missionary letter #7

Hey 5 missionaries,

Welcome to the last Sabbath of the month! I think this is letter #7 I have written you this year. What a blessing email is! I love you, We love you, God bless you!
1-Quincy Adams has a sty on each eye. He professed he hadn't been crying through the previous two meetings as he conducted our RS/MP joint meeting this 5^th sunday. [what a good man. When was the last time you had a sty on your eye?]
2- SJ taught SS today on section 124. I spend an hour with her at choir practice and another when she teaches gospel doctrine. I told her that I don't think I have ever had a more well versed SS teacher. You would not believe all the stuff she can pull out of her hat! And it is stuff I have often learned as well so I can add to it. For example I was able to add that WW [SJ called him the rock star missionary!] was baptizing everyday when he announced that would be his last meeting and that the Lord wanted him to leave that city.
3- Perkins had their farewell today. They spoke last year and I asked for copies. They said no. Too private. I am going to ask again today.
4- Houston, Texas Self Reliance Mission here they come. The stake instituted this newish program which rotates through 12 weeks of lessons. They got to participate and get exposed to the program for their first time.
5- Perkins had 5 of 6 kids back visiting today. John Mizukawa the bishop before Kent, and Dale Esplin a high councilman, also came visiting, or for the farewell. Kent and Lynne Perkins did not stay for SS nor priesthood. . .
6- The stake 24^th celebration Monday morning was delightful. There must have been breakfast seats for 500 or 1,000! Tawna Buckway expressed concern there would be no food by the time she got her family up to go. I'll bet you a million bucks there were left overs! We had some clouds so it was shady. Yes! I took 100+ hard boiled eggs and 2 gallons of dutch oven potatoes surrounded by 6 more dozen eggs baked together. They put my two offerings on the tables immediately and I got the greatest sense of satisfaction watching people choose mine. I had a sign, the only sign, that declared: onion, apple, ham dutch oven potatoes. Would you have wanted a taste?
7- We could not hear Darrin Salmon and Frank Haney when they offered the sacrament prayers last week. Frank complained that his aging eyes made him back far away from the microphone. We heard today's prayers just fine: Ryan Hoppie, Brandon Anderson.
8- Now that I am retired I can study to my heart's content. John L Sorenson wrote 2 books that I have been devouring: Mormon's Codex'15, A Mesoamerican Setting for the Book of Mormon. So absolutely fun! The gospel is my favorite hobby. SJ admitted going to bed after 1 am one night this week because she has been so consumed with church history. She said she apologized to Mark.
9- I love our apostles. I love our 15 apostles! I absorb every word they say over and over again. JEF told a heart wrenching story or two. I will just share one: [\means new paragraph.vj]
Stillman Pond was a member of the Second Quorum of Seventy in Nauvoo. He was an early convert to the Church, having come from Hubbardston, Massachusetts. Like others, he and his wife, Maria, and their children were harassed and driven out of Nauvoo. In September 1846, they became part of the great western migration. The early winter that year brought extreme hardships, including malaria, cholera, and consumption. The family was visited by all three of these diseases.\Maria contracted consumption, and all of the children were stricken with malaria. Three of the children died while moving through the early snows. Stillman buried them on the plains. Maria’s condition worsened because of the grief, pain, and the fever of malaria. She could no longer walk. Weakened and sickly, she gave birth to twins. They were named Joseph and Hyrum, and both died within a few days.\The Stillman Pond family arrived at Winter Quarters and, like many other families, they suffered bitterly while living in a tent. The death of the five children coming across the plains to Winter Quarters was but a beginning.\The journal of Horace K. and Helen Mar Whitney verifies the following regarding four more of the children of Stillman Pond who perished:“On Wednesday, the 2nd of December 1846, Laura Jane Pond, age 14 years, … died of chills and fever.” Two days later on “Friday, the 4th of December 1846, Harriet M. Pond, age 11 years, … died with chills.” Three days later, “Monday, the 7th of December, 1846, Abigail A. Pond, age 18 years, … died with chills.” Just five weeks later, “Friday, the 15th of January, 1847, Lyman Pond, age 6 years, … died with chills and fever. Four months later, on the 17th of May, 1847, his wife Maria Davis Pond also died. Crossing the plains, Stillman Pond lost nine children and a wife. He became an outstanding colonizer in Utah, and became the senior president of the thirty-fifth Quorum of Seventy. (See Leon Y. and H. Ray Pond, comps., “Stillman Pond, a Biographical Sketch,” in Sterling Forsyth Histories, typescript, Church Historical Dept. Archives, pp. 4–5.)\Having lost these nine children and his wife in crossing the plains, Stillman Pond did not lose his faith. He did not quit. He went forward. He paid a price, as have many others before and since, to become acquainted with God.\The Divine Shepherd has a message of hope, strength, and deliverance for all. If there were no night, we would not appreciate the day, nor could we see the stars and the vastness of the heavens. We must partake of the bitter with the sweet. There is a divine purpose in the adversities we encounter every day. They prepare, they purge, they purify, and thus they bless.\When we pluck the roses, we find we often cannot avoid the thorns which spring from the same stem.\James E Faust Apr'79 he later served in the first presidency.
10- How do you feel after reading that story?
I write a member of our ward who has been in jail/prison for 6.5 years: Brandon Perry Smith. He is 35 yo. He gets 20K word letters from me and the apostles every week. He is so extremely lost and lonely. No wife, no children all because of giving in to pressure from a peer. A drug dealing, murdering peer. He is sacrificing but what is the point? 
Stillman gave up his whole family, 10 members to follow the church. Is their anything else in this world so worth sacrificing for? And you and I know that the church is lead by JC, through his prophet. The restoration is on-going. It is not over! We get revelations for the times we live in from our prophets. Of this I testify.