byu ce

Sunday, July 12, 2015, 2:35pm

Hey Byuce, I sure miss you.

Last week Quinn Carter needed a blessing and as Eric and I left he said, Aren't you glad you've got your home teaching done for this month! Cute huh!

So since I don't see you I am going to write you. I hope you don't mind.

I am not sure if I should write you many short ones or a few big honkin' long ones. For now I will try to keep it short. 85 words so far.

The bishop has a staph infection on his leg! He is in a lot of pain. Bishop Quincy Adams lives just 4 houses up the street from you. I felt so sorry for him at church. We stood for the rest song in sacrament meeting and he couldn't stand because when he tried it hurt so bad that he sat back down. I was sitting right behind him leading the music so I saw him shake his head to his new counselor Kim Garrett.

He read a letter to us from the quorum of the 12 and first presidency at the beginning of SS. It was quite long but he prefaced it by saying he would keep moving because he was in so much pain.

I have a nephew who turned his thumbnail picture rainbow on Facebook showing his support of scotus' ruling about same sex marriages. He unrainbowed it this week and a couple of girls teased him about how out of date his picture was. One even told him he should be proud of his man bun. I had to google that one to find out what it was. I was worried.

As Bishop QA read the letter from HQ I listened carefully to see how they would approach it and what they would say. My sister Camille had told me I should go read it because it was beautiful but I hadn't. Here are 4 things I thought as I listened to the bishop read:

1-Of course, the Lord's plan is foiled with same sex marriages because no more children.

2- The church has had to deal with this in other countries already!

3- Civil law has no impact on God's moral laws!

4-Yes, we must fight to keep our religious freedom.

I read Lengthen Your Stride by Edward Kimball, his 2^nd biography about SWK, from the library last month. Our high councilman had suggested it when he brought Nathan and Jesse Bird home teaching to my house in January'15. They never came last year and they haven't been back since.

 : )

In that behind the scenes book it shared how many efforts went into wording the revelation on the priesthood carefully and precisely. As I listened to the letter today I thought, this sounds just like revelation. It really is beautiful like Camille said.

I write a blog called: Adventurebill1

I posted a couple of weeks ago how devastated and betrayed I felt with this supreme court ruling on same sex marriage. And then last week we had fast and testimony meeting where it was not even mentioned. I was shocked. If I had born my testimony it would have been the main theme because it affected me so much.

I went to God about it in prayer and as I wrote in my journal last Sunday I realized I had been through all the steps of grieving/ mourning over the loss of that value/ standard in the US. At the end of it all I came to this as my 10^th step in that week long process: APOLOGETIC – I am so sorry Heavenly Father, that the government of this promised land has betrayed you and your teachings.

Did I go through many stages to get there? You better believe it! Did I know where I would end up? Nope. I didn't have a clue. That was a very very surprising conclusion for me. Satan really is the God of this earth isn't he?

But his power/godship is temporary. This is the only place in the universe where he is allowed to reign and only for a limited time so that the purposes of testing can be fulfilled.

Duane and Pam Derfler were our sacrament meeting speakers today. I told each of them that they were thoughtful, scholarly and entertaining!

They really were. Dwayne/Duane+ is the executive secretary for the bishop and a more humble man I don't think I know. He turned 70 in April and their topic was the resurrection. He quoted BKP saying that the only difference between a young man and an old man is his age.

But he disagreed. He was 121lbs wet when he got married in Saint George 47 years ago. It was raining that day.

He was not stooped.

He has gone to pot. (he stepped to the side and showed everyone. He said you can't use visual aids in sacrament meeting talks so he would be his own visual aid being 70 and all.)

He hiked from one rim to the other when young but now he is lucky to make it up 2 flights of stairs at the library.

[His dry wit was evidenced all through his talk. 3:23pm vj