Hey Dad! That´s great you were able to spend some time with the Wilbur's. I miss the cabin and that same wonderful feeling of being up there with nothing but free time and people that I love. I´ve actually been pretty discouraged the last few weeks. And we really haven´t found anyone to be baptized. I feel like sometimes there is so much pressure to baptize and so much number pressure that I start worrying about that more than God or the people. How was your mission president? Sometimes I feel like there is so much pressure on numbers that I get pretty down. I can´t relax. I feel a constant pressure and weight in my emotions.
All of the members here really don´t have any idea what´s going on. They´re all so new. There are about six or seven priesthood holders that attend church. They´re willing, they´ve just never really organized anything. They haven´t put their priorities in order. There are a ton of people that have nice stereos and t.v.´s and cell phones but they are having hard times financially. They don´t quite understand.
Yesterday in Priesthood, the issue came up about a inactive member that needed a new roof, because the rain season is coming. They just sat there and talked about the problem. Eventually I helped them see that they needed to be organized and meet and plan and actually DO something. There are a lot of men here that supposedly know a lot about the ¨palabra de Dios¨ but they really don´t do anything. How can people study the bible and the Book of Mormon and not change? The people here don´t change. They just do the same things over and over and over again. I don´t know how to help people like that. I guess just being an example.
In our little branch there is a big problem with gossip. There are little wars in between the members. A branch of 40 or so members! It´s crazy! I have found out that Mexicans get offended really easily. So many inactives that are offended and we´re trying to help them come back to the church by serving and visiting. It´s kind of hard to balance all of these things.
I was thinking about God as a Man. He was once an Intelligence. We were once intelligences. I have asked myself many times since I was little ¨Why do we need bodies?¨ Why weren´t we just good enough off as spirits? Well, Joseph Smith said that the spirit and the elements when separated cannot have a fullness of joy. I think it´s just something that we can´t comprehend. I think that in the eternal scheme, there are a lot of doubles. Good and evil. Spiritual and Physical. Light and dark. Man and Woman. White and black. I was thinking about it, and I think that perfection is the combination of the two. We came here to experience light and dark, pain and suffering, good and evil. Like Lehi said, there must be opposition in all things. Also our spirits combined with our bodies. When we are sealed in the temple the man and woman become one flesh. We have to combine the two to have perfection. There are two great dimensions: the spiritual, and the physical. The point of life is to have the spiritual overcome the physical. Just like God didn´t create the elements, or the image of man, I don´t think he created gravity, shape, or color. As a man, he overcame these physical dimensions until eventually he gained power over them all. He can create worlds and has power over gravity to create them. He can organize matter. He has power over time itself. Jesus could walk on water, and heal people from sicknesses. So basically I think natural laws like gravity, shape, and color have existed forever. God has just overcome them and has power over them. Just like justice and mercy, charity and love are eternal, so are natural laws like gravity and shape and the laws of mathematics. God didn´t create them. He gained power over them and comprehends them.
Jesus overcame the spiritual dimension for us. He gained power over the law of justice through the atonement. He also overcame the physical through the resurrection. We will have the necessary bodies again through Jesus Christ. Through Him, we will eventually gain power over all things. Joseph Smith said that exaltation and salvation is to have put all our enemies under our feet. I think it means also to put all laws, natural and spiritual, under our command. We will comprehend all.
I think it was Amulek that said the atonement must needs be eternal. Jesus Christ hasn´t existed forever. But mercy and justice have. The atonement is eternal, Jesus Christ just subjected Himself to these broken laws when he experienced the Atonement.
I was thinking about how God lived on an earth like this one. That means that probably there were similar animals. God has lungs to breathe air. There was air in His world too. I believe there were birds, and so God didn´t create the image of the bird, or the human, or maybe the fish. So there are some things that God didn´t create. Like music. There are choirs in Heaven. Music is eternal. Clothing is eternal. Family is eternal. It´s amazing to think that the image of man is eternal. No one ever created the system of the human body. It exists in a self existent principle, just like our spirits. The heart, the brain, the fingernail, the lung, the eye, are eternal things.
Also, the ecosystems of the earth, the ¨body¨ of the earth is eternal. As Gods we will comprehend the function of the body, and of the earth, and we will understand eternity. In the book of Psalms I found a scripture that says that by His wisdom God set the foundation of the earth. By His knowledge He created the heavens. I don´t remember what scripture exactly it is. Also, the glory of God is intelligence. I remember after taking a test in Physics or in Calculus, and having understood and comprehended the principles, feeling really good emotionally and spiritually and mentally. I think probably that feeling is the Spirit. I think when we learn and understand with an eye single to the glory of God, we feel the Spirit prompting us to learn more and more and more.
The bodily functions still go on in Heaven. In Moses it says that God cried when He saw the wickedness of His children. God actually had tears come out of His eyes. I´m beginning to understand that the life after this one is not much different that this one.
Sometimes there are so many things that I don´t know that I become overwhelmed. Sometimes I ask myself, ¨Why would God put us in a situation that we can´t understand?¨ ¨Why is everything so complicated?¨ But then you look at the gospel and how simple it is. God is simple, and someday we will understand.
I was also really confused about social influence. Why were some spirits sent to homes where they were inevitably going to digress? Homes where they were raped or tortured, or where they lost brain cells as babies due to the alcohol problems of their parents? We teach so many people that are completely ignorant. They unknowingly are blind and closed. Why? How are thy ever going to learn? Odds are the majority of the people in this world are not going to receive the gospel. For some people this life isn´t a test. It´s just a life where they come and don´t learn anything. They just live and then die. What happens with them? How are people that don´t accept the gospel because of the hardness of their hearts, hardness caused by social influences, going to be judged? Sometimes I think ¨What´s the point of the law existing if the majority of the world doesn´t know the law?¨
I was thinking about the two, really three, greatest laws. To love God, and to love your neighbor as yourself. In this life the most important social relationship is with God. The other with your brothers, your fellowman. And also, Jesus said love others as you love yourself. You have to have a relationship with yourself too. Relationship with God, with others, and with yourself. On these relationships hang all the law and the prophets. What commandment doesn´t help us better our relationships with God, others, or self? Keep on sending me passages out of the book on Henry Eyering! Please don´t be worried about me. I´m fine I just think sometimes I need someone to talk to. Someone that understands what´s going on inside of me, and over e-mail it doesn´t really work.
I love you Dad. Tell everyone I love them too.
Russell
Elder West
