Training Take: 2

Elder Tippetts is going home. I will be training a new missionary whose name I have yet to learn in this same area. I'll be sure to announce the new guy next week. I'm afraid other than this announcement, a report of this week is a little dull. You will not be reading long.

The heat in Kansas is something else! It seems to never be cooler than triple digits until the late evening.

The last district meeting of the transfer was on Tuesday. Between cookies and silly stories we learned together about revelation through prayer.

Sister Curran vividly telling the story of her car accident with the chalkboard

District photo (from left to right): Sister Thompson, Sister Petersen, Sister Curran, Elder LaMont, Elder Tippetts, Sister Garner

District photo 2 (from left to right): Sister Thompson, Sister Petersen, Sister Curran, Sister Garner, Elder LaMont, Elder Tippetts

Amie is trucking along in the Book of Mormon! Already she is reading about King Benjamin in the book of Mosiah. How astonishing her progress! Amie has committed also to lead her family in a family scripture study.

Elder Tippetts and I spent some more time this week helping our widowed recent convert, Helen Wallace. She feels better when her yard is well manicured. Of course, we can help her accomplish five times that what she would achieve on her own. I manned the weed hacker ("The weed hacker, Verne!!") and Elder Tippetts clipped the grass with a lawn mower. In just a few moments, the yard looked great and Helen was so happy. There is such a wonderful blessing in service, a feeling that is indescribably joyous.

Speaking of widows, I met a new one this week by the name of Sister Lewis. Sister Lewis was very happy to see us. So happy, in fact, we had a surprise lunch delivered to her home from a local deli and donuts afterward at a location hysterically named 'Hurts Donut'. We had to walk to the donut bakery and Sister Lewis is confined to a wheelchair. Of course, Elder Tippetts and I pushed her chair along. While Elder Tippetts was holding the reigns, so to speak, at the top of a small hill, Sister Lewis says to him, "Let go, I want to go down this hill alone!" Elder Tippetts replied by letting his hands off the wheelchair as I gave him a look that silently screamed, "Are you mad!?" Not half a moment after that exchange, Sister Lewis was barreling down the hill. "WHHHEEEEEEE!" she shouted. I thought to myself, 'Certainly a lot of trouble is about to commence. We are soon to be on the phone with the bishop and mission president explaining why a good widow of the ward was hospitalized in a full-body cast while in our care.' We chased the runaway wheelchair. At the bottom of the hill, Sister Lewis was smiling. "I do it all the time," she said, "once a man tried to catch me and I fell out!" Elder Tippetts and I shared most bewildered looks and went on our way, pushing Sister Lewis.

Elder Tippetts and I are very happy to report Kay and the wonderful family we are teaching were able to attend sacrament meeting this week. The ward is helping so wonderfully. It. Is such a blessing.

A funny moment of dialogue while in the apartment, studying:

[Looking outside the apartment window] Elder Tippetts: Oh, look! There's a puppy.

[seeing the dog crouch to relieve itself] Oooh, my bad, I'll give you some privacy.

...

Elder Tippetts: Dang it, he left! It was a hit and run! Right in front of our window! He just stopped, dropped, did his thing and then he was gone! Must have been in a hurry. Took like ten seconds.

[With Vinny accent from Atlantis] LaMont: "Eleven, tops!"

My mind has been full of thought concerning grateful expressions of both Adam and Eve as recorded in the book of Moses: "Adam blessed God, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God. And Eve was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient."

Elder Dallin H. Oaks taught:

“Some Christians condemn Eve for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it. Not the Latter-day Saints! Informed by revelation, we celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode, called the Fall. … Brigham Young declared, ‘We should never blame Mother Eve, not the least’ (in Journal of Discourses, 13:145). Elder Joseph Fielding Smith said: ‘I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin. … This was a transgression of the law, but not a sin … for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do!’[Doctrines of Salvation, 1:114–15]” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1993, 98; or Ensign, Nov. 1993, 73).

I corroborate this truth with my testimony. I am eternally grateful for our first parents. I am happy with the blessing of agency and a knowledge of good and evil. All of us make mistakes, Heaven knows my list of them is quite long. However, the plan from the beginning included the blessing of a Savior to atone for our sins and misdeeds that we can return to live with God again!

I'm grateful for the words of Elder Oaks and for this knowledge I have that I have learned for myself. I thank those of you in my life that have taught me well by word or deed, instruction or example.

I thank you and I love you!