Robert writes home #87 18 Feb 1997 thoughts on the fatherhood of Christ
18 Feb 1997
Dear Mother,
I got a letter from Jason Jones (your great grandson) on his mission in Tennessee. It was really fun hearing from him. He said that he got the Rudger Clawson award for memorizing 250 verses of scripture and reading "Marvelous Work and a Wonder," "Articles of Faith," "New Testament" "D and C" "P of GP", Etc. That is a great accomplishment. He was really thrilled about his sisters pregnancies and his folks coming to pick him up from his mission in May.
I'm a slacker. I haven't even accompanied my missionary kids to the MTC. I just send them and meet them at the airport.
Things are going pretty well for us. We're trying to figure out how to best deal with Pete's upcoming marriage in April. All that travel is difficult and expensive...to say nothing of the reception expense. He wants a reception here a week later. We'll probably hold an open house here in our home.
Charlie's last basketball game is tomorrow with Washington Union. Then it will be on to tennis.
I gave two talks last Sunday. One was my high council assignment and the other was at a bishop's fireside in Los Banos. I don't think I talked about anything I haven't mentioned in my letters, that I can relay on to you. I only got about ten minutes in my H C assignment ward, so I didn't cover much territory. I have been assigned to speak on "sustaining those called to serve over us."
At my fireside talk, I got going and forgot my own rules about talking to teenagers: 1. Involve them with an activity of some sort to give them some ownership in the presentation and 2. Always tell them what you're going to tell them before you tell them...give a preview of what's to come with a quiz or something. So, I felt like I could have done better with my fireside talk. But I thought I had good stuff to tell them.
Hope everything's going well for you.
Love, Robert, Janet, Charlie and Sam
PS. Here's another essay:
I recently had some lights turn on for me on the subject of the fatherhood of Christ. I've long found that confusing that he is our big brother and our father.
Birth is the entry into a phase of existence. The difference between birth and death is the point of reference, or vantage point. Death views the exit side of a transition from one phase of life to another and birth views the entrance side of the transition.
Physical birth into mortality is the entrance into the carnal body existence phase. Our previous phase of existence was the spirit phase. When we exercise faith, repentance, and baptism and make the covenant to keep Christ's commandments and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost we enter into a new phase of existence where we add the influence of the Spirit of the Holy Ghost to living with a body. We become the covenant children of Christ and he promises us salvation in the Celestial Kingdom as long as we don't abandon our covenant. This is a different life phase than that of a carnal man.
The next phase of life is immortality. That comes with the resurrection where we live with a body that isn't subject to the vulnerability of mortality.
A subsequent phase is Eternal life, where we have that immortal body glorified into a body like God's.
Our father is the man who gives us each phase of life. God the Father gave us all the Spirit phase of life. We were all his children in that phase. He is the father of our spirits. Our mortal father gave us our carnal mortal bodies by physical reproduction. Jesus Christ gave us the lives that follow making the covenant of baptism...thus he is the father of the "new man" that results from repentance and making the covenant of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost; then the immortal man and eventually the Celestial being because he made those steps possible for his covenant people. Thus we become the covenant children of Christ with baptism. That's how our big brother becomes our father. Your mortal father was also your brother. And God the Eternal Father is behind it all.
Dear Mother,
I got a letter from Jason Jones (your great grandson) on his mission in Tennessee. It was really fun hearing from him. He said that he got the Rudger Clawson award for memorizing 250 verses of scripture and reading "Marvelous Work and a Wonder," "Articles of Faith," "New Testament" "D and C" "P of GP", Etc. That is a great accomplishment. He was really thrilled about his sisters pregnancies and his folks coming to pick him up from his mission in May.
I'm a slacker. I haven't even accompanied my missionary kids to the MTC. I just send them and meet them at the airport.
Things are going pretty well for us. We're trying to figure out how to best deal with Pete's upcoming marriage in April. All that travel is difficult and expensive...to say nothing of the reception expense. He wants a reception here a week later. We'll probably hold an open house here in our home.
Charlie's last basketball game is tomorrow with Washington Union. Then it will be on to tennis.
I gave two talks last Sunday. One was my high council assignment and the other was at a bishop's fireside in Los Banos. I don't think I talked about anything I haven't mentioned in my letters, that I can relay on to you. I only got about ten minutes in my H C assignment ward, so I didn't cover much territory. I have been assigned to speak on "sustaining those called to serve over us."
At my fireside talk, I got going and forgot my own rules about talking to teenagers: 1. Involve them with an activity of some sort to give them some ownership in the presentation and 2. Always tell them what you're going to tell them before you tell them...give a preview of what's to come with a quiz or something. So, I felt like I could have done better with my fireside talk. But I thought I had good stuff to tell them.
Hope everything's going well for you.
Love, Robert, Janet, Charlie and Sam
PS. Here's another essay:
I recently had some lights turn on for me on the subject of the fatherhood of Christ. I've long found that confusing that he is our big brother and our father.
Birth is the entry into a phase of existence. The difference between birth and death is the point of reference, or vantage point. Death views the exit side of a transition from one phase of life to another and birth views the entrance side of the transition.
Physical birth into mortality is the entrance into the carnal body existence phase. Our previous phase of existence was the spirit phase. When we exercise faith, repentance, and baptism and make the covenant to keep Christ's commandments and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost we enter into a new phase of existence where we add the influence of the Spirit of the Holy Ghost to living with a body. We become the covenant children of Christ and he promises us salvation in the Celestial Kingdom as long as we don't abandon our covenant. This is a different life phase than that of a carnal man.
The next phase of life is immortality. That comes with the resurrection where we live with a body that isn't subject to the vulnerability of mortality.
A subsequent phase is Eternal life, where we have that immortal body glorified into a body like God's.
Our father is the man who gives us each phase of life. God the Father gave us all the Spirit phase of life. We were all his children in that phase. He is the father of our spirits. Our mortal father gave us our carnal mortal bodies by physical reproduction. Jesus Christ gave us the lives that follow making the covenant of baptism...thus he is the father of the "new man" that results from repentance and making the covenant of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost; then the immortal man and eventually the Celestial being because he made those steps possible for his covenant people. Thus we become the covenant children of Christ with baptism. That's how our big brother becomes our father. Your mortal father was also your brother. And God the Eternal Father is behind it all.
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