General Conference Weekend

Something our mission is changing is that we are going to be finding all of the recent converts over the past 2 years and find out if they are active or not. I am so grateful for this because I know some of the people I helped to be baptized are now less active and if missionaries were still going by then they probably would still be active. There are a lot of people willing to come to church but they need a friend to help them make that step and when they make it a lot then it becomes natural and they can start to do it on their own. 

I don't know how many converts we have had in our ward back home but if you could find out I think it would be a fun activity to go around and say hi to all of those people and ask them if they want to come to church with you. it is a good FHE activity lets say a mission prep for Robert. 

This week was lots of fun. Taught quite a bit of people. Transfers are this week, Wednesday. Such an interesting time of your mission transfers. God will put you exactly where he wants you. All spirit driven. I was listening to conference and they talked about personal revelation and how all people need it. Then they gave a specific example of mission presidents. If there is one thing I learned on my mission is that our mission president definitely has that steady stream of revelation. Not just a flash of light. So wherever I go who ever is my companion it will because God wants me there. 

We are going to have a baptism this next week, Alec. He is so excited to be baptized. We had lunch there yesterday between conference and he told us that he has seen missionaries before but they knocked on his door and he was playing video Games and he said he was kinda annoyed that they distracted him from his game and now he loves this so much. Amazing to see that God has in his mind when people are ready to receive the gospel and he prepares them for it. That is what this is all about. 

I talked to this doctrine guy the other day and he was talking about God and time and how God does not really work by time like we do because he is not limited my it. He gave us this talk on it. This explained a lot to me about my time here on earth. Here it is:

D&C 130:4–7. The Relativity of Time

Several scriptures suggest that the way we perceive time on earth may not be the way time really is throughout the universe. Alma 40:8 suggests that only men measure time and that to God all time is as one day. Other scriptures suggest that all things are present before the Lord (see D&C38:2; Moses 1:6). Verses 4–7 in section 130 suggest a similar concept,namely that past, present, and future are continually before the Lord and that time is relative to the planet on which one resides. 

In the twentieth century, the field of physics began to speak about time and space in a way that may help explain these revelatory statements.Albert Einstein, in the early part of this century, developed what is known as the theory of relativity. Einstein postulated that what men had assumed were absolutes in the physical world—space, gravity, speed, motion, time—were not absolutes at all but were interrelated with each other. That is why the theory was called the theory of relativity. Physicists now agree that a person’s time reference will vary depending on his relative position in space. 

According to Einstein’s theory, if a body moves at very fast speeds (those approaching the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second), that body’s time slows down in relation to the time of a body that is on earth;and for the body in motion, space contracts or shrinks. In other words,time and space are not two separate things but are interrelated. Physicists refer to this as the space-time continuum. If an astronaut were to journey out into space at speeds approaching the speed of light, though to himself all would seem perfectly normal, to someone on earth it would appear as though his clock were ticking slower, his heart were beatings lower, his metabolism operating slower, and so on. He would actually age more slowly than would a person who remained on the earth. Though the finite mind tends to reject such concepts, Einstein’s theory suggests that reality to us is a product of our relative position in the space-time continuum. 

According to this theory, if a being achieved the speed of light, to that being all space would contract to the point that it would be “here” for him,and all time would slow down until it became “now” for him. The theory of relativity thus may suggest how, for a being of light and glory like God, all space and all time could be present. As difficult as such a concept is to understand, increasingly sophisticated experiments continue to substantiate Einstein’s theoretical description of the realities of the universe. 

Lael Woodbury, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications at Brigham Young University, talked about man’s perception of time and God’s perception of time in an address sponsored by the Church Educational System: 

“The evidence suggests that God … perceives time as we perceive space.That’s why ‘all things are before him, and all things are round about him;and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things’ [D&C 88:41]. Time, like space, is ‘continually before the Lord.’ … 

“… Right now we perceive music in time as a blind man perceives form in space—sequentially. He explores with his fingers, noting form, texture,contours, rhythms. He holds each perception in his mind, one by one,carefully adding one to the other, until he synthesizes his concept of what that space object must be like. You and I don’t do that. We perceive a space object immediately. We simply look at it, and to a certain degree we‘know it. We do [not] go through a one-by-one, sequential, additive process. We perceive that it is, and we are able to distinguish it from any other object. 

“I’m suggesting that God perceives time as instantaneously as we perceive space. For us, time is difficult. Lacking higher facility, we are as blind about time as a sightless man is about space. We perceive time in the same way that we perceive music—sequentially. We explore rhythm, pitch,amplitude, texture, theme, harmonies, parallels, and contrasts. And from our perceptions we synthesize our concept of the object or event—the musical artwork—that existed in its entirety before we began our examination of it. 

“Equally complete now is each of our lives before the Lord. We explore them sequentially because we are time-blind. But the Lord, perceiving time as space, sees us as we are, not as we are becoming. We are, for him, beings without time. We are continually before him—the totality of our psyches, personalities, bodies, choices, and behaviors.” (Continually before the Lord, Commissioner’s Lecture Series [Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1974], pp. 5–6.) 

Einstein’s theory is only a theory, although it is being substantiated again and again as a valid representation of reality. How God operates through the vastness of space and the eternity of time has not been revealed in specific detail, but what information man has been given can be harmonized with what physicists are discovering about the interrelationship of space and time. 

Time is relevant to mortality.

Good study right? It took me several times to read over this to fully understand what they were saying. 

It was cool to see Ben and Monica. Question is Robert taller then Ben? If he is then I think he is taller than me too. I was looking and I think Ben is taller then me. 

Robert I miss you too, but it has been 3 years since I have seen Ben in person only 21 months since I have seen you. It is not that much farther away. I am sorry you lost your game. Beyer is a good school and was really good at football when I was there. 

I love the picture from all of the people. The Chapmans kids look so old.

Where is Robert in this picture? Just kidding. haha He is the tallest person there. He has grown a lot as well. 

I loved General conference. So 2 of our investigators were able to see it. I know one of them fell asleep a lot. haha the other one Mandy the one Ben and Monica meet she had to leave right after conference so we were not able to see if she received her answer yet.