Sweden Here I Come!

Sweden Here I Come!

Monday, July 27, 2015

Being Obedient to the Spirit and the Light of Christ

I am delinquent, and I am so sorry....  We took a last minute trip to Laguna Beach on Thursday and it has thrown off my groove, but it was so worth it!  Just Blaine and I went.  I will post pictures on the blog with Dallin's next letter which we should receive tomorrow.  He sent only a quick note today saying that they were having a special p-day with President and Sister Beckstrand playing volleyball and eating pizza! Sounds fun!

Anyhow, not much to talk about other than the boys are still playing a lot of baseball and summer will be over before we know it.  I have decided to apply to a graduate program at SUU in professional communication to begin this Fall.  I am really excited about this, and I will still be pursuing Seminary teaching.  Somehow both schedule's work together - so it shouldn't be to impossible to accomplish both.

Dallin sounds really great this week!  He always makes my heart smile!

This Week's Letter from Home:


"The family is one of God's greatest fortresses against the evils of our day.  Help keep your family strong and close and worthy of our Father in Heaven's blessings. As you do, you will receive faith and strength which will bless your lives forever." - President Ezra Taft Benson

Dear Dallin,

How's my favorite missionary today?  My thoughts and prayers are with you always.  How's the work going?  I bet the weather is really getting nice right now.  We had a really impressive rain storm here on Saturday.  It kept the temperature down which is nice.  It certainly hasn't been as hot as it was a few weeks ago.  We added another mason wall on the other side of our property this past weekend.  It looks really nice.  It's nice when the neighbors on both sides of you agree to share the cost.  The people here in old Washington proper really are great.  In fact, there are members in our ward that have never met you before but in their prayers in public and private they pray for you by name - most impressive.

This week was a typical busy week.  I had to lay low a couple of days because I caught a case of the stomach flu that has been going around - UGH! Thankfully I am feeling much better.  Ty spent all week up at EFY and absolutely loved it.  He texted home half way through and said that he had just listened to the best speaker he had ever heard.  He then texted and said that he had just emailed you because they just finished talking about missionary work and he was really feeling the Spirit. He then said that he thought that you should come back and teach at EFY because you would be awesome at it.  I thought that was cute.  He came home with a stronger testimony and a conviction of reading the scriptures everyday.  I could tell it really made an impression on him. He is such a good boy.

Carter played in three ballgames this week.  Two up in Beaver where his team played the Price Legion team.  They had to win one of the two games in order to advance into the state tournament.  They won both.  Carter played first base in the second game and went 3-3 hitting with a walk.  Afterward we ate at the Timberline.  Then we stopped in Cedar City on the way home to a wedding reception - Abbey Eyre. She is my friend Angela's daughter (I grew up with Angela in Beaver).  You might remember Abbey - very beautiful girl.  We had a lot of fun visiting with all the Cedar people we know.  Carter even met some CHS girls that will be going to SUU.  He took their numbers.  On Saturday he played at Canyon View against the Park City varsity team.  He pitched all seven innings and he got the win on the mound. He pitched awesome.  What was neat about that is that Ty also got to play on their team because they were short on players.  Ty was the DH. He was responsible for the two runs that a their team scored.  The final score was 2-0.  They played in another game a few hours later against CHS and we lost 6-2.  It was a very windy and rainy game.  Carter played first base and Ty played a few innings at second base.  Another busy weekend of baseball.

Today we had a wonderful Sabbath Day.  The talks in Sacrament Meeting were on our pioneer heritage.  The speakers each spoke about their ancestors and they were all very faith promoting stories.  It was a wonderful reminder of how grateful I am for my pioneer heritage and the many sacrifices they made for us and the hardships they bore.  We have a rich heritage - honor them and make them proud.  They are there to help you.  I pray each day that the Lord will surround you with His holy angels - surely they are your angels.

This afternoon dad and I had to head over to the dental office to see a patient.  She is an older Hispanic lady who has very little money.  She needs all of her teeth pulled and then a full set of dentures.  Dad is offering her a very low price.  I really admire dad and the service he continuously renders to those who are in need.  He really is a great guy!

I spoke to Aunt Nanette tonight - her family just returned from a week vacation in San Diego.  It sounds like they had an amazing time.  However, on their first day at the beach Courtney was stung by a stingray on her big toe.  She is lucky that is where it stung her.  She was sore for a couple of days but is doing fine.  Bless her heart.  

We had FHE tonight and the lesson was on charity.  We read several scriptures on charity and then went through everything that charity is.  We then talked about how we as a family can improve in this area - especially with one another.  Ironically the lesson ended in an argument - LOL!  All is well however.  Not too much damage done, and once we all worked it out things are even better than before.  I'm sure this sounds all too familiar!

We will be heading to Beaver for the 24th of July celebration.  Grandma and Raymond just bought another new trailer.  This one is bigger and actually expands.  We will probably head up on the Beaver mountain to do some camping over the weekend.  It is always fun to spend time with the family in the beautiful mountains.  Wish you were here with us, but you will be home soon enough.  

How's the new face stuff working for you?  Have you noticed a difference?  How's the new diet of food?  That is basically what I am supposed to be doing for my diet.  I have a gluten intolerance so basically the only grain I eat is corn as well - rice and oats once in awhile.  It does make a big difference, but then there are days like today when I ate a few too many homemade chocolate chip cookies.  Oh well, I'll do better tomorrow.  Take care of yourself Big "D"!  We all love and miss you very much.  Keep up the great work!  Is there anything that you need right now?  Please let me know!  Godspeed!

All My Love,

Mom


Dallin's Letter Home:


Greetings from Stockholm, Sweden!

Mom, I'm so grateful that you are a good writer and that you take the time to tell me about everything that's going on at home.  My most precious time of the week is reading your email from home.  Thanks for being so good these last two years with writing such high quality emails and helping me feel closer to home.

Sounds like you guys had an exciting summer week.  I'm happy for the boys, Carter playing good ball, Ty having a good experience at efy, and dad rendering some Christlike service. I was so touched by Ty's sweet email this week.  That kid literally has a heart of gold. I can't wait to see the young man that he has become. And dad's example helping that Hispanic lady out is what the gospel is all about. I think that we can get so easily caught up with our duties in the world and the church, and forget the message of love and service that Christ taught. I think of the Savior's parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46. Yes the ordinances in the gospel are vital but they do us no good if we do not live the higher law that Christ teaches which can be summed up with 'Love God and love your neighbor as yourself' (Galatians 5:14).  Way to go pops. That's big.  Haha I love the story of your guys' last FHE, classic Milne family, keep working at it.  

Anyways we had a fun week running the streets of Stockholm.  I love it here because there is always something going on and someone to talk to.  And man I'll tell ya, there are some interesting people here haha wow. Its been rainy and kind of chilly but the last couple of days the sun has been shining. I've decided that I prefer the cold to the heat.  Maybe its just because I'm a missionary to has to walk around in pants and wear a neck tie.  adjusting to the weather at home will be interesting. I'm glad that it'll be fall time when I make #TheReturn.  But yeah me and the fin taught district meeting this week and it was super good. We felt inspired to talk about obedience and what we should be obedient to, namely the spirit or the light of Christ. The book you sent influenced this quite a bit. But we talked a lot about Christ example of obedience vs the pharisees example of obedience. It is important to realize that the Pharisees were basically exactly obidient to the law of moses and to church policies and traditions at the time, but they missed the point of it all obviously. We talked about how we need to keep the rules and stuff but that we need to keep in mind that the rules are there to help us keep the higher law. We opened up the scriptures to these missionaries and they loved it. I had never got such great feedback from a group of missionaries after a district meeting before.

We had a nice Sunday and were able to build up relationships with the members.  They do a good job taking care of us missionaries.  I hope you guys have a fun time for the 24th. I have so many good childhood memories on that day in Beaver with the family.  Enjoy it all and enjoy the time together!  And mom the the diet is good but its a little more expensive. we've had to cut out eating-out and stuff but that's turned out to be a good thing.  I'm turning into quite the cook haha.  Thank everyone in the ward for their prayers on my behalf, I'm really touched hearing that they pray for me without even knowing me personally.

Until next week,

Dallin


This Week's Pictures:




Downtown Stockholm


Beautiful Stockholm


My Handsome Son


Summer looks good on Stockholm


1 comment:

  1. So now for a different and not so "amazing" update: Rhiannon has now nowhere to live, she lost her job, claiming benefits from social services- ( whose recommentations she previously defyed) whilst paying to attend a mormon camp in Denmark (!?)- whilst claiming poverty to her previous landlord and did not pay rent -and left same accomodation without any prior notification. She has left bills unpaid that will lead to poor credit rating and debt collectors - and yes, we did raise our concerns for very valid reasons that now becomes very apparent!
    And this is only 2 months later.......

    ReplyDelete