Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

• No less serviceable
• Diarrhea again
• Shomario wants to go on a mission

This morning we had mission devotional. Sister Burnham was the one that gave it today. She spoke on those who are lesser known in the scriptures, particularly the book of Mormon, who were excellent missionaries but were not talked about as much as some of the main characters we know in the book of Mormon.

Some of the missionaries she spoke of were Aaron the elder brother of Ammon. And the other brothers, Omner and Himni and others who went to the Lamanites to preach the gospel to them. She pointed out scriptures that referred to their influence and part in the stories. She also talked about Alma the younger sons who were less mentioned in the scriptures. She also spoke of the Nephi and Lehi the son's of Helaman. It says that Lehi was not a whit behind him as to things pertaining to Righteousness (Helaman 11:19). We hear mostly about Nephi, He must have been the prophet, She also talked about Nephi's brother Sam Who was a devoted follower and supporter of Nephi. Lehi says of Sam, ...and thou shalt be even like unto thy brother (Nephi), and thy seed like unto his seed; and thou shalt be blessed in all thy days (2 Nephi 4:11). She pointed out that there are those who do great things and are remembered for them but there are many many others including most of us who just quietly go about the work but as the scriptures say there are no less serviceable (Alma 48:19) than the ones who get all of the attention.

One she didn't mention is Hyrum Smith, the brother of the prophet Joseph Smith. His influence on the church went on for many years after his death. His son Joseph F Smith and grandson Joseph Fielding Smith because prophets of the church. M. Russell Ballard, a great great grandson, became and apostle and the president of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.

Today I woke up with about all diarrhea which is a pretty common occurrence living over here in St Lucia. So I stayed pretty close to home all day working on odds and ending putting things together for the branch. Tina had a doctor's appointment to get a physical so that we can reapply for our work exemption permit.

I have to confess that I stayed up late last night. Didn't stay up late I woke up to listen to the BYU basketball game. You were playing Iowa State who was ranked number 10 in the nation. I forgot to set my alarm so when I woke up there were only about 10 minutes left. BYU had been up by 21 in the second half but Iowa State was making a big run and eventually took the lead. The game ended up going into double overtime and both teams were out of gas but BYU endured the best and ended up winning 85 to 82. It was one of those games where it was so tight once Iowa State caught back up that it had your heart beating just listening to it actually I was watching it on Youtube.

This evening we went to the church and Tina got her literacy class and I met with Shomario and we talked about branch changes a little bit. He informed me that he decided he is going to go on a mission. That kind of shoots me in the foot but in the long run there will be the best thing that happens for this branch. He will get a good foundation of the gospel on the mission. He actually started mission papers back in 2023 so they were in another ward and I needed to get a hold of them to get them to transfer the online form to our branch I sent the branch president unknown but haven't heard back from him yet.