April 2020 Facebook Posts

April 3

As churches are temporarily shutting down due to coronavirus, I've heard of many other churches that are meeting online. While I'm grateful that believers around the world are still finding ways to gather together in this difficult time, I feel like they're missing the entire point of Sundays.

Church isn't sermons or singing or sharing scriptures. We've always, always, been able to do that at home. The gospel library app has videos of talks from prophets and church leaders dating back 49 years. Thousands of them. If you want to bring preaching into your home, there's no shortage of content. But we met in person to take the sacrament. The broken bread and water stand for the body and blood of Jesus Christ. His sacrifice for us.

The torn bread harkens back to covenants in Old Testament times, when animals were killed and divided as people make vows to each other. Two weeks ago, I drove from Grain Valley to Warresburg, Missouri, a round trip of about ninety miles, to quickly take the sacrament in a safe-sized group before returning home.

The twelfth will be Easter. The day of the year uniquely set aside to remember Jesus Christ. I don't know if I'll be able to get the sacrament for Easter this year. I've watched church dwindle from real church to home church to my brief Warresburg meeting to no gathering at all. But even if I can't take it, even if Easter passes like just another day, I'm determining to do all I can to hold the Savior in my heart. The day is still his and he is still RISEN.

April 5

My mother also lived in the Middle East (Iran) when she was young. Every general conference, I look over the map of the world at all the places where temples aren't and try to guess where the new ones will go. I noticed yesterday that the Middle East looked pretty blank but thought we had no hope of going there. I'm ecstatic about the new temple in Dubai, as well as the temporary one in mainland China. The kingdom of God is expanding and soon these impenetrable places will have temples like the one we have here in Kansas City!

April 10

Hey everyone! This is one of my favorite Easter videos, so I thought I'd give it a share.

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/video/prince-of-peace?fbclid=IwAR0JmkS3kuDwaF93XuJrmqTRgynOjT5RmcLzVq7KbAmcozBTE85JMFPGRPc

April 11

I might be inside, but outside spring is alive and well. God is giving me things to look at.

When I was thirteen, I told a camp counselor that I wanted to find scientific proof for God. She gave me this scripture and told me there was evidence enough all around.

"all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."

Thank you God for signing this flowerbed and giving me something to look at.

April 12

Happy Easter! 🐣 When I was little, my mom gave me a little spiral bound book of Bible pictures to keep me quiet during sacrament at church. There were only two girl pictures in the whole book, both of Mary Magdalene, so she became my favorite. In this video, I share the story of Mary Magdalene encountering Jesus at the tomb. {Link Broken}

April 25

This goes out to everyone with unseen wounds.

Everyone who stands by and suffers from something else while the rest of the world worries about coronavirus.

While big, distracting trials demand so much focus, I know mothers who are still grieving lost children, people waiting on surgeries, and young people dealing with loneliness.

Your pain is not forgotten by God. It is not any less because the people around you are concerned about something else.

One of my favorite hymns says,

"As I search the holy scriptures

May thy mercy be revealed.

Soothe my troubled heart and spirit;

May my unseen wounds be healed."

Healing will come.