Easter Message: He Lives

That Easter Morn

By Marion D. Hanks, b. 1921. © 1975 IRI

That Easter morn, a grave that burst
Proclaimed to man that "Last and First"
Had ris'n again
And conquered pain.

This morn renews for us that day
When Jesus cast the bonds away,
Took living breath
And conquered death.

Thus we in gratitude recall
And give our love and pledge our all,
Shed grateful tear
And conquer fear.

The originally stated purpose of this blog is to share our testimony of Jesus Christ.  So in celebration of that purpose, and in view of the season, we share our testimony of the reason we have to celebrate:

  We are all children of a loving Heavenly Father who wants the best for us, indeed wants us to become as He is in order that we may experience a fulness of joy, as He does.  All of His effort is focused on our eternal progression (i.e., happiness), and as part of those efforts, He has provided this mortal experience through which we must pass as a part of our progression.  Part of this progression is to experience spiritual death, separation from Him when we are born into mortality, and physical death, the separation of our spirit from our body as we leave mortality.

  In order to make possible our eternal progression, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, voluntarily and willingly gave himself a sacrifice on our behalf.  He came to mortality and experienced all the pains and suffering attendant to mortality, including all the temptations, but without yielding.  He lived a sinless life, allowing Him to perform the infinite atonement, and after experiencing physical death was resurrected with a glorified body that would never more be separated from His spirit.

  Because of the resurrection of the Redeemer, each of us is also redeemed from physical death, and will be resurrected with an immortal body to match our immortal spirit.  Because of the infinite atonement of the Savior, each of us also has the opportunity to be reconciled to God and again dwell with Him in the kind of life He enjoys.  This blessing may come to all who believe on the name of Christ, submit to holy and authorized ordinances, and endure to the end, striving to be like Jesus, submitting our will to that of the Father in all things.

A couple of photos I took this last week provide a visual reminder

of one of my favorite sermons by the apostle Joseph B. Wirthlin.

The darkness of any "Friday"

Will always be dispelled by the brilliant dawning of "Sunday"

Because it is a part of our Father's plan for our eternal progression, we are assured that in the world we shall have tribulation.  But because of our redemption we are also assured that we can be of good cheer because our Redeemer has overcome the world.  So no matter how dark things may look to us from time to time, we can feel confidently assured that "Sunday will come": that through belief in Christ, following Him with full purpose of heart, we can be healed of all.  With the restoration of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, accompanied by His power and authority, the morning has begun to break.  And one day soon, as promised, the Messiah will return and we shall all see Him together. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain."

"God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son."

That's Interesting

Here is a series of photos I took of a tree growing alongside the path we walk in a park 3 days a week.  The dates they were taken are shown under each photo.  It is amazing to me that in just 21 days the tree lost all of its leaves and grew more just as big.

March 1, 2013

March 6, 2013

March 12, 2013

March 18, 2013

March 21, 2013

Metro Entrance in Frankfurt, Germany

I don't know about you, but all of this just makes sense.  Perhaps I should have been an engineer.

An Important Reminder

I do not know how many of the readers of this blog regularly visit mormonnewsroom.org, but I do frequently for a variety of reasons, and enjoy what I find there.  This morning as I looked for something else, I ran across a blog post there from yesterday which I think provides all of us with some great perspective.  I encourage all to review that post along with a companion article from 2009 on responsible reporting.  As I reviewed them I thought how easy it would be to annotate the important principles presented to general conference addresses over the past 5 years or so.  By the way, one of the top LDS public affairs websites in the world (by number of visits) just happens to be the one for El Salvador.  Visit there to see the huge service project pulled off by the 20 stakes and districts here a couple of weeks ago - the clean up of Lake Jocotal.

Roundabouts

 During the Christmas break we went around and took pictures of several of the roundabouts in town.  This first one in of Salvador de Mundo.  It is a really big and really busy roundabout. 

Salvador del Mundo with the San Salvador volcano in the background.

 This is the Olympic Roundabout.

 This is the clock of flowers roundabout but the clock doesn't work, there are no flowers this time of year, and the Coke sign obscured the view.  But as this is a very very busy intersection, we had to take it while we could. 

The FMLN Roundabout that we pass as we leave town every Wednesday to go to Santa Ana.  This is the party currently in power here.

 This one is my favorite - the Torogoz Roundabout on Abad.

 These next three are of art that is under a large interchange where Comalapa comes into town and puts you on either Los Heroes, which goes north, or Los Prosseres, which goes west toward the temple.

This one is the Boy Scout roundabout, with a bust of Lord Baden-Powell.  It is between our apartment and the institute, so we see it a lot.  Last year they painted it and cleaned it up a lot.

Summertime

Summertime in El Salvador and the cane is high.

Including the tassels, over 12 feet high!

And when the sugar cane blossoms, it is just beautiful.

Looking out across the fields of cane at the foot of the north side of the volcano.  (we live on the other side)

 Many trees also blossom this time of the year.

This time of year the road to Santa Ana is lined with trees in bloom - yellow, pink, and purple.

In this picture you can see the white blossoms but also the hill that was green with corn but it has now been harvested and this is what is left.  It is the dry season here now and there is a lot of brown countryside.