20 Sep 2010 - Henrique Jorge Area (Dad)

[I regret to report that BYU football had another poor performance ... Air Force nearly beat #7 Oklahoma (etc.).] Well it would have been good for BYU if Air Force had won. At least I'm not missing too much while I am here, it's no fun watching BYU lose :) They should be ready to go in 2 years. Is Heaps going to serve a mission? Eastern Carolina was supposed to be good, or at least they have been doing well. Would have been bad for Michigan to lose again to another Div II-A school. Doesn't BYU play Oregon state? Good ole Notre Dame hogging up NBC with their sub par teams :)

[Lauren called late last night ... She said they went to Brick Oven Pizza for dinner ... and saw Jimmer Fredette and Lamont Morgan there and ended up getting their picture taken with them ... I've attached a picture from one of Amanda's friends as proof.] Well too bad he has a girlfriend :) The picture looks questionable, there is no definite proof that Jimmer is there! I'm sure Lauren is happy with her pose too.

[Based on your description, I think I located your place on the map ... I don't see any guys in white shirts sunning themselves on a porch though. Hm, I see cars here and there, but oddly enough not a single person. I guess the photo was taken during the lunch/drunk part of the day.] Yeah that's the place. The porch is under an awning so you wouldn't see us fool. Probably is during that time...

[(Excuse the extended quotes from my letter here. I'm including them to provide context for Jeffrey's response.) Brother Hanson came over for a home teaching visit tonight ... He talked about the plan of salvation. A thought that came to me as he was talking about how the plan, the Church, the gospel, etc., all have Christ as the center ... One reason Jesus Christ is the central focus of and key to the plan of salvation is that He is the only one who could make it happen in the particular sense that only He could bring to pass our immortality and eternal life. No man can conquer physical death. Only the begotten Son of God has power over death, the power whereby death cannot befall Him without Him voluntarily giving up His life, and the power whereby that choice redeems others from death. No man is without sin; no man can take upon him the sins of another and take those sins away from the other. Only the begotten Son of God can do it, both because He is without sin and because He is God ... the basic point is that without Jesus Christ there is no plan of salvation and only Jesus Christ could make the plan of salvation come to pass.] I don't fully understand it. Often I have pondered if the killing was necessary. Could Jesus have just died or did he have to be crucified? He had to pay for our sins before he was crucified in amongst the trees, but did some nation have to be cursed to kill Jesus? Was it essential that someone betrayed him? He could have been tempted by satan, paid for our sins and then given up his life when he was 33 because he just had to conquer death. I don't know. Jesus the Christ talks about how he died was prophesied and symbolic. He was raised above all others after he was brought to the ultimate low. He was higher than the people that killed him, physically and in every other way even after that humiliation etc. All I know is that He indeed died for us. He truly prayed for each and every one of us, perhaps by name, in the garden so that we might not have to feel that pain. I know that He lives again and that He conquered death so that we can live with our Heavenly Father again. There was no selfish motive, no attempt at glory. He loved us so much that He was willing to suffer indescribable pain so that we could live again and receive the glory of God.

We had a baptism this week. It was the same family I talked about earlier. We just baptised the son because we still have to get the parents married. So many miracles have happened with this family. We cast out the devil, they didn't have any money at all to pay for the marriage but their uncle gave them some money as a present for something so they have money to pay, we tried dozens of phones (public phones on the street here) to call the marriage office to get the paper work done but none of them worked or they were busy but we said prayers like none other and it finally worked. So many thing have happened so that they could be baptized and I can't wait for the rest of the family to be baptized too. Transfers are this week and I am staying here for another 6 weeks so I hope they can get married by then.

20 Sep 2010 - Henrique Jorge Area (Mom)

[In response to Mom's email which discussed the parable of the prodigal son.] I was reading in Jesus the Christ the other day about the Prodigal son. The parable was to teach the hard hearted Pharisees about the Publicans I think, because they were hated by the Pharisees. The Pharisees preached that they were always righteous and they always kept the commandments and how is it fair that other sinners can still inherit God's kingdom. The 'righteous' son wasn't entirely righteous in this story and Jesus was comparing him to the Pharisees. I think the key is being righteous and holding on to the rod like you said, but accepting our fellow brother's return. In that way we too can experience great joy. The scriptures say how joyful it is to bring a soul unto/back unto Christ, so we can have joy when our own brother repents no?

[In response to question about whether he has materials for teaching English classes.] They don't give us anything to help us, we just plan and do whatever.

We had a baptism this week, it was part of the family that I talked about earlier. It's cool because they have had so many miracles occur so far. We just baptised the son because we still need to get the parents married, but they come to church on their own and the son will get the priesthood in a month. I'm staying here for another transfer, which started today so we have a lot of work to do. However, things started changing for the better so we should see a lot more success if we work hard and follow the spirit.