This is Dad's letter this week to our missionaries. I thought you would enjoy reading it as we contemplate the approaching Easter season. We love you all! MOM
Elders and Sisters,
Yesterday, April 6th is, as we know by modern revelation, the day our Savior was born. It is also the date the Church was organized by a small group of members gathered in a farm house in 1830. This is also the season of the year in which we remember, with great reverence and gratitude, the infinite atonement, death and resurrection of our Savior. I pray with all my heart that you will feel great joy and gratitude during this time of year for the grand blessing and privilege you have to serve as a full-time missionary called by a Prophet of God at this critically important time in the history of the earth, to share with our spiritual brothers and sisters the correct doctrines concerning His life, His ministry, His atonement, His Church, and His plan for the redemption and salvation of all of Heavenly Father's children.
Knowing the impending events that would unfold in the hours to come, Jesus opened His heart with his apostles at the last supper, saying: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. … "Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: [but] whither I go, ye cannot come. … "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:31, 33–35). The Savior prayed to the Father for all who would believe in Him, saying: "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:1–3).
James E. Talmage wrote: "Jesus was nailed to the cross on Friday morning, probably between nine and ten o'clock. "At noontide the light of the sun was obscured, and black darkness spread over the whole land. The terrifying gloom continued for a period of three hours. … It was a fitting sign of the earth's deep mourning over the impending death of her Creator" (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, pp. 612–13). At the ninth hour Christ uttered that anguished cry, "'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" (Matt. 27:46) "In that bitterest hour the dying Christ was alone. [So] that the supreme sacrifice of the Son might be consummated in all its fulness, the Father seems to have withdrawn … His immediate Presence, leaving to the Savior of men the glory of complete victory over the forces of sin and death."
We know that Christ's body was lovingly taken and placed on fine linen purchased by Joseph of Arimathea, covered with rich spices, and carried to a nearby garden where a new tomb belonging to Joseph was located. When the two Marys later visited the tomb, they found the heavy stone already rolled away, the body of Jesus gone, and two angels in white bearing witness that Christ had risen from the dead. Later, Jesus appeared to his apostles and declared: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:36, 39). Then, at the seashore at Galilee, while the Savior and the disciples were eating fish together, Jesus asked Peter, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?" And he answered, "Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee." And Jesus said: "Feed my lambs." "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" He asked again. "Yea, Lord," responded Peter, "thou knowest that I love thee." And the Savior repeated "Feed my sheep." A third time: "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" And in anguish, Peter said, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." And the Savior replied yet again, "Feed my sheep" (see John 21:15–17).
This is truly the Savior's message to each of us as we think about His birth, life, atonement, death and resurrection at this time of year. "Feed my sheep." He asks each of us: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:19–20). This is why you were called to the Russia Yekaterinburg Mission. Your message is glorious. Because of our Father in Heaven's love for us, He provided the means for each of His children to return to Him with a glorified resurrected body, clean and pure, and worthy to be a joint heir with His Son Jesus Christ in the Celestial Kingdom. You are the only messengers God has called in this region of Russia to deliver this message that Jesus Christ has appeased the demands of justice," that God might be a perfect, just, and merciful God (Alma 42:15).
Following His atonement and death, our Savior has continued to do everything possible to assure that as many people as possible will learn about and take full advantage of His atoning sacrifice. We know He immediately went to the Spirit World and, " from among the righteous, he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead. And the chosen messengers went forth to declare the acceptable day of the Lord and proclaim liberty to the captives who were bound, even unto all who would repent of their sins and receive the gospel." D&C 138:30-31. He appeared to His disciples and apostles in the land of Israel and then appeared to the descendants of Lehi on the American continent, all for the purpose of making sure his true doctrine, priesthood power, priesthood ordinances and the Gift of the Holy Ghost would be available to all in order for them to take full advantage of His atonement. He has never ceased striving to assist our Father in Heaven in bringing to pass the eternal life and exaltation of His children.
You are the only messengers in this vast region of Russia who have the fullness of the truth and the authority from God to declare it to the world. This work is directed by our Savior. I testify to each of you, my dear Elders and Sisters, that you were literally called by God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ who directs this missionary work through the living Prophet who issued your call, to teach the correct doctrines of Christ and administer ordinances that will enable your brothers and sisters in this mission, by the power of our Savior's atonement, to return to the presence of God as joint heirs with Christ.
I pray that you will feel the sacred reality of your call. It is my greatest hope and desire that you will understand and rejoice that our Savior Jesus Christ knows you personally and has chosen you to work side-by-side with Him to help as many people as possible understand and take advantage of His atonement. You have been promised divine help in this work. Please, Elders and Sisters, live each day of your life with gratitude for the privilege of serving closely with your Savior and live each day with the resolve to be worthy of His companionship through the power of the Holy Ghost. I promise you that as you do this, you will experience divine guidance, powerful gifts of the Spirit and profound joy.
I bear my personal solemn witness that He lives, that He is our Savior, and that His pathway is the only pathway to true happiness. I testify that each of you has a sacred and divine calling to declare this message. I love each of you. You are each so precious to me and Sister Christensen.
May God bless you as you labor to serve Him,
President Christensen
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