Week #26--January 11, 2016

***This was another week that Chipper did not send out a mass email, so I am sharing part of the letter to me (mom)***

I am very excited that Elder Golden and I are staying. That's a very nice feeling. And I really love this ward so much. 

We made a new ward mission plan last night. The old one was kind of vague... With just long term goals, and no steps to reach them. Not to mention it was made 2 years ago, and they just keep changing the date and submitting it. So we made a new plan with a 3 step process: Pray, Study, Share. 

The idea is each month they do a different challenge. PRAY: Every member prays daily for increased faith and opportunities to be a missionary. STUDY: We've assigned chapters and sections of Preach my gospel to study personally and as a family each month. SHARE: Each month has a different unique challenge, from handing out a pass along card working it's way up over the year to sharing things on social media, inviting people to watch the Christmas broadcast with your family, giving a friend a Book of Mormon, inviting friends to dinner with the missionaries, etc. 

And then we'll check up on it with the members each time we have dinner with them. We think it'll be a really effective way to get people excited about missionary work. 

Week #25--January 4, 2016

***This particular week, Chipper didn't send a mass email. Here is part of the email he sent his dad.***

The world is like an ocean shore. Regardless of the height of the tide, it ebbs and flows and crashes against us. It is so easy to get caught up in it and drown. With our feet on sand especially, we will lose our footing and experience the dragging sensation that comes from the Ocean. We will be tossed about, frantically searching for some foothold, and being contended to settle for temporary breaths of fresh air through temporary pleasures that give us a brief escape before being plunged back into the deep. But as it says in one of my favorite scriptures:

Helaman 5:12

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storms shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

We just need to build on a firm foundation. If we are built on a firm foundation, it does not mean the waves will not beat against us, but rather it means that we can hold strong... or perhaps we can be held by He who is strong. Be saved by he who is mighty to save. And that does not come merely by going to church, or by reading the scriptures or by praying every night. It is allowing those things to change us, change our state of mind and change our hearts.