The Gifts of Christ

         During the month of December, the Christian world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and according to their beliefs and teaching, they honor him in various ways.  I have noticed in the past two years that the true and living church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the theme has been “He is the Gift” and this year it is: “Light the World”, meaning that we can light the world by adopting 25 suggestions each day from December 1 until Christmas day which will help us “light the world”.  For example, on the 10^th day, which was last Sunday, “Search the Scriptures”, (John 5:39.) was the suggestion.  Today on the 17^th day, the suggestion is to “Meet together Of”.

You can go to lds.org  and help light the world by those  daily suggested actions.  The Christmas message given by the first Presidency was of the same message.

I would like to focus our attention upon last year’s message: “The Gifts of Christ”.

It is a great honor to write about the living Christ, the creator of this world upon which we live.  I pray that these thoughts, even though you are well acquainted with them, will remind you of that which He has given us.  

I believe that at Christmas time we need to honor His coming to earth,  born of a virgin, called Mary, His Father being Elohim, the Father of us all; raised as a boy, He being about His Father’s business of coming to earth and subjecting himself  to wicked men, having a love for all of the descendants of Adam so much so that He was willing to make a sacrifice and atone for the sins of those who follow Him.

We call Him our Savior.  To remind us of what the term Savior means, we need to remember that Satan , he who was cast out because of rebellion, beguiled Eve into partaking the forbidden fruit by saying “thou shalt not surely die , but shall become like the gods knowing good and evil and you’ll have knowledge.  Adam knowing the other commandment, to multiply and replenish the earth and be with his wife, Eve, also partook of the forbidden fruit so that men might be.   We know this occurrence as the fall of Adam where death of the body and the spirit would occur for all men.

Read:  2 Nephi 9:6-12     

Read:  2 Nephi 9: 18-19 

This is the greatest gift of a redeemer given to us as Saints of the living God and this why we call Him our Savior.   It is true that the Christian world’s definition of “Savior “ means the gift of the resurrection which is for all mankind, whether wicked or righteou. But, as true followers of Christ we know that His invitation involves more than a resurrection and a simple belief in Him. “ come, .. every one that thristeth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea come buy wine and milk without money and without price.”  

This invitation from His only true and living Gospel (Church) is an invitation to all the descendants of Adam on the face of the earth, “ come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden ..”  “Come follow me”.  Each of us is given the opportunity to make that invitation. Those who believe in the scriptures contained in the Holy Bible will be led by the Holy Ghost to believe in the words of these who teach the plan of salvation. 

By entering the waters of baptism for the remission of our sins we embark upon the road of repentance so that a remission of sins becomes a reality.

When we repent of our sins, He takes from us the suffering we must otherwise endure because of our wickness. “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all,that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I” (D&C 19:16–17).

Obeying the sacred covenants and all the commandments qualifies us to receive the remission of our sins, allowing us to live clean and pure lives in the presence of God as resurrected and exalted beings.

Jacob truly gave us a better understanding of the true gift from Christ.  It is the greatest of all gifts and we appreciate that gift as we celebrate his arrival on earth so that we may recieve the true meaning of salvation.

Yet, Why does life seem so difficult? Why does there seem to be so much sadness, hate, and unhappiness in the world? Why are there so many unhappy people? Many are unhappy because they do not know the plan of salvation; others do not believe the plan of salvation; and others, although they believe, are not willing to pay the price for happiness now and for all eternity.

As we quoted earlier from Jacob: “Behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever” (2 Ne. 9:18).

Our Heavenly Father wants each one of us to receive a fullness of His blessings. Will we become discouraged because of the adversities of the world? No! Let us be optimistic. Let us be grateful for the gift of redemption and have faith in the future, knowing that the plan of salvation is true. Let us trust the Father and endure to the end. Let us never forget that we are children of Heavenly Father and t hat each one of us has the potential to become like Him. Let us have faith in Jesus Christ; let us have faith in ourselves. Then we will have joy in the gift that our Savior has given us and we will have joy and happiness in life and throughout eternity.

 There are many gifts that we all receive because of our savior, but the second most important gift is the gift of becoming,  Saviors on Mt Zion.

From Alma we read:

“Now, concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection— … the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body … are taken home to that God who gave them life. …

“… The spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise. …

Now the spirits of those who are not righteous, the spirits of the wicked, are cast into spirit prison until the resurrection where there is no chance to receive this redemption of which we have just discussed.  Amulek taught:

 “For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.

 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.”

The night of darkness is a time when repentance is not possible, unless the Saints of God looks with upon their kindred dead and save them through vicarious baptism for the dead so that they may receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and repent and become worthy of a remission of their sins through the Holy One of Israel.

To bring our ancestors the saving ordinances of the Gospel is truly a great gift and in a sense we become saviors ourselves.  Because, we can only do the work for our own families it causes us to turn our hearts to our fathers.  

Oh, the merciful plan of happiness and the plan of our God from the beginning.  How grateful we should be for his coming to this earth and teaching us the way to eternal life with our Father who dwells in the heavens above and become the son and daughters of Christ the father of this world.

   

Lastly the gift of the Priesthood of God.  This gift is a gift whereby all the sacred holy ordinances are given to us to help us to return to our heavenly parents.  The Aaronic and Melkezidick Priesthoods, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, Endowment, Gifts given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob., patriarchal blessings, power to anoint  and heal the sick, His gifts are endless!   

This is my testimony.

An Unfolding Mystery

               Over the years of family history work, I have been concerned about the marriages of my father after my mother divorced my father in 1940.  Do I have any half-sisters or brothers?  My mother mentioned to me at times that she thought the woman that my father was seeing at the time of the divorce was  Jerry Alford.  I was certain that the marriage took place in California.  I had searched for years for any additional marriage records of my father without success.

A number of years ago while living in Charbonneau, Wilsonville, Oregon, probably about 2011, my brother came up with a photo of two young girls that was given to him by our Aunt Martha.  He passed them on to me, thinking that they may be our half-sisters and prompted me to do some research on the girls.  I spent several months in research and I finally found information regarding their identity. (Unfortunately, the research data is in Bountiful, Utah and unavailable at this writing)  I sent for a birth certificate to the state of California to determine the identity of the father.  It turned out that the father was unknown to me.  I am anxious to review this research in Bountiful, my other residence, because I believe the mystery of the identity of the girls may unfold.  And, here is the reason why:

A few days ago, I opened my familysearch.org and found that my front page contained a recent photo of my brother and I as a memory under our father’s name, Royal Harvard Brooks, Sr. submitted by Donna van Uteret, my bother’s daughter.  It prompted me to review my father’s history page history page.  I was reminded that I had added the identity of his second marriage, Virginia Ann Fritz.  I’m not sure how I made that discovery, but anyway, there it was and the name was not “Alford” as my mother had thought.  The parents of Virginia Fritz had been connected by Familysearch along with many of her ancestors for several generations.  My father had a knack for finding women with well-known ancestry, as with the case of our mother.  I could not seem to leave this research and began adding familysearch noted sources to the families involved with Virginia Fritz.  As I continued to dig into the work, low and behold , I found a marriage record of my father to a Virginia Alford, May 1940 in Yuma, Arizona where his brother lived.  Her name was not jerry,  but Virginia.  This fact was verified by the 1940 US Census.  As I continued to add sources to Virginia Fritz, I came across a public record (city directory) for a Virginia Brooks, also known as Virginia Ann Fritz.  Wow!!  Virginia Fritz and Virginia Alford were one and the same person.  The birth year for both were confirmed by the 1940 census and the birth record for Virginia Fritz.  ( the photo  noted above given to my brother by our aunt, may be of Virginia and her sister, Hazel, born in 1913 and 1915 respectively)

In 1953, after graduating from college, we moved to West Riverside California, soon after which, my father came to visit me and he brought with him a baby girl of his that appeared to be about 6 months old.  He wanted me to meet my half-sister. I was so young and inexperienced in life that I did not give the visit much attention and in-fact I did not invite him into my house.  In retrospect I was very rude, and I did not ever see him again.  He died in 1978 while we were living in Egypt.  Years later, Jamie Robbins, a cousin, gave me a photo of my father with his daughter that looked to be about seven or eight years old. Her physical appearance was in the express image of our daughter, Vivian Rae.  The only name on the photo was “Margo”.  In the past, wanting to have a birth record of this child, I found only two Margo Brooks records that were born at that time in California.  I have not pursued it further to obtain the record itself.  This photo of Margo can be seen on the memory page of my father in familysearch.org.

All of the above is somehow related and connected  but, I must wait for my return to Bountiful in May of 2018.  I would love to meet my half-sister and apologize for the manner in which I treated her in 1953.  This work also shows the power of the Holy Ghost and the spirit of Elijah in bringing the gift of our Redeemer, baptism for the remission of their sins, so that they may be released from that spirit prison where no progress can be made.
(see my blog "A Past Moment in Time Becomes History" 8/7/2012)