Hey everyone. People here in Nebraska are driving into rivers all over the place. I'm sure you heard about the floods in the news, it's all true. The Missouri River is out of control.
We had a baptism! Ayden was baptized, he's 12 and loves the gospel so much. We are so lucky we got to teach him. Now he's headed to the temple on the 27th and he is as stoked as ever.
This week I studied about the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, the whole parable is about preparing our hearts for the savior to be planted there. I'd definitely consider giving it a read.
• When the seeds are planted by the wayside, the ground is hard and packed together so the birds just come and pluck them up and they don't even get a chance to grow, the bird in this scenario is the adversary. When our hearts are hard we dont have any room to hear the word.
•When the seeds are planted on bedrock soil, they grow a little, but the roots dont have enough hold because of the rocks underneath and so the sun just scorches them. Some people are able to hear the word and accept it enough to have it planted, but when they have that underlying doubt, they arent able to endure. The roots cant grow.
•When the seeds are planted near thorns/weeds, the thorns choke out the seeds and they cant grow. People can plant the word in their hearts but if there are lots of distractions around and they have their focus set on worldly things, the word isn't able to grow like it should or like we want it to.
•When the seed is planted in good ground, the seed grows and produces fruit. This is what we all want. We want the word to flourish when its planted in our hearts and bring us increase, but it takes work.
We have to pull those weeds, and dig out that bedrock in order for the roots to be able to take hold and spread. And we have to keep it up, we cant just let the weeds grow back, we have to keep preparing the ground and keep pulling the weeds and deflecting the birds. Keep preparing our hearts. Then when the word grows, it can only bring us increase. Never will it bring decrease.
I hope all is well with everyone. Email me, I miss all you're cute faces. Love you all so much. Remember that your Heavenly Father loves you more than anything though. Never stop praying and talking to him.
-Sister Brown
