Family Blessings: Forgiveness

Dear Missionary Mothers,

The Lord spreads the wealth of blessings from missionary service. He is particularly generous to those family members that are left behind. He grants physical, financial, and spiritual blessings as they are needed. These blessings are truly wondrous and tailor-made for the family, depending upon their needs and desires. There is one blessing in particular that I want to mention today, and it has more to do with the missionary than the family, although it might be a blessing of comfort to mothers. This a gift offered to all that serve Him: the blessing of forgiveness.

How do you receive forgiveness of sins? My first thought is to follow the 5 or 6 R’s of repentance and then take the sacrament. More simply, say you’re sorry, promise to never do it again, and take part in the baptismal covenant. This is how you gain the blessing of forgiveness from the Atonement. Although this is the primary way we can receive forgiveness for our sins, it is not the only way. Missionary work is actually a way to receive forgiveness of your sins. This is where it gets cool.

Elder George G. Richards, a modern Apostle, promised: “In the name of the Lord I want to promise you that in the acceptance of the mission call and the dedication of yourself to the work, the Lord will forgive you of past transgressions, and you can start out life with an absolutely clean sheet.” This means that every missionary who accepts the call to serve, and strives to fulfill his or her calling, can be at peace with their relationship with their Savior. Their slates are whipped clean again, and they are ready to serve side-by-side with the Lord’s Spirit every day.

I can tell you that as a returned missionary, these words speak peace to my soul. Although my mission is complete, it is comforting to know that while I was serving, I was worthy of the guiding power of the Spirit from day one. My companions and I had to put our trust in God every day that He would work through us to touch someone’s life. Knowing that He had a disposition to forgive us because of our service gives me confidence in the converting power that missionaries have. It seems like Heavenly Father sits on the edge of his seat, ready and willing to forgive His missionaries and send them on their way again, rejoicing. I love this imagery of God. He is benevolent, kind, and most importantly, merciful to His missionaries. He sits ready to move impossible obstacles out of the way, so that He can be with His children again.

I know, you might argue that your missionary’s call home for Mother’s Day is the greatest blessing of missionary service, but I think there is one better, if only slightly. The blessing is that of forgiveness. It will do more for the salvation of your missionary’s and those he/she serves than even a pep talk from mom, although this is more appreciated than you know.

Sincerely,

Chris

New 4x6 Cards

Dearest Readers!

Recently, I've been working on designs for 4x6 advertisements for A Marvelous Work and I wanted to share a few of them with you here. These are my top 3 favorites. If you have a thing for photography, check out how these photographers took advantage of color.

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Greens, blues, browns and oranges abound in this photo. They all stick out in their own way and yet they are harmonious. They're great photos to be sure and they were taken in the photographers' back yard.

There's truth to the song "There is Beauty All Around." On my mission, I would often just take pictures of things that struck me as beautiful. Like this one:

This photo has so much meaning to me. I took it because at that moment, I was thinking that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to live in the Philippines and I needed to treasure it. I remember the day, I remember the people, and I remember the place. Oh, and I remember getting rained on shortly thereafter. Looking at it is nostalgic for me.

Have your missionary look around them and take pictures of the beautiful things they want to remember. They will never have an experience quite like it again. Serving a couples mission later in life is great, but it just won't be the same as this one. Encourage them to take pictures, and then send them on to us and we'll save you the work of printing, formatting, and compiling them yourself. AMarvelousWork.com.

Sincerely,

Chris

p.s. If you are interested in learning more about taking good photos, check out national geographic's site. They have great photographers and offer some tips of their own. http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-tips/

A message in a bottle

This shipping idea comes from a friend of mine who served her mission in New York City a few years back.

She always loved getting mail while on her mission and loved keeping in touch with other sisters from her areas. After a while just sending letters got to be old hat so the girls started coming up with better ways to send mail. This was the birth of the message in a bottle.

The girls found that USPS would send empty and dry water bottles through the postal system.  This works best for domestic mail within the United States. The first step is to find a dry water bottle that can be sealed tight. Fill this water bottle full of anything small enough to fit through the opening, if you want to mail something that can’t fit cut a hole in the bottle but be sure to tap it back up. Fun things that might fit are letters, candy, small toys, and socks.  Once the bottle is full place a new label over the bottle’s original label and take to the nearest post office.   

The shipping cost will be more than a paper envelope but your missionary is sure to love this creative idea!

Why We Do What We Do!

Among book lovers, there is a fairly common sentiment, and it goes something like this: "No one is ever going to say, 'Look! There's the kindle Grandpa used during the war!'"

Ebooks are great and convenient; when it comes to preservation, nothing beats digital. Now, more than ever before, our communication is recorded and stored. Many people communicate digitally far more than in any other medium, especially when you have a missionary in the field. All of this correspondence is saved, and to make things better, our communication is often enhanced by photos, attachments, etc.

The problem is, all of this preserved correspondence is inaccessible to anyone other than the person with the login name and password. Inboxes are messy and even the most organized among us forgets.

A Marvelous Work was started to help you take the step from preservation to heirloom. We help you compile correspondence, photos, announcements, letters from the mission home, and all of the other moments into a priceless volume for the coming generations. We believe that your experience is a blessing not only to the missionary, but also to the family. These faith promoting stories and experiences need to be shared to strengthen in the years to come.

We started A Marvelous Work because we believe that these 2 years are among the most important for now and forever. Thank you for your decision to serve, we are excited to be a part of it.

Kelcie Beck

Co-founder and Owner

A Marvelous Work

Cast not away therefore your confidence

Several years ago, a friend sent me this quote and it has stuck with me ever since:

"Beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now."

The quote comes from a devotional address by Elder Holland entitled "Cast Now Away Therefore Your Confidence". For some reason, it never occurred to me to read the full address until recently. I highly recommend it for anyone, especially those preparing to take a leap of faith.

Elder Holland discusses the opposition faced after revelation is received and specifically addresses the teaching process that missionaries go through with their new contacts. He likens it to the experience of Paul pleading with the new members of the church in his letter to the Hebrews.:

"Paul says to those who thought a new testimony, a personal conversion, a spiritual baptismal experience would put them beyond trouble—to these he says, 'Call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions.' Then this tremendous counsel, which is at the heart of my counsel to you: 'Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.'

I suppose every returned missionary and probably every convert reading these words knows exactly what I am talking about. Appointments for discussions canceled, the Book of Mormon in a plastic bag hanging from a front doorknob, baptismal dates not met. And so it goes through the teaching period, through the commitments and the baptism, through the first weeks and months in the Church, and more or less forever—at least, the adversary would pursue it forever if he thought he could see any weakening of your resolve, any chink in your armor."

For those of you supporting missionaries, I commend you. What a sacrifice for a family to make. In our culture it seems to be assumed that families will do this without a second thought, but it seems that the Lord is aware of our individual sacrifices and the struggle that this can be for families. Elder Holland offers these words that can bring comfort in any stage of life:

"With any major decision there are cautions and considerations to make, but once there has been illumination, beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now. Don’t give up when the pressure mounts. Certainly don’t give in to that being who is bent on the destruction of your happiness. Face your doubts. Master your fears. 'Cast not away therefore your confidence.' Stay the course and see the beauty of life unfold for you."

~Kelcie

Steal the Hearts of the Children Package.

Here is a fun package idea from one of our return missionary friends!

Consider sending your missionary a bunch of little trinkets to give to kids. In 3rd world countries, kids can be the best way to get to the hearts of their parents. Some people soften their hearts when they see missionaries being kind to their children, especially when missionaries give their kids things that are either 1) not available for purchase, or 2) out of reach financially for their family.

These trinkets include: those cheap green ctr rings, scripture marking crayons, pocket sized children hymn books, etc. They can be handmade crafts: like scripture markers or a collection of small pictures of favorite Book of Mormon characters. If you’re looking for more inspiration, think about what you bought for your kids to uplift and inspire them when they were young.

Once you’ve decided what to buy or make, consider buying or making ten to fifteen of them. Trust me, your son or daughter will find a good home for them. You’ll be indirectly improving the lives of children around the world, and helping your missionary in his or her all important work of changing lives.

Send these packages with your missionary’s favorite candy every 3-6 months and you’ll make a difference in the lives of your missionary and those he or she serves.

Our Friend Chris

I asked our friend Chris if he could tell us all a little more about how he got into the business side of A Marvelous Work. Here it is in his own words!

"For me, the idea behind A Marvelous Work comes from a desire to remember my stories. I was an inexperienced, 6' white male from Vegas assigned to serve in the tropical Philippines Bacolod Mission riddled with rumors of eating dog and hacking through forests to get to appointments. I figured there was a good chance I'd get a few exciting tales to tell my grandchildren. Upon completing my mission, I found that I not only had a few crazy tales to tell, but also countless testimony building experiences that strengthened my spiritual foundation and set me on the path of lifetime discipleship.

"I'd like to say that I wrote faithfully in my journal throughout my mission. I can't though. After about a year, entries diminished to about once a month. I want my children and grandchildren to experience my experiences through my eyes, and now the only continuous record I have is recorded in the emails I sent to my family. This spurred me on to create a mini-version of A Marvelous Work for an assignment and later, talk to Kelcie about making it a product that people could use to preserve their own memories for future generations."

Our Marvelous Workers

An amazing service that A Marvelous Work is starting to offer is the creation of handmade mission books. These books are made up of letters, photos and emails sent home by missionaries. This effort came from the passion of two hard working friends of mine. Here is a little more about what motivates them,

Kelcie and Chris believe the family to be the most important social unit of our time. We encourage the strengthening of families and strive to provide resources that will help individuals pass on their memories and examples to their posterity. A Marvelous Work was inspired by a responsibility and a fear.

A Responsibility

We believe that we have a responsibility to teach our children to serve the Lord. Elder Holland said in a talk entitled We Are All Enlisted, "What greater gift could grandparents give their posterity than to say by deed as well as word, 'In this family we serve missions!'" This same same counsel can and does apply to parents. Parents have a greater responsibility to teach their children b y example what to do. Children that grow up hearing their parents' mission stories tend to want to serve missions themselves.

A Fear

We fear losing the precious memories of our loved ones. Memories are preserved in the things we write to each other.

On pdays, missionaries are careful to write as much in an email as they can. They yearn to report a week’s worth of time in about half an hour. Consequently, they often misspell or skip over some important details in their haste. They get their point across in the end and record three important things.

1) Personality. A missionary’s personality bleeds through their letters. The way in which they word their experiences gives them away.

2) Personal Growth. Even though grammar skills may begin to falter, there is no mistaking the spiritual and mature growth that shines through their experiences. You can see a missionary change by comparing their first month’s letters to their last.

3) Memories. These are precious. Our experiences are pearls to our posterity. They yearn to hear and retell our stories and cherish the family heirlooms, like journals, that we leave them.

Many proclaim that the art of letter writing is dead. We beg to differ. The art of letter writing is more prominent than ever before. It has simply evolved. Not too long ago, we painstaking wrote letters by hand. Now we type them into emails and messages. We write far more words per day and respond faster than ever. We want these memories to be preserved in books, for we fear losing them forever to age and faulty internet sites.

Mothers Who Know

In the October conference of 2007 Sister Julie B Beck gave a talk entitled Mothers Who Know. I remember thinking that for then on this talk would be how we as a whole know if our children are ready to go on missions. Getting a child ready for a mission doesn’t start with doctors appointments or filling out paperwork, it starts every time we teach our children the gospel.  It is an amazing talk and can be found on lds.org, or below. 

There is eternal influence and power in motherhood.

In the Book of Mormon we read about 2,000 exemplary young men who were exceedingly valiant, courageous, and strong. “Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him” (Alma 53:21). These faithful young men paid tribute to their mothers. They said, “Our mothers knew it” (Alma 56:48). I would suspect that the mothers of Captain Moroni, Mosiah, Mormon, and other great leaders also knew.

The responsibility mothers have today has never required more vigilance. More than at any time in the history of the world, we need mothers who know. Children are being born into a world where they “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). ¹ However, mothers need not fear. When mothers know who they are and who God is and have made covenants with Him, they will have great power and influence for good on their children.

Mothers Who Know Bear Children

Mothers who know desire to bear children. Whereas in many cultures in the world children are “becoming less valued,” ² in the culture of the gospel we still believe in having children. Prophets, seers, and revelators who were sustained at this conference have declared that “God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.” ³ President Ezra Taft Benson taught that young couples should not postpone having children and that “in the eternal perspective, children—not possessions, not position, not prestige—are our greatest jewels.” ⁴

Faithful daughters of God desire children. In the scriptures we read of Eve (see Moses 4:26), Sarah (see Genesis 17:16), Rebekah (see Genesis 24:60), and Mary (see 1 Nephi 11:13–20), who were foreordained to be mothers before children were born to them. Some women are not given the responsibility of bearing children in mortality, but just as Hannah of the Old Testament prayed fervently for her child (see 1 Samuel 1:11), the value women place on motherhood in this life and the attributes of motherhood they attain here will rise with them in the Resurrection (see D&C 130:18). Women who desire and work toward that blessing in this life are promised they will receive it for all eternity, and eternity is much, much longer than mortality. There is eternal influence and power in motherhood.

Mothers Who Know Honor Sacred Ordinances and Covenants

Mothers who know honor sacred ordinances and covenants. I have visited sacrament meetings in some of the poorest places on the earth where mothers have dressed with great care in their Sunday best despite walking for miles on dusty streets and using worn-out public transportation. They bring daughters in clean and ironed dresses with hair brushed to perfection; their sons wear white shirts and ties and have missionary haircuts. These mothers know they are going to sacrament meeting, where covenants are renewed. These mothers have made and honor temple covenants. They know that if they are not pointing their children to the temple, they are not pointing them toward desired eternal goals. These mothers have influence and power.

Mothers Who Know Are Nurturers

Mothers who know are nurturers. This is their special assignment and role under the plan of happiness. ⁵ To nurture means to cultivate, care for, and make grow. Therefore, mothers who know create a climate for spiritual and temporal growth in their homes. Another word for nurturing ishomemaking. Homemaking includes cooking, washing clothes and dishes, and keeping an orderly home. Home is where women have the most power and influence; therefore, Latter-day Saint women should be the best homemakers in the world. Working beside children in homemaking tasks creates opportunities to teach and model qualities children should emulate. Nurturing mothers are knowledgeable, but all the education women attain will avail them nothing if they do not have the skill to make a home that creates a climate for spiritual growth. Growth happens best in a “house of order,” and women should pattern their homes after the Lord’s house (see D&C 109). Nurturing requires organization, patience, love, and work. Helping growth occur through nurturing is truly a powerful and influential role bestowed on women.

Mothers Who Know Are Leaders

Mothers who know are leaders. In equal partnership with their husbands, they lead a great and eternal organization. These mothers plan for the future of their organization. They plan for missions, temple marriages, and education. They plan for prayer, scripture study, and family home evening. Mothers who know build children into future leaders and are the primary examples of what leaders look like. They do not abandon their plan by succumbing to social pressure and worldly models of parenting. These wise mothers who know are selective about their own activities and involvement to conserve their limited strength in order to maximize their influence where it matters most.

Mothers Who Know Are Teachers

Mothers who know are always teachers. Since they are not babysitters, they are never off duty. A well-taught friend told me that he did not learn anything at church that he had not already learned at home. His parents used family scripture study, prayer, family home evening, mealtimes, and other gatherings to teach. Think of the power of our future missionary force if mothers considered their homes as a pre–missionary training center. Then the doctrines of the gospel taught in the MTC would be a review and not a revelation. That is influence; that is power.

Mothers Who Know Do Less

Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world. Their goal is to prepare future fathers and mothers who will be builders of the Lord’s kingdom for the next 50 years. That is influence; that is power.

Mothers Who Know Stand Strong and Immovable

Who will prepare this righteous generation of sons and daughters? Latter-day Saint women will do this—women who know and love the Lord and bear testimony of Him, women who are strong and immovable and who do not give up during difficult and discouraging times. We are led by an inspired prophet of God who has called upon the women of the Church to “stand strong and immovable for that which is correct and proper under the plan of the Lord.” ⁶ He has asked us to “begin in [our] own homes” ⁷ to teach children the ways of truth. Latter-day Saint women should be the very best in the world at upholding, nurturing, and protecting families. I have every confidence that our women will do this and will come to be known as mothers who “knew” (Alma 56:48). In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.