The Temperatures Are Warmer Lately

The week has been challenging in so many ways.  Diane is still fighting cold symptoms and is well into her second month.  I have seemed to lick my cold.  But it took 10 weeks to do it.

 

Institute was very challenging for me.  Truthfully, I've probably only read the Epistles of Paul 2 times.  And so teaching the doctrines and principles Paul wrote about stretched me.  As always, the teacher gains so much more than the student.  I read so much written material and viewed so many conference talks about the Epistle of Romans.  I now understand the relationship better of The Blessings promised to Abraham, the lineage of those blessings, the adoption and grafting in of the gentiles and the idea of the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  I must admit, I was really stretched to present these principles in an intelligent and understandable manner.  I am looking forward to meeting Paul at some point when this life is over.

Yesterday in the Adult Institute class we discussed, "Where Much Is Given, Much Is Expected."  Our numbers were small.  There were 8 in attendance.  But these 8 gave it there all in contributing to the discussion.  We ended viewing the conference talk from April Conference 1975 given by Elder Neal A. Maxwell.  It seemed that each sentence was a complete sermon in and of itself.  I don't think the church has seen a words craftsman like him.  It was so full I had to make a copy of it to e-mail to each member of the class so they could digest it all.  I recall, when hearing him give the address, that it seemed so relevant to the times we were living in 1975.  It is so much more relevant today. 

The Elders called me to participate in a discussion with Carl.  He is 24, a Tlingit, and has completed four years in the Marine Corps about a year ago.  He is from Yakutat and his family felt he needed to come to Juneau for better opportunities.  The missionaries got acquainted with him and have been teaching him for about 6 weeks now.  They meet with him as often as 3 times a week.  He wants to be baptized.  The elders feel they want him to know and understand more before they will let him follow through with this commitment.  He has been attending Institute and he comes to Sacrament Meeting regularly.  He has attended both the YSA branch and the regular ward here in Juneau. 

Carl is very intelligent, but is definitely Native American in his approach.  He is struggling with work opportunities right now.  Diane and I met with him yesterday in the public library and helped him fill out an employment application online for Home Depot.  We were almost finished and I could see Carl was getting frustrated with the length of the application.  He was just marking questions without really giving them much thought.  He was fidgeting and finally, by mistake I believe, closed the window as we were trying to save it.  We lost two hours worth of filling out the application.  We are meeting again today to try and do it again.  Carl is intelligent and has wonderful people skills.  I really think he will be a good employee for whoever will hire him.

Sunday he came to church in Levis and a white T-Shirt.  Our Sunday School teacher, Elijah Verhagen, took Carl with him to his home a couple of miles down the road and gave him one of his white shirts and a tie and then brought him back.  Carl looked nice in them.  It was touching to see the brothership exhibited between them.

Heidi and Michael Malin, the seminary teachers of our Sophomores, have been working on "Romans 1:16,  16 For I am not ^aashamed of the ^bgospel of Christ: for it is the ^cpower of God unto ^dsalvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."  They took the class into the cultural hall this morning and gave each student a white T-Shirt.  They had plastic sheets laid out on the floor with markers and paints.  They then had the kids paint their T-Shirts with Ann Dibbs message from one of her talks; "I'm A Mormon.  I Know It! I Love It!  I Live It!'  It is wonderful to watch the kids take a gospel principle and apply it in their lives.