Letter to the Class

Image Our dear sisters and brothers,  We are hoping you are celebrating your ance@ters and their success of mortality. We all come from wonderful and colorful people.  We wish to quote a message from talking scriptures here . The Power God Wields – Pure Love These verses are the foundation of power to preside in the priesthood in time and eternity and reveal how God the Father exercises power and authority. Each of the approaches and characteristics mentioned reveals his nature. The doctrine of the priesthood contained herein includes truths by which we may become like him. He is a “Man of Holiness” (Moses 6:57). Through the spirit of truth, he invites his children to do good without force or compulsion (Moroni 7:16). He is long-suffering as he waits for them to discover and learn the exactness and veracity of his doctrines. He is gentle and meek in teaching them the truth and allowing them to make it part of their lives. He does not seek his good but does all

image here Brothers and sisters,  We have a long name for our church. Why? For a long time (almost ten years) we went by many names; Church of Christ, Church of the Latter-Day Saints... It was confusing, then through revelation, we got the church's official name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It's long but beautiful. The name says so much about us and who we are. It says what time the Savior will come and as saints what we will do. It says we are followers of Jesus and will do our best to bring about good. There's no need to nickname us or shorten it.  We had people shorten our name but they also fears the unknown and our church us new and bold even though we are almost 200 years old. Be bold. Tell those who as who we are.  Now about tithes. Titus in its name means ten percent. We are commanded through covenant to give to the Lord and fill his warehouse. Some warehouses are literal and some are figurative. Literal ones are like the bishop'

Picture here . [You] cannot in your present state understand eternity…But you can get some likeness of it if you say that both good and evil, when they are full-grown, become retrospective…All this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved…All their life on earth too will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backward and turn even that agony into glory. And of some sinful pleasure, they say “Let me but have this and I’ll take the consequences”: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with drearine

image here Our precious brothers and sisters,  Today we wish to impress the importance of your role in the gospel. Some would say that you have no role. That our dear brothers and sisters is not true. You have started your membership in the church with the most important role, you are disciples of the Master of heaven and earth. When the temple was completed and dedicated, the church rode a spiritual high. Alas, that high, and with it, that peace would only last ten days. Trials resumed and the mobs and hardships resumed. Exodus 33:12 and 17 both say, "I know thee by the name", an important statement. When we say you are special or important it's a reaffirmation of what Heavenly Father has said "before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee" (Jeremiah 1:5). We read in the Doctrine and Covenants 117 that some saints fell from grace with secret combination and doubt. Also, remember that they returned stronger for their trials and struggles (D&C 11

Picture here Brothers and sisters, This week we are discussing religious freedom. After the temple was built, the saints were in the deepest debt the church had ever been. The prophet was told that he could buy a house in Salem MA where gold was in the basement. Now in hindsight we would say "that's not how God works" but the prophet didnt know that. So off the presidency went to buy the house for the gold (that by the way wasnt there). Now what the presidency learned was valuable. When they arrived, they learned a valuable lesson. The brethren learned about the witch trials. See people wanted a God centered society but after time pride and fear that lead to the death of good people. Oliver Cowdry saw the events happening again as they had learned Protestants had burned down a Catholic building. The apostle had learned a about zealotry. That's when pride becomes more important than love of God and neighbors. Oliver learned as did Joseph, we as saints could