7/8/18 - Family Letter to Emma
Hello Emma, from the land of Weather-that-cant-make-up-it's-mind.
Hey! We just went up to the Cabin, and I'm about to start football,
and for the first time, I can finally play with my age group!
Yep! Instead of blocking 6' 4" guys with drivers licenses,
and block my friends!
Love you
Hyrum
Hi Emma
how have you been. we found out that Emma Tollmen Is Not Engaged .
I all so got miss Cookson for 5th grade with not any of my close friends.But I think it will be a good experience to reach out
And include some more .
love and care
Mar (i)
Sweet Emma,
Thanks for your letter to our family last week.
We only got the letters you sent to our family, not the group letter.
Did you send a letter to your fan club last week? If not, no problem. Everyone knows you are busy😊 but the Grandparents missed hearing from you. We shared bits of our letter with them.
This week in the church
news they reported on a training that the new Mission Presidents and
their Wives received in the MTC. In Elder Uchtdorf's talk, "How to hit
the bulls eye for mission service", he reports:
"Our Church service is
one of loving and caring for God's children and has no beginning or
end." He explained, "We don't finish ministering; we don't finish
loving; we don't finish praying, and we don't finish thinking about
those whom God has put in our path." "Our love for others does not end
should they reject baptism or refuse to listen to the good news of the
gospel. Our love is not conditional upon their interest in spending
time with our missionaries. We love them because they are children of
our Heavenly Father. We love them because they are our brothers and
sisters. We love and pray for all men and women--even those who hate,
curse, persecute or mistreat us." "Missionaries will have greater
success when they touch the hearts of people, help them to see what the
gospel and Church are all about and invite them to come unto Christ.
"This can best be accomplished if your missionaries first listen to the
promptings of the Spirit while finding people, the listen to these
people with compassion and love, and be guided by the Spirit how best to
teach and to help them." "Teaching requires missionaries to develop
compassion, empathy and love for the people they find and teaching to
their specific circumstances. Confidence in teaching will be rewarding
ass they move from a mechanical approach to an approach in which they
listen more intently and then teach to the needs of those they meet."
"We mortals do not convert anyone. Receiving a testimony of the gospel
of /Jesus Christ and making a commitment to enter the waters of baptism
is between the individual person and the Holy Ghost. Conversion comes
from personal revelation and from the heavenly manifestation of
spiritual light." (2018 Mission Leadership Seminar)
I thought of you when I
read that! I'm so proud of you! I also want to thank you for your
service. A few more miracles happened this week that I feel are a
direct blessing for your service. Blessing #1 Grandma Charlene is
going to counseling! She told me this week that she knows she has a
mental illness and she is going to try to get some help! She is still
being a sweetheart and has been most pleasant to get along with!
Blessing #2 A family history miracle (the short version)! This week,
by some miracle, I "met" my Great Great Uncle Odin Johnson and learned
about his life/death from a Cincinnati newspaper of that time. He was a
professional motorcycle driver and captain of his Cincinnati team.
July 31, 1913 at raceway in Kentucky, he accidentally crashed his
motorcycle into a light pole at the top of the motor dome track. His
motorcycle gas tank exploded and sent a shower of burning gasoline over
the spectators, killing himself and six others (he was 24 years old).
One of the newspaper articles listed the names of the accident victims,
their ages, and where they were from. I had this strange feeling of
sadness come over me as I felt Uncle Odin ask me to help these victim's
families "find" them in FamilySearch so they could have their temple
work done. I KNEW that he felt bad about killing these people and he
wanted to try to make it right. Uncle Odin was from Salt Lake
(originally) and I knew he might have even been able to teach the gospel
to these people. They might even be ready to accept the gospel, if
they could only be given the opportunity.
I searched for their
records all day! (I wasn't even planning on doing family history that
day!) I had zero luck...until Eve and Hyrum went to the Temple, and I
also prayed for help. As soon as they were at the temple, and I thought
about the blessings promised to us for your mission service, I was able
to start finding these victim's death certificates. The death
certificates all had the same information- cause of death: "Motorcycle
accident, gasoline explosion, severe burns". Each death certificate
contained the victim's name, birth and death dates, parent's names, and
location. All of that is enough information for someone to take their
name to the temple to have their work done! Although I cannot do their
work because they are not our family, the creator of FamilySearch helped
me make sure these people were in the system so their family could find
them! I was able to write up the explanation that I KNEW that Great
Great Uncle Odin was so sorry that he caused this accident and that he
was trying to make things right. I was also able to put their direct
link to their death certificates. The veil was very thin! I wept for
each of these victims as if they were friends. It seemed like Odin was
mourning for each one of them individually. I will send you a picture
of Uncle Odin on his motorcycle from 1913. I know he is at peace now! i
also KNOW our ancestors are watching over you and helping you! They
love you!
News from home. We went
to Dalton's birthday party (Mama Adams held one for him so we could all
write cards for him) and eat Chinese food. It was fun to see so many of
your friends. They all miss you and LOVE reading your letters! I
guess Emma Tolman isn't engaged! I was given wrong info I guess. Sarah
Laws opened her mission call tonight. She is going to Berlin, Germany!
We spent the weekend at the cabin. It was great, but a bit smokey
from all the forest fires burning around the state. We will be getting a
new roof soon! We are also checking into getting new siding for the
house. The insurance man saw the siding up by you and Eve's room and
how we can see the wood. He said the house should've been wrapped with
something before siding was installed. Maybe this time it can be done
correctly. What color siding should we do? Chandlers might do blue.
Maybe we'll do pink! Ha ha, no way!
I am working on putting a
care package together for you. We bought some "Mother Mary" stickers
to put on it so maybe it will get to you a little easier. Your
"lifestraw" water bottle arrived so we will get it to you asap! Emma, I
love you so much! My heart aches with missing you...and also with joy
for your service and experiences. I KNOW you were born to be a
missionary. You are doing the right thing. We pray for you always!
💜Mom
M,
I hope your week was
awesome. Super bummer you could not watch the soccer game. I am been
role playing how you could have snuck an invite to watch the game. I'm
sure it would have been an experience to watch that game with the
locals. The video you sent of the celebration noises was very
entertaining. Hopefully things will calm down now that Brazil is out.
It was fun to watch how many time Neymar would fall over. Most soccer
players would flop if anyone touched them but Neymar would act like he
was shot. He had a play where he got clipped by the other team and he
rolled and screamed for 20 yards. He just kept rolling and screaming.
It created an opportunity for many GIFs. Neymar rolling down the
freeway. Neymar rolling up a mountain side. Neymar rolling off a
cliff. We cut the cord and no longer have the Dish so we will not have
access to watch the rest of the World Cup. Now that Brazil is not in
the tourney we don;t have a reason to watch. Newsies was awesome. We
felt it was better than the touring Broadway show. Logan was not in the
show but an overactor from Eve's grade was in it. it was fun to watch
him because he did everything that everyone else did x2. We have heard
that Emma Tolman is in Son of Pinocchio. We went to Dalton Adams home
to sign a bday card for him and Emma was there. mom congratulated her on
her engagement and she flashed her left hand . . . no ring. Both Mom
and Eve say they saw a post of her flashing her ring. She says they are
not engaged. We all have a theory. I have a friend at work that
housed some people from South of the boarder who had a problem with the
toilet paper. Every morning they would bring a sealed baggy that
included their toilet paper from the night before. They would bring it
to the table at breakfast. They kept telling them to flush it but they
would not. Sorry you get the privilege of that experience.
Mom had a landscape
consultation she did in Stansbury Park and I hurried home so I could
offer to escort her out there. I dropped her off and went to find
dinner. The family had Poor Man's dinner but I could not transport that
and eat it in the car. Stansbury Park only has 4 places to eat. I
don't think I chose the best place. It was crowded but as I was eating I
noticed everyone was getting ice cream and nothing else. I suffered
for a few days but I survived.
The 4th celebration was a
bit crazy. Eve was in the Riverton Parade representing Hope Squad.
They changed the route to come up 2700 instead of Redwood Rd. Mom and
the kids all wanted to go so we went. Nate and Eliza came and the
Bryants sat behind us. We were loud and had a typical parade
experience. We sat by a family that would not stay in front of their
blanket and stood in front of us. We blamed Hyrum and Logan for not
setting the edge and boxing them out. We did not have anyone telling
the kids to get back and noticed some of the kids getting close enough
to touch the floats. we saw some parade people trying to hand children
candy while they were on a trailer. It seemed very dangerous. I sent a
note to the city. They were aware of the problem. We were bringing
pork to the Barlow gathering the next day on the 4th. We got a late
start so we were pulling pork until about midnight. I got up a little
before 6 to go help save spaces for the family for the West Jordan
parade that starts at 10:30. We had more people that we have ever had.
Everybody but Mark came from our family. Keith's sister brought about 7
families from their side. Right after we went to the Lever's to swim.
We could not stay long as the Lever's were leaving to Virginia the next
morning. Ryan and Melissa's reception was set for the weekend.
Grandma ans Grandpa Barlow went with them. They visited Monticello and
found that Thomas Jefferson was not a very nice guy. We swam at the
Lever's for about 3 hours and then went home for a quick rest. That
night we went to the Chandler's for a BBQ and later went to the Riverton
Park to watch the fireworks. We were all exhausted and I took the next
day off work to recover.
This past weekend we went
to the cabin. It was extremely hot. The hottest I remember it being.
It was hot in the cabin and out. Eve missed the first day as she had
to work. She told us she was ok sleeping at home by herself and then I
would drive back down and pick her up. After work on Friday she sent
texts to her friends to see who wanted a sleepover. Whitney's mom
panicked and had her come sleep at their house. She called leaving Eve
alone at the house Friday night "dangerous". Your Mom seemed to take it
a bit personal. We had a typical cabin experience other than we were
all in a state of being mildly uncomfortable due to the heat. Ethan
Ormsby went up to cabin with a date and did not know that the cabin was
scheduled for the next two weeks. Mark was up there with his family and
chased Ethan out of there. Ethan left in a hurry but had brought a lot
of food for his date. We went up right after Mark. We ate most of
what Ethan left. I didn't feel even a little bad about that.
Abrahamic Covenant
I might need to do more research on this. If I remember correctly
the Abrahamic Covenant is a covenant that begins with a patriarchal
blessing. Once you know your linage (adopted or not) you know you are
one of the Lord's chosen people. Not that we are better than others but
chosen to participate in the covenant. The covenant states that we
will be given the privilege of participating in all the covenants
required for exaltation, especially a temple sealing. In return we are
expected to share the gospel to all the earth, both living and dead.
There is more to it but that should get you started. I have included a
few links that might be helpful. I don't know how much time you have on
a computer to ponder these things. I hope this helps.
Keep working hard kid. We pray multiple times a day that you will find those prepared.
Love,
Dad
Abraham received the gospel and was ordained to the higher priesthood (D&C 84:14; Abr. 2:11), and he entered into celestial marriage, which is the covenant of exaltation (D&C 131:1–4; 132:19, 29). Abraham received a promise that all of the blessings of these covenants would be offered to his mortal posterity (D&C 132:29–31; Abr. 2:6–11).
Together, these covenants and promises are called the Abrahamic
covenant. The restoration of this covenant was the Restoration of the
gospel in the last days, for through it all the nations of the earth are
blessed (Gal. 3:8–9, 29; D&C 110:12; 124:58; Abr. 2:10–11).
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