The Art of Crime

Saturday evening Kara and I decided to sit down and write to our friend Brenton who is serving a mission in New Mexico. Well, to tell the whole truth, she and Brenton were dating for about 8 months before he left.... He hasn't been great at writing her, about once a month, and he's only been gone since May! So we decided to make them like death threats, or ransom notes, or whatever... It took a couple hours Saturday night and then an hour Sunday afternoon for us to finish.
Oh, and my foot is infected from a blister....go figure! And it sucks...(it is hard to see in this pic at this angle, but it's my left heal area).

Sunday was an exciting day! We had a regional conference where 135 stakes gathered at the Marriott Center (our basketball stadium) and other buildings to hear from President Uchtdorf and President Packer. They were both good, though I especially appreciated Uchtdorf's message. He asked us to ponder on two questions:

What are you doing to increase your faith?

What are you doing to strenghthen marriage and family?

He also encouraged everyone to have a current temple reccommend.

One poignant moment came when the congregation sang "Redeemer of Israel." I can't even explain to you what it sounds like to have 23,000 people on their feet singing the words to this powerful hymn.

Later in the evening Elder Holland addressed young LDS adults at the Marriott Center and across the world. He gave a beautiful discourse on trails and afflictions, tying into Joseph's experience at Liberty jail. A few of points that stood out to me:

• We can have profound sacred, spiritual experiences during our own "Liberty Jail" times.


• Every experience can become a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Heavenly Father.


• When suffering we may in fact be nearer to God than at any other times.


• The path of Salvation has always, one way or another, gone through Gethsemane.
  
• The true test of our faith and discipliship is during our trials and afflictions

He then gave an apostalic blessing to all within the sound of his voice, that was so filled with the Spirit, and so sincere, it brought tears to my eyes. To cap of a great message, the Chior sang a beautiful hymn based off of verses in Isaiah.

It was a spiritual feast, that I feel so blessed to have regularly.