Well good morning!
It’s me, your son. Your first, your eldest son. Elder Berrett here. Are you having a good day? I’m having a pretty good day. The sun is shining, the sky is a beautiful,
beautiful blue. There’s clouds off in
the distance near the mountains. The
mountains are still white with snow. Or
at least the caps of them. The grass is
green… the brown bushes are slowly gaining back life. Most of the trees are green now. I am halfway through, or I was, my companion
got in the shower, so now I’m like, “okay, sweet, I’ll record something since…”
Yeah. So I was halfway through finishing
a letter to elder Burch, don’t worry it’s only 4 months late. He sent me a really, really awesome letter like
4 months ago that I’ve been procrastinating writing a response to. It’s been bad. I’ve talked to him since then. I’ve loved him, and emailed him, but I have
this letter that I need to write and I was going to do it a couple weeks ago,
but I’m like “Oh mother’s day.” And
every Monday I keep just putting it off.
And I’m like “No, today I’m writing this freaking letter.” I love him to death and in his last letter he
was pretty much “I’m so sorry for how I was as a companion” or as a trainee
basically. And I’m like, “What are you
sorry about?!? I didn’t even train you,
you trained yourself. I was just there
for moral support. It was great.”
So yeah. I really
hope I get to train again. I have that desire.
Like I really, really want to.
Even in my prayers last night I was like, “Heavenly Father, If it be thy
will, please allow me to train again. I
understand… I have the but-if-not faith.
I know that whatever companion you put me with, it’s for a reason, and
that we’re going to do good together. But, I would love to train again.” So,
that’s where I am right now.
And right now I’m also planning on, since I was looking, and
I’m like, Well, since I don’t have any eggs, I have tortillas though, but I’m
not going to do anything with those. I
don’t have any bread, so I can’t make toast, and you can’t toast a tortilla, I
guess I could fry it up, but nah. I
don’t even think Nutella would go good on that.
Maybe. Probably the best thing for
that would be like honey and sugar. But
I’m not going to do that today. Because
I opened up the pantry, and I saw a giant thing of Krusteaz buttermilk pancake
mix. Oh… and it’s pretty dang
empty. So I might be trying that whole
tortilla thing unless there’s… Okay! I
found some Great Value Complete Pancake and Waffle Mix. Buttermilk even! So I’ll be trying that.
It’s a beautiful day, the sun is high, the birds are singing
and I’m not gonna die today. Yeah, I’m
really enjoying myself today. Talking
to you guys yesterday was amazing.
Having the Anderson’s there- Total Bonus. I love you all so much. I hope you enjoyed the call as much as I
did. I kinda got off and I thought I
should have prepared way more for that, I was so like more just excited for the
fact that I’m like “I’m going to Skype them and it’s going to be great!” And
then it happened and I’m like “What do I say?”
But I was just really thankful just to see you guys smiling, and I’m
just really thankful for you guys and the Andersons who take care of and love
you guys. That’s awesome.
Let me think, Today in my studies I had a really, really
wonderful study session. I read Mosiah
chapter 9 and 10. And in there it was
all, it’s a story of Zeniff and his
people. They go to reclaim the land of
Nephi from the Lamanites, they basically go up there and see if they can
reclaim this land that they used to live in.
And, on the way there the first time, in all essence had this giant
civil war, some of them just wanted to go in and slaughter all the Lamanites in
the area and Zeniff is all “No, I saw some goodness in these people we don’t
need to do that, that’s wrong.” And the
leader of their group is like, “well…” He said that he’s a blood thirsty
person. Zeniff is quoted saying so. They have a big battle and only 50 of them
are left alive and so they go back to Zarahemla, at which point they are like
“Hey, so this happened, we’re sorry.” But then Zeniff says, He being
overzealous to obtain this land that he saw again, goes and basically tells everyone, he’s like
“hey, anyone who wants to come, I’m trying to gather as many people as I can,
we’re going back up there.” So he tries it a second time with a bunch of
people. And they are able to
successfully persuade the king. He says through “their wisdom” and the king just basically gives it up. And he’s like “Yeah! In fact, I’ll have all my people leave!” And all these things and based on the actions
of the Lamanites, I myself would be a little curious why. And I’m fairly
certain, it doesn’t come out and say, but I’m fairly certain, it doesn’t come
out and say, the spirit of the Lord was trying to work on them, it was like
“Hey guys, this is obviously a trap. Don’t go there a second time. Don’t accept
his offer. Don’t move in. Oh. They did
all those things.” And they lived there
for 11 years. And they were prospering
and it was great. And they were
basically putting their trust in themselves.
And after that the king obviously came and ambushed them out of the
blue. After 11 or 12 years. And slaughtered a bunch. However, as they are being slaughtered, they
prayed unto the Lord mightily, and gained his strength immediately and were
able to push them back, However they lost a lot of men, and they were humbled
and turned to the Lord and as I’m kinda reading about this and it happened
again like 22 years later, they were humbled, and they were prepared for the
Lamanites to come, but the fact that they were still in this area and they made
the initial decision to kinda, in my mind, I could be wrong, but I’m fairly
certain it was against what the Lord wanted them to do. Because they were in that bondage of
captivity, the Lord wouldn’t, well as far as my knowledge of the scriptures has
lead me to believe, the Lord would not allow his people to fall into captivity.
Except they became a faithless people. I
know it says that in the scriptures, so I think I’ve proven this to
myself. But it was kind of an
interesting lesson a bit on, you know again, the Lord is going to warn us, and
help us, and if we don’t heed the promptings of the spirit, even if they don’t
make sense, like he was in a situation where he really , REALLY wanted this
land. They had a temple there. You know, all these things, and he’s like “We
need this land again. This land of our
fathers.” He saw how great it was and
his desire to have this land overrode for him what the spirit was saying, and
he went against it and did what he wanted.
When we do that, we’re pretty much going to get ourselves into trouble.
It was kind of a cool promise. As we
listen to the spirit, we’re going to have that strength, that peace, and we’re
going to stay out of those situations or put into captivity. Also I do like
that even though they did make that mistake, in the instant that they prayed to
Him for help and strength, He was there.
Did he deliver them out of captivity?
No. They were there for quite
awhile, several generations if I remember right, but he gave them strength to
overcome it, or to endure it. I did love
that. I really did love that.
How long has this been going on? I’ve been talking about that for a bit. Eleven minutes. I have the box out, I haven’t
even looked at it yet. “For pancakes,
combine mix and water.” Okay, so it’s
just like Krusteaz. (whistling) Do we
have a measuring thing? Like one of
those like cup things that have like four or five cups or a quart or
something? (cabinets banging) No, we do not. (Sighs) We have a mason
jar. That would work. I’m not making that many pancakes. Ok. I
should probably wash it out, I don’t know how long it’s been there. Is that a
crack in the bottom? (water
running) Nope! I filled it up with water and it’s fine. Well… yeah. Yeah, it’s fine.
Let’s see… for preparation today, the whole zone is coming
here again. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with that, but that’s a
different story. The President has been
pushing, well suggesting, less zone activities because of all the Elder and
Sister relationships that have been developing.
It’s bad. And we’re a small
enough zone and a couple of the sisters are pretty flirty. So I’m just like. “Ok. If that’s what you guys want to
do…” They’re all coming here, not much I
can do about that.
Okay, got that all rinsed out and ready to go. We’ll start off with a cup…. What’s that? I’m
looking at this thing and it’s either three quarters of a cup or a cup, and I’m
not seeing any markings on it. It looks
like there once was something, but it’s like rubbed off. Oh, hey!
Here’s some newer ones. I see a
one cup, sweet. (whistling various
songs)
Uh, let’s see… what else has been going on lately? Oh, hey flour, or pancake mix. It’s a little more than just flour. Oh yeah!
We have mission tour this week. As in like a general authority is coming
to our mission. I’m really excited for that.
It’s a Seventy… Elder… I’ll have to look up his name in a moment
here. He is a, well, we’ve been told
from President Wadsworth, he stressed this a lot apparently at MLC, and our
Zone Leaders were telling us this a ZLC, (MLC is Mission Leadership Council,
ZLC is Zone Leadership Council) They were telling us that this General
Authority is known for rebuking missions.
So he’s like “PLEASE be on your best behavior, I literally have no
control over what happens at all, I don’t know the program, I don’t know
anything. Behave yourselves.” Even though the weekly email this week was
“Please be prepared to arrive promptly at 8:45, Reverently, standing with your
zones, and be prepared to take a zone picture with him, and then go sit down,
reverently, in your seats in the chapel, together, studying the gospel, waiting
for it to start.” I’m like, “Will do!”
I’m like that’s what we’re always asked to do, but does it always happen that
way? No. And the General Authority also wants to shake all of our hands
individually, kind of like what Richard G Scott did. So that’s gonna be kind of cool. I throw that around like, “Yeah, I met
Richard G Scott. He was great.”
I was reading a talk the other day, I’m trying to remember
who it was by, I almost want to say it was President Nelson, it was a
devotional, I remember that. But in it
he says, “Yeah, so, I’ve KNOWN 10 of the last prophets we’ve had. And here’s
the qualities I’ve seen among them and all these things.” And I’m like “Holy Cow! That’s legit.” He knew 10 of the last prophets we’ve had
personally. Like I’ve MET an
apostle. And sadly he’s not living
anymore, but, he has a great work to do on the other side of the veil. He’s needed over there. I love reading his talks. Richard G Scott was awesome. Um, so yeah!
I’m really excited for mission tour.
It’s different from a zone conference, at least this time because there’s
only going to be two mission tours, instead of the normal like six zone
conference schedule. So normally for
like a zone conference we would join up with, it would be our zone and
Missoula. And Wyoming was just us, and
Wyoming East. Billings it’s Billings and
Billings East. Helena was a little
bigger, it was us, Bozeman, and Butte.
But for this one, there’s only two of them, and it will be us, crap,
what is it? Missoula, what’s the place I was just at? Helena, Butte, Great Falls, Great Falls East, Kallispell, I
fell like I’m forgetting some place.
Anyway, so it’s like half the mission in one, and half in the
other. It’s going to be huge. They have told us however, “please do not
make this like a ‘Oh, hey! Here’s all my old companions right here!’ That is
not the purpose of this” and they pretty much said that we will get rebuked if
that’s the way that you are going to treat it.
I did like the way that President Wadsworth put It though in the email
that he sent out this week, I love the weekly email that they send to us, “He
is coming prepared with the spirit to teach us all, we need to strive to be
prepared to receive it. In essence, How
big of a cup are we bringing? And I was
like “Oooh, mic slam President! Drop the mic!” That was awesome.
That’s cream cheese, not butter. I don’t think we have any
butter. That’s awkward. We might have a
bit of Pam left. I guess I will be using Pam. Let’s hope that works…. Oh my
goodness this has been over 20 minutes, I’m going to pause this and send it off.
Love you, bye!
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