a little bit of meat. It'll be interesting to see if they like it when it's all cooked up. They are planning on cooking it today, so I will tell you about it next week.

One thing I love about Texas is the Pride these people have for their state and for their country. Patriotism is a part of the culture here. They've all got the Toby Keith mentality "Justice will be heard and the battle will rage. This Big dog will fight if you rattle his cage. You'll be sorry that you messed with the US of A. Cause We'll stick a boot in your ___ it's the American way!" With all the religious turmoil in the world, all the political things that go on, it's nice to be somewhere that has strong Christian values and the good conservative beliefs that go with them. It's good to be in a place where people recognize that God doesn't want us to mess up the good things that are going on. This is the Promised Land of the Book of Mormon. This is what God was talking about when he said "If you shall keep my commandments you shall prosper in the land. If you keep not my commandments, you will be cut off from my presence." We have a choice. Follow Christ, or Follow Satan. It is black and white. We need to get rid of the "What they do doesn't hurt me" and "what I do doesn't hurt anyone else" mentality. We need to be united. We need to arise from the dust, and be men. We need to do all we can to preserve the righteous characteristics this country was built on. Because if we do not, damnation comes. I'm not talking about hellfire and brimstone, at least not yet anyway. But a stop in progression. There is a reason the dark ages had such little industrial progression, it's because of the Great Apostasy. There's a reason that since the 1800s we have had such immense industrial progression, it's because of the Restoration. And there is a reason we are in an economic and social decline. It is because of a widespread personal apostasy. You're either righteous or you're not. So make a choice. Do what you know is right.

Read the Bible. Read the Book of Mormon.

We show our faith by studying, believing, and obeying God’s revealed word. We diligently search the scriptures to understand the truth. We feast upon them because they open the door to revelation and show us what we need to do and become.

Communicate with your Father in Heaven through Prayer.

As we pray with faith, sincerity, and real intent, we will see God’s influence in our lives. He will guide us in our daily lives and help us make good decisions. He will bless us with feelings of comfort and peace. He will warn us of danger and strengthen us to resist temptation. He will forgive our sins. We will feel closer to Him. We must learn to recognize His influence in our lives. We must learn to listen to the still, small voice of the Spirit.

Work Monday through Saturday, and Worship Sunday.

 When a community or nation grows careless in its Sabbath activities, its religious life decays and all aspects of life are negatively affected. The blessings associated with keeping the Sabbath day holy are lost.

It's just as easy to choose the right as it is to sin.

So let's choose the right.

-- 
--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Board Week‏

Today marks the first day of Board Week for this transfer. Board week being the week where President and Sister Sagers, and the Assistants, spend a lot of time looking at, modifying, and praying about the transfer board, which has pictures of all the missionaries sorted into their areas. This Saturday we will get the transfer notes, and we will know who is going, and who is staying.

This has been, yet again, the shortest transfer of my mission. They just keep getting faster and faster. And it doesn't help that today is my 17 month mark either. Next week a great group of missionaries go home. One of which is a sister that came out with me, Sister Snell. She's Spanish so she goes home a transfer before the other 2 sisters that came out with me, they'll go in 6 weeks. Also, several missionaries I have served around. Elder Soto who was in Fort Worth and Denton with me, Elder Alfaro who was also in both of those Zones while I was, and all 4 sisters who go home this transfer, Sister Mills, Sister Brewer, Sister Byington, and Sister Bailey. I have gotten to be great friends with all of these missionaries too. So it's just weird to be having transfers, knowing that as this group leaves, not only does the number of missionaries I actually know decrease, so does the number of friends I have around. It's odd. It seems like it is coming to an end.

I love missionary work. I have never known so clearly that this is the true church as I do now. I have never known so surely that God has called a prophet again. I have never had such a strong witness that the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the word of God. I know now. Do you?

This week has been awesome. We went on exchanges on Tuesday and I got to go to Cleburne Texas to do Spanish work. It was a lot of fun. On Wednesday Gus got home from the hospital. We went by and he was excited to see us. He told us he had been praying we would come by and talk. We had a great discussion with him, even though he was in some pain from his surgery. One of the first things he told us is "Now I just need to heal up, so I can get baptized."

Thursday was amazing. We had interviews with President Sagers. We had a great interview as the Zone Leaders, and then my interview with President was spectacular. We talked about the Book of Mormon activity we are doing and talked about what we learn from this activity. What we learn is that on every page it testifies of three things. 1) The Divinity of Christ. 2) The Doctrine of Christ. and 3) The Atonement of Christ. We talked about the Bible, and he asked me what it is that Satan did everything he could to take out of the Bible during the Great Apostasy. It is the Doctrine of Christ. It is the basic doctrines of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. They are present in the Bible, but they have been diluted. The Bible is the word of God, and it is true. But these truths are missing, and without the Book of Mormon, we cannot now come to know these truths, and fully partake of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Yesterday we had a great day at church. For the YSA branch we got a les-active girl to come that hasn't been to an LDS church in several years, and she is coming to FHE tonight. Then, at the family ward, we got an investigator who we were ready to drop because he doesn't keep commitments to come to. Elder Moore worked his magic and convinced him to come for just sacrament, and afterwards he said he'll be back next week, and maybe even stay for Sunday school. It rocked.

That was my week. It seemed to go by faster than it took you to read about it. The big things I want y'all to take away from this is this. You need the Doctrine of Christ. You need the Bible and the Book of Mormon to fully understand it. If you exclude either one, you are choosing to remove yourself from God. And only you are to blame. Read the scriptures, pray, and partake of the sacrament. You'll know what else to do if you do those three basic things.

I Love Y'all! Have a great week!

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

Week 5 already‏

Well, as you can see from the subject line, it is already week 5 of this transfer. Next week is Board Week, and then the next is transfers. This past month has flown by so fast I can barely even believe it.

This week flew by too, and it was a really good week. It started on Monday night, we had an appointment with a lady named Cherrie (not really, but you should know that by now) and it was really good. Cherrie has been investigating the church on and off for over a year now. In fact, she has a son serving a mission in South Africa right now. The only thing that is really holding her back is that she is not married, but living with her fiancé. But during our lesson on Monday, she told us that they are finally getting married in three weeks! Right after she told us that, we set a baptismal date for August 20th. But we'll have to reset it for another day because that's a Monday, and we're not supposed to do baptisms on Mondays because of FHE (we kind of pulled a day out of thin air) so we're going to see if she can do it on the 18th. It is going to be great. We took our High Priest Group Leader and his wife to the lesson, and they connected really well. The HPGL has a son on a mission two, so the women loved talking to each other about it. After the lesson, I had a realization. I said the words "August 18th" and I realized, hey that's my Dad's birthday. Which led me to think "Hey, that's 6 months away from my birthday," which then led to "wait.... that means 6 months from then I'll be done..."

Not my favorite thought in the world. It's a good thought, I am excited to get to see everyone again then, and to be home and move forward with the next stage of life, but still... that's weird. I just hope I cannot be trunkie when it gets close. (by the way mom, thanks for saying "cya soon" at the end of your last letter, it made me laugh because I'm pretty sure you are trunkier than me .)

Anyway, that was our Monday, a great lesson with a perfect member to be with us. Then on Tuesday, we had two appointments that night. The first one was with some more investigators that have been investigating for a long time, and we had a really good lesson with a really good member there, and then he dropped us off at another member’s house so we could go with them to our next appointment with Gus. So we had 2 member exchanges that night. Both of them were perfect for the lessons too. By the end of that lesson, Gus's attitude about quitting smoking went from "I'll quit when I want" to "I know I need to quit" and then in the closing prayer, he asked god to help him quit. It was awesome. He went in for surgery this weekend, so he's down and out for a little while, but He's doing great other than that.

On Wednesday we had another great lesson with Gus, he wanted us to come by every day last week before his surgery, so we did. Each time we took different members with us, which he loves. After that lesson we went to a part-member family's house, and read from the Book of Mormon with them, because the Husband, who is not a member and I will call him Barney, doesn't really understand the language, so we are helping him understand it.

On Thursday we took a priest out with us to knock some doors after seeing Gus. We ran in to a couple of his friends, and the one kid, who's Jaden's age, knew a lot of anti. It was really sad. He was asking us questions that I haven't heard since a guy in denton had a sheet of anti questions to ask. It was sad, because he'll probably never find the truth because he's being blinded by the craftiness of the devil. And it didn't help that he was a cocky jock and thought he was all that. But it was alright.

Friday was a good full day of work, we did a lot of contacting, but without much success

Saturday was the Peach Festival; apparently Weatherford is famous for its Peaches. We didn't go in to the festival because it was 5 bucks, but we walked around the streets outside of it and contacted people. It was fun.

Yesterday at Church was great. There were great speakers in both sacrament meetings, and there was a really good spirit there. We had Linger Longer in both wards we cover, so we got plenty of good food to eat after church, so that was a bonus.

I've been learning a lot in my studies. And it is interesting as I learn more, it always goes back to the same principles. Even when it repeats the same things, it helps me understand it better. A big thing that has been sticking out to me more lately has been about becoming clean. Preach My Gospel tells us that God will not make us clean against our will. This intrigued me. The one thing God has given us that we own is our will.  How we use our will determines how clean or unclean we are. God will not force us to be clean, because he will not force us to repent. He will not force our will that is one thing God cannot do. So he allows us to learn correct principles, if we choose to, and then makes us clean if we will it. And in order to will it, we must do something about it. If we don't do something about it, we obviously aren't using our will to show God we would like to be clean, and therefore, he does not make us clean. Hymn 240 says "Know this that every soul is free to choose his life and what he'll be; for this eternal truth is given: That God will force no man to heaven." God will not take us to heaven against our will. In the same way, when by our actions (aka, the use of our agency, or our will) we drive God out; he is a gentleman and leaves. This is true on a personal scale, as well as on a widespread scale. So each of us needs to take a look at ourselves and ask "Is it my will to be made clean? What am I doing to show God that I would like to be, and to ask God to make me clean? Am I partaking of the sacrament each week? Am I worthy to partake of the sacrament? Am I even trying at all?" Some of you are not. Some of you think you are, or try to convince yourself that you, but you are not. This is important. If it wasn't, I wouldn't bring it up. I know people don't like being told that they are doings something wrong, because they already know it. They just don't want people to point it out. But this is just too important to not point out. I am not afraid of offending anyone, because of how important this is, because if I am not bold, I can't stand before God and say I did all I could to help those I love. So here it goes. It is time for repentance. Obviously this is going to a wide variety of people, who are all in a variety of situations, so I am being general. Ask yourself these questions, and repent as necessary.

Do you always remember Christ? Do you remember his mercy and long-suffering to you? Do you remember when he blessed you before? Are you still receiving all the blessings?

Do you listen to, and obey the words of the prophets, living and dead? Ancient and Modern?

Have you spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your heart?

Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view yourself raised in immortality, and incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in this life?

Can you imagine to yourself that you will hear the voice of the Lord say "Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?" Or do you imagine to yourself that ye can lie to the Lord in that day and say "Lord, my works have been righteous works," And that he will save you? Or can you imagine yourself brought before the judgment bar of God with your soul filled with guilt, remembering all your guilt remembering all of your wickedness and that you have defied the commandments of God?

Can you look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? Can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?

Can you think of being saved when you have yielded to become a subject to the devil? How will you feel, if you stand before the bar of God, and you are stained with blood and all manner of filthiness?

Do you think that someone like that can have a place to sit down in the kingdom of God, with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and also all the holy prophets, who are cleansed and are spotless and pure?

Have you made baptismal covenants? Do you keep them? Do you take the sacrament? Do you fulfill your duties to God and to your family?

Are you doing what it takes?

What emotions are you feeling right now? Feel free to reply and tell me.

I love y'all. I hope you have a good week, and remember - Repent :)

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--