JUST GOT DONE TALKING ABOUT THE 100 YEAR THING WITH MY LEAD

He is actually a pretty nice fellow.  He fell off a ladder recently and bent it when he landed.  He recognized that there was some form of miraculous hand in him not being permanently and seriously injured.

His problem is that he does not believe in gifts as a born again Christian (BAC).  I guess his Dutch Reformed belief set does not align perfectly with Rhonda's Pentecostal beliefs (the other side of the spectrum, when it comes to gifts).  So, prophecy is completely out of the question.  I remind him that all of that stuff is VERY fluid.  In other words - there is agency involved, so little is locked in perfectly.  I was absolutely convinced it would be me that was taken over 14 years ago when my son died.  I told my wife on my 33rd birthday to take out a 1 million dollar life insurance policy on me.  However, she had an experience wherein she felt someone would go two weeks before the event and asked that it not be her husband.  Then, that it not be her two older kids - they were "connected at the hip" and it would have devastated either one to lose the other.  Then her mind focused on our baby at the time and she thought, if it had to be the baby, that something good would come of it. 

I was the Ward Mission Leader at the time - and our Ward area was mostly professionals who could care less about God - too much at ease with their situations in life to bother - so the harvest was meager.  I just got this testimony from a gal we were teaching who went to the funeral, joined the Church and decided she wanted a temple marriage because of the impact of that event.  Here is her testimony from a FB post yesterday:

Your strong testimony during and after Dallin's death was a major turning point in my conversion to the church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints. Thank you for your strength and love of the gospel.

There always are covenants and conditions.  I have recently become aware of a faithful sister who is single in her 40's who would no doubt like to be a mother in Zion and bear children.  Hard to do when you are not married and striving to keep all of the commandments - easy to do when you step outside the bounds the Lord has set in today's world.....  I felt impressed to tell her that she would have her heart's desire within 10 years from now.  The unwritten part of that is that if she lets go of the iron rod and is not virtuous/unrepentant, she will most likely be destroyed with the wicked when they are swept from the earth - and that will be a moot point and a "failed prophecy".

The flip side to that is that at a more advanced age of 53 (a little too old for conventional child bearing), it will be hard to accomplish as well.  But, we will be within a different era when the normal rules of age and many things will be changed - so all things will be possible to those who love the Lord.

So, to wrap this up - I still have my job (the day is young......) and economy is not collapsing like I had hoped (yet).  So I wait patiently - to see how this all pans out.  I am unapologetic - because I know that it WILL happen every jot and tittle.  Just a matter of seeing how it all unfolds.  We are given only glimpses into things - never the whole picture - otherwise, we simply would plot a different course and alter our future in a way that might or might not be a good thing.  The day before I fell off my roof, I had a ringing sensation in my head three separate times.  To the point that I wrote my first-born daughter a hand-written "love letter" outlining my hopes and aspirations and feelings for her as her daddy.  I had no idea I would blow out a toe-nailed 2x8 and be on the ground as fast as gravity could get me there about 10 hours later - with my head bounced so hard on the concrete that I forgot that I was married and that I even had a six month old baby at the time.  If I had been shown in that pre-warning that the "ringing" in my head was going to come from being on a roof, I simply would have avoided it completely and it would not have happened at all (I drove home carefully thinking it could be a car wreck or something).  Instead, I said a special prayer for safety with my wife before she left for work that morning and handed her that letter in case something happened.  I still climbed the ladder to the roof and got to work - not knowing what was coming.  I landed in one of the few spaces where it was safe to land and I would not have been impaled and I landed on my rib cage against a pile of dirt where the softest/most flexible skeletal part of my body could absorb the energy before bouncing onto the concrete sidewalk.  No broken bones - or worse - the neck.

When I was talking to the Bishop about the incident a little while later after the bruises were healed up and I was sure I was not peeing blood from my mushed kidneys...., he asked what I had learned from the experience.  That question kind of threw me back a little - but I have since realized that EVERY event in life is meant as a learning experience - good or bad.  They all have utility - and are for our good, if we choose to use even the bad ones to God's glory.  If they make us bitter and we begin to fight against God, instead of ceding our wills to His, then we have a lost opportunity and our progress is slowed or even damned (like the physical impediment of concrete does to the flow of water).  Thus, the reason that I just power through every experience in life with some modicum of doggedness.  I have learned that the good stuff is just on the other side of the seeming badness - if I am patient.

So - here we are.  And, for those who deny the Gifts of the Spirit, I would commend you to Moroni 10 (just sent it to my Lead to read - and hopefully work on his Chicago-loving, unbelieving mind - before it is everlastingly too late.  Time is short:

17 And all these gifts come by the Spirit of Christ; and they come unto every man severally, according as he will.

 18 And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that every good gift cometh of Christ.

 19 And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that all these gifts of which I have spoken, which are spiritual, never will be done away, even as long as the world shall stand, only according to the unbelief of the children of men.

 20 Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity.

 21 And except ye have charity ye can in nowise be saved in the kingdom of God; neither can ye be saved in the kingdom of God if ye have not faith; neither can ye if ye have no hope.

 22 And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair cometh because of iniquity.

 23 And Christ truly said unto our fathers: If ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me.

 24 And now I speak unto all the ends of the earth—that if the day cometh that the power and gifts of God shall be done away among you, it shall be because of unbelief.

 25 And wo be unto the children of men if this be the case; for there shall be none that doeth good among you, no not one. For if there be one among you that doeth good, he shall work by the power and gifts of God.

 26 And wo unto them who shall do these things away and die, for they die in their sins, and they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God; and I speak it according to the words of Christ; and I lie not.

 27 And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying from the dead, yea, even as one speaking out of the dust?

 28 I declare these things unto the fulfilling of the prophecies. And behold, they shall proceed forth out of the mouth of the everlasting God; and his word shall hiss forth from generation to generation.

 29 And God shall show unto you, that that which I have written is true.

 30 And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing.

 31 And awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of Zion; and strengthen thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee, O house of Israel, may be fulfilled.

 32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

 33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.

 34 And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen.