The Eternal Family
These last two weeks in Institute we have been discussing the eternal nature and purpose of gender and how we should love all of God's children regardless of who they are and how they identify themselves. We discussed the importance of gender in our Heavenly Father's plan. From the Proclamation on the Family we read:
“All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose”
Elder Bednar, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, said: "The natures of male and female spirits complete and perfect each other, and therefore men and women are intended to progress together toward exaltation. …For divine purposes, male and female spirits are different, distinctive, and complementary.… The unique combination of spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional capacities of both males and females were needed to implement the plan of happiness. Alone, neither the man nor the woman could fulfill the purposes of his or her creation… Just as the unique characteristics of both males and females contribute to the completeness of a marriage relationship, so those same characteristics are vital to the rearing, nurturing, and teaching of children. (“Marriage is Essential to His Eternal Plan”)
We know many people struggle with gender issues and our hearts are bursting with love for them. In all that we have learned, we are comforted by the fact that through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, there is an opportunity for every one of God's children to realize their full potential and achieve eternal joy in God's Kingdom.
Thank you Sister Bartholomew for bringing this quote to our attention:
“To build our lives on the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, we need to dig deep. We remove anything that is sandy or superfluous in our lives. We keep digging until we find Him. And we teach our children to bind themselves to Him through sacred ordinances and covenants so that when the oppositional storms and floods come, as they surely will, they will have little effect upon them “because of the rock upon which [they] are built.”Helaman 5:12
This kind of strength doesn’t just happen. It is not passed on to the next generation like a spiritual inheritance. Each person must dig deep to find the rock.” Brother Jan E Newman October General conference 2023.
BARNARD Castle
A visit to the town of BARNARD Castle with our sister missionaries Sister BARNARD and Sister Victor:
Sue Arkley
Two weeks ago we honored Elder Scott Edgley, our brother-in-law who served in the Newcastle area where we now serve. Though he passed away as a young father several years after his mission, he is still remembered to this day in the Newcastle area amongst a few of the members. Enclosed here is a more complete conversion story of Sue Arkley, a convert who Elder Edgley found over 40 years ago.
Although I didn't join the church until November 1977 my conversion started
about 10 years earlier, while I was in my late teens. I had been a church goer,
from an early age and then started through the ranks again as a teacher, and at
the time in question I was teaching 7-8 year old young boys. I had a lesson to
do on the Godhead, and try as I might, I just couldn't get my head around
what the lesson was teaching. I thought that if I didn't understand it how
could I put it over to my class. I didn't actually believe in a God without
body, parts or passions, that could be everywhere and nowhere and were all
one body, not separate identities as the baptism of Jesus would suggest, when
the Father was heard saying "this is my beloved son” and the Holy Ghost in
the symbol of a dove rested upon the Lord. I went to the superintendent of the
Sunday school and explained my dilemma to which he said. “Oh you don't
have to believe it, just teach it.” I walked out and never went back.
I tried a few different churches on for size, but none of them were a good fit.
The people were in most cases very nice, but the teachings just didn't sound
right. And so when two young men knocked on our door in Blyth in the
summer of 1977 I wanted nothing to do with them. By now I had made up
my mind that what I was looking for just didn't exist and was not prepared to
waste my time, or build up my hopes as I had in the past. They introduced
themselves as elders Edgley and Larson,and asked if they could come
in and show us a short film strip describing some of their
beliefs. - it was called Man's search for Happiness, which answered the
questions, where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going
after this earth life? -I was in tears mid way through and thus started our
interest and investigation into the church.
Because of my past experiences I was very skeptical and asked a lot of
questions and finally Elder Rasmussen told me in no uncertain terms to just
shut up with the questions and let them teach. He promised that all my
questions would be answered once I had received all the lessons so I said ok
with one final question. If God is supposed to love us today as He did in the
past, why don’t we have prophets today? WE DO! blurted Elder Rasmussen and
12 Apostles, as in Christ’s original church! Well…. the rest is history.
We were baptized in a very cold Newcastle chapel, in equally cold water on
the evening of Friday 25th November 1977 but I have never felt so warm as I
did after coming out of that water. It wasn't until then that we found out
another aspect of our conversion story that involved the missionaries that
tracted us up.
The mission president had asked them to look for a priesthood family that
could open the Blyth area and a branch there, so they had been fasting and
praying to find such a family. They had come to the estate where we lived,
walked through the various streets to our close, which was the last they could
come to it being a cull-d-sac and had passed all the doors and walked up to
ours. That is where the spirit had led them. Also after going back to his flat
that evening, Elder Edgley-a district leader that had been on spits with the
local elders wrote in his journey - “Today I tracted up a future bishop”. (Keith Arkley
later in 1985 served for 6 years as the North Shields ward bishop — this is the
ward we currently serve in).
I had to put up with a lot of opposition from my family however. My dad had
served with a member of the church during the war and he said “if that's your
Mormons you can keep them. I want nothing to do with them. I was an only
child and he wrote me out of his will because he didn't want any of his
money going to the church.
Paul before King Agrippa and Joseph Smith both saw visions and new they
couldn't deny it because they know that God knew too, and that in part is how
I felt about the struggle I had between church and family. I had come to know
the church was true and I knew that God, through inspiration had given me
that knowledge and I dared not deny it, so I trusted in the Lord and just hoped
everything would work out with my family somewhere down the line. It
didn't in their life times,…and I believe they now know what I know and they too
know it to be true.
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