I sat with the Brass.

Hello good buddy! Saturday, 5/13/17 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! There are 25 OT mastery scriptures. I sent you the puzzle page for #25! Personally I have only completed up to #16 in my puzzle book. So since I sent you #25 I decided that rather than read my novel I would try to do it. Since I am expecting you to do it, I better make sure it can be done! What did you learn from the experience? These puzzle pages are designed to help us use learning aids we normally don't touch. I tried reading the bible dictionary after doing a couple of these puzzles because I could see that there is great information there but it is too boring! But reading just one article at a time and answering questions about it is really helpful. Here are 5 things I learned: 1- there is a quotation heading in the BD! 2- No one knows where Elijah's nickname comes from! 3- Elijah and Moses are best buds(translated buds). They get to visit and restore priesthood keys to Peter, James and John and JS. 4- Mantle of the prophet comes from Elijah. 5- The Phoenicians, the shipbuilders, are the ones who worshiped Baal. Which puzzle was the easiest for you? Which was the hardest? I smiled the whole time I worked on these puzzles. I just grinned thinking you would be trying to solve them too! So fun! Easiest for me was the head code. I did 3 letters and I knew the whole thing. The hardest was the spilled letters. I'm still not done. @ I got 10 of these puzzle books for $3 at DI. I have been sharing them around. I send Michael'92 a page or two each time I send him a letter. Same with Gayelinn'72. Sometimes you have to use a hymnbook and the tools there to find answers. After I had done about 13 of the mastery scripture puzzles I discovered the answers in the back. Before that I just had to guess. @ I sent your letter today. Hope you enjoyed it. @Tues5/16/17Hey Brandon, I have spent the last 30 minutes on Facebook. My breathing crippled gs-Lincoln is having a benefit concert this Friday and Louis'80 told me the info is on his Facebook page. $10 ticket at the door, $5 ticket presale. Guess which one I want? You get to pick your friends on Facebook and you get to bypass the ones that post too much. I found a comment from my daughter Jessica who doesn't share with me because she wants to protect her privacy. But here is something she wanted publicized. She posted it on Facebook. I am proud of her so I am going to paste it here: Debra Laverty Ketchie 
I am 62 and have been a member for 37 years. Ive been struggling with RS for the past year. I want to study doctrine. It seems the sisters spend most of the time socializing and getting way off track. I sat in the foyer one day and found other sisters my age out there. We had a great gospel discussion. Please don't tell me that we have wonderful things to share with the younger sisters. If they do actually get to the lesson, they blow us off as old fashioned or no longer in touch. Things have changed and not for the better. [Dear sister Ketchie, Brandon P Smith would want you to have a hug. AdventureBill would say: whine, whine, whine!]

May 12 at 10:57am Jessica Jensen Dahlquist 
Debra, it's disheartening to hear you clump all the younger sisters together. I too enjoy gospel doctrine driven lessons, and any lesson taught by the spirit. I also recognize that for some young mothers RS is their only window of adult conversation in the entire week, and while it may not be the best place for them to fill that friendship void, I try to be understanding- I've been there before too. When I feel like I'm not getting what I want out of church, I go with a prayer in my heart to "show me how to serve today, open my eyes" . Those Sunday's I come home with my heart full, someone needed a listening ear in the hall, someone else needed company while they followed their busy toddler around, another needed help with their baby so they could listen, another needed a friend to sit by, they were perhaps the anomaly as a single older sister in a ward of young families. We can research the gospel and doctrine any day of the week, but as we go to church with the purpose of serving as our dear Lord does the confirmation and edification of the spirit surpasses all lessons I've experienced. 

At stake conference 10 days ago our visiting authority told us to attend church to serve. Don't go to get, Go to give! Do you like that idea? Perhaps with all the free clergy we have in the church most of us are already doing that. Sounds like this sister needs a calling so she can give too! :) So bps, how are you giving and serving? @ After texting with your momKJ, I was surprised that in order to satisfy Ellen Hensley your sentence starts now! No credit for the last 6 years! Oh my goodness! How disheartening! But at least it is not a life sentence. You really don't fit the prison profile very well do you? Why are you such an odd duck? How can you be a saint in prison? I am so proud of you Brandon. Keep being a saint to the best of your ability. @ My power / electricity started fluctuating Sunday afternoon. I was studying the priesthood manual GBH and the surge protector next to my head dinged and then popped and then started fizzling and smoke came out! Yikes. I jumped up and unplugged it. Do you know what an electrical fire smells like? Yuck. It is a scary smell to me because there are electrical outlets in every room. Where is it coming from? I bought a 100ft hose on Amazon.com and it is on the couch at the top of the stairs. I figured the cured rubber was contributing the smell. When I prayed Sunday night I thanked HF for discovering where the smell was coming from. The new rubber hose. I was relieved. Relieved enough to include it in my prayer. But Monday morning the computer had no internet connection so down stairs I went to find out what was wrong. Surprise! A melted black smokey surge protector down there as well. Stinky and sticky! The white shelf has a black shadow outlining the shape of the surge protector. It was not the hose after all! Scary. Here I went to sleep Sunday night at peace no knowing what had really happened downstairs! @ I sent out a text Sunday complaining that my pond goldfish had been eaten by the great blue heron that BillY captured in a picture, sitting on my roof last week. I got all kinds of fun responses. It really was not a great loss to me. Amber had dumped them on me from a lady at Pet Smart. You may remember how I asphyxiated most of them with chlorinated water last November. I still have 4 in my front pond the heron has not found yet. Well that text, the first I had sent my nephew Kent Cooper in over a year tipped him over the edge. He came unglued! He is bipolar and he threw 3 fits in words! So sad. But then, mom to the rescue! Camille'63 texted and said he uses his phone for gps while delivering pizzas. This was Sunday at noon. Later I told her he lost it and she said, Yeah. She and all three sons will be living in a home Neal Cooper and his wife are buying out in Bloomington, just down the street from Julia'59. But they won't have to drive by Julia's house but they would be in the same ward. Camille plans to keep attending the ward she is right now. Her old bishop is her Home teacher and she loves him. They had her as Sunday program maker and printer and she loved the calling. Then they split the ward and the calling is gone. :( @ Some years she has been so overwhelmed she hasn't attended church. So goes the lives of Vern's siblings. . . @ I went to JCPenny's to use a $10 off coupon for $10+ spent! I love those. But the only thing I could find were Sunday socks. That is just fine with me. I need Sunday socks. I also need a Sunday shirt but they were $40! Yikes. No thanks. @ I dropped by F Search and they told me they won't open for more than a month! Open house scheduled for June 22. March 31 was the last day they were open. I told my kids by text today that this working at home is for the birds! I lowered my daily goal from 100 to 50 this week. I just haven't been able to keep up. Having a place to leave the house for and something productive and building the kingdom to do is what I need. @ I sat on the back row for the BRASS only in HPGroup in priesthood. Tom Lamb, our stake president n bishop emeritus, Kent Perkins, high counsel and our bishop emeritus, Rulon Bagley, stake executive secretary emeritus, Beau Barney, current seminary teacher and Braxton-handicapped's father. Vern Jensen dared to sit right in the middle. I really wanted to talk to Rulon but he never said hi. Anyway, I dared! And I read aloud a portion of the lesson as requested:

Chapter 7: The Whisperings of the Spirit

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Gordon B. Hinckley, 2016

“I make a plea that we constantly seek the inspiration of the Lord and the companionship of His Holy Spirit to bless us in keeping our efforts on a high spiritual plane.”

From the Life of Gordon B. Hinckley

On June 24, 1995, President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke at a meeting for new mission presidents and their wives, giving them counsel to guide their next three years of service. He told of instruction he received when President Harold B. Lee, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, set him apart as a stake president:

“I remember only one thing he said: ‘Listen for the whisperings of the Spirit in the middle of the night, and respond to those whisperings.’ I don’t know why revelation comes sometimes in the night, but it does. It comes in the day as well, of course. But listen to the whisperings of the Spirit, the gift of revelation, to which you are entitled.”1

Referring to his experiences as he followed this instruction, he said: “The Lord has spoken quietly. … In the middle of the night, ideas have come into my head which, I think, have been prophetic in their nature.”2 For example, in July 1992 he was in Hong Kong with other Church leaders, searching for a place to build a temple. He went to bed one night feeling unsettled about the decision he needed to make. Then the whisperings of the Spirit woke him up early the next morning.

“Something very interesting came to my mind,” he recorded in his journal. “I did not hear a voice with my natural ears. But into my mind there came the voice of the Spirit. It said, ‘Why are you worried about this? You have a wonderful piece of property where the mission home and the small chapel stand. They are in the very heart of Kowloon, in the location with the best transportation. … Build a building of [several] stories. It can include a chapel and classrooms on the first two floors and a temple on the top two or three floors.’” Having received that revelation, President Hinckley said, “I relaxed and went back to sleep.”3

Today in Kowloon, a densely populated section of Hong Kong, a single building stands where a chapel and mission home once stood. That building, which houses a chapel, a mission home, a mission office, and a sacred temple, is a testament of the whisperings of the Spirit to a prophet of God.

Hong Kong China Temple

Tell me 5 things that stick out or that you liked about that story Brandon. Quick! Before you read mine! I am terribly allergic. So was GBH. I never knew that. He tried to join WWII even though he was married but they rejected him! The weirdest thing I am discovering about the prophets is that they prayed like crazy for the previous prophet to stay alive so they wouldn't have to do it!!! And after the calling came they say: Why me? I'm just little old Gordon, Ezra, are you sure you really want me, Heavenly Father? Isn't that sweet! Are these power hungry glory seeking men? No! Please choose someone else if possible. . . OK if you really want me then I will absolutely do my best. Thank you for your vote of confidence, HF. @ Delay over. I came home and googled Hong Kong Temple. It is not on the Island. It us up against the northeastern mountain. What a perfect place! But only the top part is the temple#1! Look at all the other stuff it houses! #2 These poor guys/ prophets really feel the weight of their callings. Many sleepless nights! #3 I only remember one thing Pres Lee said. Candid huh! #4 “In the middle of the night, ideas have come into my head which, I think, have been prophetic” Look at that humility and meekness Brandon. He doesn't say I know, he says I think! #5 He went to bed unsettled. I read this over and over when I was reading his biography. They feel like something just isn't quite right! It is like me smelling frying electrical insulation and not feeling comfortable. It is like me being worried about Kent's reaction to my friendly text message, and not feeling comfortable. Do you dare to pay attention to your feelings yet? Are you allowing your spirit to come to the surface? If you are, congratulations. If you feel uncomfortable remember to tell HF about it. And if something resolves be sure you thank him like I did when I felt the relief about the smell coming from the hose. Does he care if I am wrong? Nope. He just likes to be included! @ So in your last letter I included Puzzle page #25 for scripture mastery OT. I hadn't done mine yet so I sat down and worked on it. KJ has a copy of that puzzle book that I gave her as well. If you ever finish a page you can brag and tell her to get on the stick/ get on the ball! Now that I am not limited to postcards. . . :) [I can send you other pages. There is something special that happens when we feel the truths from prophets in other ages.] @ I sent that same page to Michael'92 today as well. That is such a beautiful scripture: The last two verses of the old testament! Can you believe that Jews set him a place and AND leave the door open so he can come in!!!? Amazing! After all these years they still believe in and know their God spoke truth and his promises will all be fulfilled. Mormons are not alone on this planet believing in the true Heavenly Father! And the Jews will absolutely be answered. The promises will all be fulfilled. But they are just like the rest of the world in the sense that their revelations ended. Mormons still have God talking to us. God is not dead. The scriptures are not closed!!! We have a living active, revealing God. But darn if not even the prophet and apostles still don't have to live by faith. What's with that anyway? In the premortal existence the number one rule was agency. In mortal existence the number one rule is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have all kinds of scriptures confirming that. The history of the world confirms it. Adam, [lds.org Dispensations 

A dispensation of the gospel is a period of time in which the Lord has at least one authorized servant on the earth who bears the holy priesthood and the keys, and who has a divine commission to dispense the gospel to the inhabitants of the earth. When this occurs, the gospel is revealed anew so that people of that dispensation do not have to depend basically on past dispensations for knowledge of the plan of salvation. There have been many gospel dispensations since the beginning. The Bible suggests at least one dispensation identified with Adam1, another with Enoch2, another with Noah3, and so on with Abraham4, Moses5, and Jesus6 with His Apostles in the meridian of time. Paul writes of “the dispensation of the fulness of times” in which the Lord will “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (Eph. 1:10). The fulness of times is the final dispensation and began with the revelation of the gospel to Joseph Smith7. It is a dispensation of restoration and of fulfillment of the Lord’s plans and purposes since the world began. There are also things reserved for the fulness of times that have not been revealed previously (D&C 121:26–32; 124:41). It is a glorious time, the time in which we live today (see Acts 3:19–21; D&C 27:13; 110:11–16; 112:14–32; 128:18–21; 136:37–40).

In addition there were dispensations of the gospel among the Nephites, the Jaredites, and the Lost Tribes of Israel. {Really? You mean those 7 dispensations I have memorized don't work?vj] Melchizedek could also be included, as well as John the Baptist, since they truly held the priesthood and taught the word of the Lord to the people and were unique in their time. There are many other prophets who have had the priesthood and a knowledge of the gospel. Perhaps if more were revealed to us, we would learn that they too should be spoken of as having a dispensation. These could include, among others, Abel, Esaias, Gad, Jeremy, Elihu, Caleb, Jethro, Zenock, and Zenos. SeeJST Gen. 14:25–40 (Appendix, whoever would have even thought these were there? These are like brand new scripture! I don't even recognize them!vj) ; 1 Ne. 19:10–12; Alma 13:14–19; 33:3–17; D&C 84:6–16; HC 3:386–89; 4:208–9. {Well that is enough to bend my mind!vj}

The plan of salvation, which is older than the earth, has been revealed and taught in every dispensation beginning with Adam and is the same in every age of the world. However, each of the dispensations has been unique in some way. For example, Adam opened the way of the earth; Noah preserved a portion of mankind through the Flood; Jesus wrought the Atonement and Resurrection; and through Joseph Smith the foundation was laid for a culmination of the purposes of God on the earth.

Although the Bible contains historical information pertaining to the ancient prophets and patriarchs, it is latter-day revelation that makes it clear that the leaders of former dispensations had the gospel of Jesus Christ and that certifies to the divine calling, ordination, and high intelligence of those early brethren (D&C 84:6–16, 26–28; 107:41–57; Moses 6:3–6, 45–46 see all these verses in Moses Brandon? That PoGP has good stuff in it if, you have someone to help you decipher it.).]

From doing that puzzle page I learned that Malachi was not concurrent with Elijah. Elijah was 500 years before Malachi! So when Malachi prophesied that Elijah would return he was talking like we would about Columbus!!! Columbus will return before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Does that sound like a strange prophecy? It should! :) So JC loved what Malachi said. The Nephites were long gone from Jerusalem so JC quoted it to them! Isn't that fun. He quoted to them about tithing too. Malachi did a good job, didn't he.