Bev Psalm 41: Hastening and a Miracle

Hastening is a word that really matters.

Moving quickly, accelerating, even urgency is

   the Spirit of Gathering.

Miracles happen daily.

Our gratitude to God’s tender mercies and blessings

   is profound.

We joyfully prepare for the Lord’s Second Coming.

We seek to prepare the world for that glorious day.

Missionaries invite, teach, serve and testify of

   Jesus Christ.

His coming may not be today; it may not be tomorrow.

   But it is going to be some tomorrow.

Knock, knock, knock!

Who is it? I say from my recliner.

Missionaries! Just a minute...

I open the door.

“We are from the Church of Jesus Christ of

   Latter-day Saints.”

Me, too! I say to myself, “How beautiful upon the

   Mountains are the feet of those who are still

   Publishing peace.”

His new convert companion says, pointing to the Elder

   In his white shirt and tie, “He’s a family history champion!”

Me too!!!!

Are you a member of a group? The Elder asks.

Yes, I am. It’s called Peace of Mind.

Wow, he says, my dad’s a member of that group.

   There must be at least 50 members in it.

I respond, there are many, many more than that.

Hey, I’ll look it up on my FamilySearch app.

97 you are right!

In the over 340 million people in the United States,

   and over 400 apartments in my complex, what

   are the chances that you should knock on my door?

A miracle! One in 97 and you found ME!

I was wondering if God saw me and my neediness.

Yes. He sees me and let’s me know that I, who am

   just a little nothing, is indeed His everything.

He loves me!

Bev Psalm 37: V

 Vanquish every foe, fear, pain and sin.

   Sound the war cry, watch and pray.

   Hope of Israel, ye youth of Zion.

  You are that hope sent forth to carry the

   gospel message to all the world.

Venerated men of the past wrote God’s words

   of hope and joy in Christ, so that you can

   March victorious in foreign lands and

   bring souls home to their Heavenly Father.

Valued, these children of heavenly parents

   Were sent to earth and live in remote

   places like Mongolia. Search the elect out of

   the vast masses of people; they’ll hear the

   Shepherd’s voice and recognize Him.

Volunteer, age 18 or older, to go on a mission.

   Venture in obedience, with steps sure that

   He will guide you. It is vital to find His disciples.

   Prepare a people and the world for 

   His Second Coming.

Vehicle, bicycle or walking door to door, vouch for

   Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and

   Christ’s restored church with living prophets.

Vow to find them all. Visualize success.

   Verbalize your love of the Savior and the

   Spirit will carry this testimony into their hearts.

Vertical is your uplifted eye to goals set. On bended knee

   in prayer, give thanks for ongoing guidance and the

   tender mercies of aide from angels beyond the veil.

   Families are calling out to be found.

Vitalize His Church! Jesus Christ the True Vine

   who came to earth, living a matchless life,

   teaching the truths of eternity, giving

   His life for all who accept Him as Savior.

    All those, are the fruits of the Vine.

Finding the ONE

Fishers and Hunters of Men

I am reading a chapter a day in Luke during the days leading up to Christmas. Thus the 15th Chapter is today! Luke asks, “What man having a hundred sheep, if he lose 1 of them, doth not leave the 99 and goes into the wilderness after that 1 until he finds it?” We all envision The Good Shepherd with that sheep as a lamb probably because he carries it on his shoulders. It very well could have been an older sheep, even one that has been hurt.

I've had this print since 1978 of an Eskimo who has been both fishing and hunting. It symbolizes both a culture that is not my own, but also the dual nature of fishing and hunting. It's more complex than you'd first think. Just ask any Eskimo. He will have to do a lot of hunting to find one seal or walrus. The fishing part is cut a hole in the ice and have patience. So how does this relate to Luke.

How do Luke 15 and Isaiah 41 relate to Lost Sheep?

Since my study of Isaiah 41:18-19 where the Holy One of Israel (v 14) makes a “pool of water” in the wilderness!  I have considered the wilderness to be not only the gentile world like the Eskimo above, but also the cyberspace of the Internet. Wow, is that a leap or what? Not so much… since I spend hours every day on FamilySearch.org, Ancestry, and MyHeritage researching my ancestors. Where… on my laptop, in my living room on the internet.

How Does My Mind’s Eye See That World?

This image of a binary world is how I see the world, blue and filled with Living water, or in other words Jesus Christ and his teachings of the gospel that will flow across the globe via missionary work, as well as on the other side of the veil, where it is preached to those who sit in spirit prison awaiting their release.

In Isaiah 41:19 the Lord plants the cedar, acacia, myrtle and olive trees in the wilderness. Then He goes on to set in the desert, the fir, pine and box trees TOGETHER. And God did this so that ALL would see and know that HE had done this.

All the different trees in this verse represent to me the wide variety of FAMILY TREES from the various countries in the world. On MyHeritage they are even now translating their records into 6 or 7 different languages to facilitate researchers understanding names, places, etc. The Book of Mormon is available in dozens of languages now so that missionaries, our “Fishers and Hunters” of men can find people. We have a young man from our ward serving in Cambodia and a returned missionary sister who served in the Ukraine.

But, about this Cyberspace idea…

This image reminds me of a waterfall or streams. isn't that what do via the net and call it streaming?

The Lord says He “will make a NEW sharp threshing instrument having teeth.”  (see Isa 41: 14) Perhaps reading this as our digital technology or COMPUTER that uses BYTES as basic units, will help you to see what I see.

In verse 17 the poor and needy seek water. The God of Israel won’t forsake or forget a single one of them. He will go searching for the ONE! (v 19) tells us He will do a new thing, even “make a way in the wilderness and rivers (of living water) in the desert.

Desert means something to me! He entreats us all, “Ye men of Israel, my servants,” to go out into the world and use the internet to find the ONE.

Now back to Luke 15:6 when the young son, comes back home, his father invites friends and neighbors to celebrate his homecoming. How many of you have gone to the airport when “your young missionary son” returns home? or attended their homecoming talk in sacrament meeting. Think how God and our ancestors will also rejoice at our “finding” our lost ancestors and performing for them a work they cannot do for themselves?

“Likewise, joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth” more than the 99 just persons needing no repentance. (Luke 15:7)

We Have Become the Fishers and Hunters of Men!

Jeremiah 16:16 says “Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”

First the Lord sends fishers who gather men into the gospel net by our missionaries. Then he asks those they find to become hunters of men, their ancestors. Now that takes the Internet, in our modern world. When Jeremiah talks about out of the holes of the rocks he is referring to the graves, or tombs, like where Jesus’ body was laid. Now, when we bury someone, the rock is over their grave. We use FindaGrave and Billion Graves to search or to hunt them.

We find them one by one! Whether we fish with the Net, the living or the dead by the  Internet, or from the mountains and hills of records threshed as chaff by our computers. 

Speaking with the Tongue of Angels

The Spirit of Elijah Like a Fire is Burning Within My Heart

A letter I wrote to the Missionaries serving from my Ward

March 13 2016

     As missionaries you often speak with the “tongue of angels” when testifying of Christ and His church. Yesterday it was my privilege participate in this glorious, joyous, and sacred gift of the Holy Ghost while working at the FamilySearch History Center.
     I’d prayed several times in days previous that I might be helpful to the patrons who were going to come. Then I began to pray for people to be prompted to come that “needed” to be there. Finally, I prayed for a specific member who had called me saying, “You are the only one who has ever gotten me the least bit interested in doing my own family history,” so can we get together again? I met Rafael in my water aerobics class three years ago and invited him to begin working on his family history at the center; he came once. This time, I gave him homework (get a three ring binder, notepaper, pen to bring) and any documents he might have, and come to the center at 9 am, Saturday. His reply was, “He didn’t have any documents, and that we’d put everything he knew into FamilySearch already.”
     He came and miracles happened. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and never knew his father, who left his mom when he was about three. His dad was born in Puerto Rico. Rafael was there promptly at 9:00 a.m. when we opened. We always have a prayer with the volunteer workers before we begin. I was just sitting down with him at a computer, when in walks a non-member patron, Juanita, who had a microfilm she had been viewing for the past few weeks. Juanita is an expert in Puerto Rican genealogy. She helped found a Puerto Rican Genealogy group in New York City when she lived there!
     I introduced the two, left them together as she began teaching him the importance of documenting sources, recording and organizing his research, finding census, death and marriage records, birth records and even translating them in full for him for the next four hours. Just before closing, she rushes in to me saying, “This really is God’s work, I just found Rafael’s second great grandmother and she was born on March 12, 1890…. March 12th…. March 12th … Oh, my gosh!” “126 years ago exactly!”
     At this point I testified that this was true and that our ancestor angels attended us as we worked on finding them in the records they left on earth. Both Rafael and Juanita found joy in their discoveries. She never got to read her microfilm, but she didn’t care.
Now, this was not the only sacred event that happened at the center. Another woman, Darlene, a non-member that I’d also met at water aerobics and helped her to get started on family history several months ago at the center, came in to look for immigration records for her Swedish line. She’d told me how she’d just gotten hooked on this new hobby and couldn’t stop doing it! She’d say to her husband, “Just a minute, just one more thing, and an hour later….” I know the feeling. “It’s addictive, she said.” Yes, I know, and had previously told her about the Spirit of Elijah, and how that was the Holy Ghost testifying of the divinity of the family. She is planning a trip to Sweden in August with her son to go see their ancestor’s church and homeland!
     I sat her at a computer, next to another non-member patron, John, who never puts anything into FamilySearch but is an engineer who methodically has documented his family including sending away for naturalization records…via snail mail and ordering microfilms. I asked John if he would help Darlene find some immigration records. Four hours later, they were both so excited at having found what she was looking for and more. I apologized to John that he didn’t get to do much of his own work and he said, “Actually at the last minute I found a record that I’d spent years searching for. It was just right there!!!!” I testified to him that this was a reward for the generous help he gave Darlene, and that God was indeed helping them both! Both were uplifted and edified.
     I shared both these stories with the other volunteer workers testifying of the power of prayer in this work. And I “speak with the tongue of angels,” again to you, that I know if we pray diligently for patrons to come into the center, they WILL come. God prompts them to come, then prompts others who can help them to come. We are a Center for feeling the Holy Ghost as powerful as when missionaries testify in the homes of members and investigators.
     So missionaries, bring your investigators to the local FamilySearch Center. Arrange for special hours to visit with the Center director, if regular hours aren’t convenient. Listen to the promptings and include members who can help, youth who can help, to come at the same time. God will work miracles for you, too. It is all part of the Plan of Salvation and angels will assist.
With all my love,
Bev Field

Ephraim's Great Blessings and Opportunities for Service

SCRIPTURE: “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”  

--Deuteronomy 32:8-9

 “Remember to Start This Patriarchal Blessing Study Moment  With a Prayer”

A QUESTION FOR YOU: Why does the lineage of Ephraim figure so predominately in the patriarchal blessings given in the church today? Doesn’t Manasseh have just as important a place in this latter day work? It all comes down to the birthright.

When ancient Ephraim received the birthright instead of Manasseh, he was called to lead, and that blessing has remained in effect for several thousand years. Ephraim, one of the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom, was captured and scattered  by the Assyrians, then moved further and further throughout the whole earth and all nations. It was foretold how through the lineage of Joseph, and Ephraim, that all nations, kindred, tongues and people would be blessed. How was this to be if they were so scattered? God worked a marvelous work and a wonder. In these, the latter days Ephraim is being found wherever they have been scattered. Now His leaders—the children of Ephraim—would perform a great work for their God. Ephraim’s election to perform  these special responsibilities in the last days prior to the coming of our Lord and Savior is spelled out in the scriptures and clarified by latter-day revelations.

AN ANSWER: Abraham was shown the intelligences that were organized in the pre-existence; and “God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said, “These I will make my rulers, for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good.” (Abraham 3:22-23) Erastus Snow in the Journal of Discourses said, “The Lord has sent those noble spirits into the world to perform a special work, and appointed their times,” “Such were called and chosen and elected of God to perform a certain work at a certain time of the world’s history and in due time he fitted them for that work…and so he elected the seed of Ephraim to be that peculiar people…that holy nation, a kingdom of Priests, a people to receive the covenants and oracles, and to be witnesses to certain nations of the God of Israel.”

            So we are 1.) to become a holy nation and a kingdom of Priests  2.) receive covenants and revelations, and 3.) be witnesses to all the nations. Sound familiar? Well one could say our responsibilities are to 1.) Preach the Gospel to all the world, 2.) Perfect the Saints through temple covenants and Priesthood ordination, and finally, 3.) Be sure that all of the people ever born on the earth have the same opportunities to hear the gospel and receive the ordinances of the temple, in other words to Redeem the Dead.

THOUGHT:  We live in a unique time in history where we have been prepared for our appointed work. We have the internet and advanced technology with digital capabilities, efficient modes of transportation to travel around the world quickly and easily, great universities for advanced learning where we can learn the languages of the world, scriptures that have wonderful study tools bound right into them and church publications in all of those languages, conferences via satellite transmission, and on and on.

            It is our responsibility to go out into the world to find those who are of the tribe of Ephraim. It’s kind of funny, but the book, “Ephraim, Chosen of the Lord: What itMeans to be of the Tribe of Ephraim” by Shute, Nyman and Bott, 1999, confirmed what I’d felt all my life, I believed in Jesus Christ from childhood even though my family was not religious. This book held a missing piece of the puzzle that was ‘my life.’   Now, I know that not only am a child of God, but that He has kept an eye on me and I was born with “believing blood” to be gathered out of the world to perform His work. I was indeed chosen before I was born to come into the world at this perfect moment in history to help prepare the earth for the Lord’s coming.

            

 Did You Ever Feel That You Had Something Special To Do?

           Perhaps, all people feel that there is something special that only they can do. That they must search out what it is that God wants them to do with their life. Maybe it is only one special little thing or maybe it is a really big significant thing. But either way, there’s a sense of destiny, a feeling that you are just waiting to do whatever it is that you promised your heavenly father that you would do when you were sent down to earth.

            I hope that really reading and studying your own personal message from God in your Patriarchal Blessing will help you to clarify your mission in this life.

Remembering the Fall of Jericho

The scriptures are full of dates, places and events. Many of these are have significant symbolic meaning to Latter-day Saints. In fact there is a certain consistency within our scriptures about the importance of dates, days, times and seasons, as well as anniversary celebrations of many types.

SCRIPTURE:           “And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me.” –Moses 6:63

            I have had a fascination with calendars of various kinds throughout my life. So, I have pondered why the Lord so often makes mention of certain dates and anniversaries, and why all the feasts and festivals? …it all comes down to remembering! The act of remembering is sacred.

            It has become obvious to me over the years that the Lord expects us to learn from these events. He is the master teacher and the scriptures are our classroom. He is constantly watching over us. I am grateful for all of these things that are written for my learning. I can read them on a physical level and then ponder them on a spiritual level, and perhaps even receive insight into how they might be meaningful in my own life. In other words, liken them unto myself. My expression of this in prayer to my Heavenly Father pays Him the reverence I owe deity. My debt of gratitude is the essence of  my act of remembering.

THOUGHTS: Each Sunday (after Christ’s resurrection the members of the church kept the observance of Lord’s day as a weekly commemoration of His resurrection)  we promise to remember the Savior and His great atoning sacrifice as we partake of the sacrament.

            The Lord placed us on this earth created with the sun and moon to give us day and night, weeks and months, years and seasons. This was recorded in scriptures for us, clarifying the importance of each period of creation that was called a day. Days are important.

            Were dates important to the Savior? Yes. Although we celebrate His birthday with the rest of the world, we know from revealed modern revelation that he was born on April 6^th. We remember this season each year with General Conference held the first week of April.

            Malachi prophesied that Elijah would return (Malachi 4:5.) He did return to restore the Priesthood keys after the Savior, Moses, and Elias appeared in the Kirtland temple on April 3, 1836. I remember an amazing article appearing in the June edition of the 1985 Ensign by John Pratt that proposes that this date corresponded with the resurrection of the Savior on April 3, 33 on our calendar. 

Pratt’s second articleappearing in July of that year shows how the day that the restoration of Priesthood keys in 1836 was chosen by the Lord for its symbolic importance and “that even the timing of the Lord’s death and resurrection was foreshadowed in the Passover ceremony.”  

These articles can easily be looked up on lds.org in the Ensign magazines library. The topics addressed are complex and the articles are lengthy but some of you may find them fascinating.

            The knowledge of an exact date for Jesus’ birth and resurrection is not necessary for our salvation, nor is the knowledge of an exact date for his second coming. The point I’d like to make here is that dates are important to the Lord.

            One of John Pratt’s articles was quoted by Ronald P. Millett in an article for Meridan Magazine (now found at http://www.ldsmag.com) entitled “Does the Year 2012 Have any Prophetic Significance?” It was available online in 2009 but is no longer in their archives that I could discover. Millet talks about how several major ancient calendar’s (when brought up to date using scientific astronomic recalculations) can be seen to correlate with certain holy days or sacred events. There are apparently nine such calendars including the Mayan, Gregorian, Hebrew, etc.

            Millett notes: “The religious chronology summary document on johnpratt.com is, I believe, perhaps the richest treasure on John Pratt’s site summarizing his research over the years. Working together for the past fifteen years, and having seen as John worked on these calendars and how impossible these correlations would be if these calendars were uninspired, I stand as a second witness with John that the Lord truly must have revealed these sacred calendars to his prophets through the ages and that He himself appears to use them in scheduling important sacred events.”

            Millet goes on the say that although certain dates or configurations of astronomical phenomena appearing on a repeated basis are not good for predicting an event, “It is only reported … so that in case something of religious significance does occur, it will be a witness that God had planned it millenia  ahead of time.” And he likes Pratt’s approach of “using these anniversary dates to celebrate the importance of this event in the past, rather than presuming to predict anything that might occur in the future.”

SCRIPTURE: “  I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.

“Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;

“I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.

“Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.” –Isaiah 48:3-6

In 1Nephi 20: 6 this last verse reads easier: “Thou hast seen and heard all this; and will ye not declare them? And that I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.” In verse 7, “They are created now, and not from the beginning, even before the day when thou heardest them not they were declared unto thee, lest thou shouldst say—Behold I knew them."

            I think God wants us to know that it is He who has planned this all for us. So why did I entitle this post “Remembering the Fall of Jericho?”  In this article by Millet the last paragraph reads: “In this same article, (“Joshua’s Seventieth Jubilee,” Meridian Magazine, May 18, 2006 by John P. Pratt) two modern dates are noted in the footnotes that would make good anniversary dates for the fall of Jericho.

            “If the Fall of Jericho symbolizes a great future earthquake and if that earthquake follows the pattern of EF holy days, then the indicated day might be Sat. 31 Dec 2011, (TODAY) which is the day 14 Autumn (Tabernacles) in the year 17 MID AUTUMN (“Deluge Day,” being both the day and year of the Great Flood) on the Enoch Fixed calendar. That combination only occurs once in 364 years, and it occurred on the day Noah entered the ark (see Ark Day in “Tsunami”, section 2.4, Table 1). Moreover, that coming day is also 13 Serpent (Sacred Round), the same as the Fall of Jericho. The next day Sun 1 Jan 2012 (TOMORROW) is 1 Skull, and that same article also indicated that deadly earthquakes are associated with the day Skull (Sacred Round). I am not making an earthquake prediction here because that is only one of a multitude of sacred dates on which a future great earthquake could occur. But it would not be surprising to me that after such an earthquake happens, it might turn out that it was somehow prefigured by the Fall of Jericho.”

            So today, I am rereading Joshua chapters 1 through 6, looking up Jericho in the Bible Dictionary and pondering such things as, Why would the Lord want ALL of the tribes of Israel to participate in the defeat of Jericho when several already had their lands of inheritance on the other side  of the Jordan River? Why would all of the men of war from each of the twelve tribes circle the walled city and seven priests bearing before the ark of the covenant seven trumpets of rams’ horns:? Why did they do this once a day for six days and then on the seventh day, circle the city seven times, make a loud blast and then all the people would shout with a great shout? The people obeyed and the walls came tumbling down.

            “So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

            “And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.” –Joshua 6:20-21

In remembrance, although I do not completely understand the historical necessity of destroying everyone and everything to prepare a clean place for the Lord’s people, I have thought about my own emergency preparedness in case of disaster/earthquake. I have remembered those who perished in the Indonesian Tsunami and the more recent Japanese earthquake. There have been many opportunities for service in these natural disasters. All I can say is that I hope it isn’t the BIG one in California, because I love the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Years Day and count California as my home state.

            I would like to think that the Fall of Jericho might symbolize the falling of all the walls and barriers in the countries of the world where we are not able yet to preach the gospel. Perhaps the “great wall” of China will fall, or North Korea, or other countries, like in the Middle East. To the intellectual mind, these seem impossible, but to the Lord, nothing is impossible.