Interesting Exchanges and Interviews

January 20, 2013

It is so surreal that it is coming that quickly. already nearly a year out, I talked to president in interviews last week and he said that Elder Hyde and I won't be together next transfer(this Wednesday) but we don't find out who goes where until tonight, so I'll let you know.

This is Casey’s response to my question about Christ being considered our father:

This is what the priesthood manual for this year has to say on the subject:

Our Father in heaven is the Father of Jesus Christ, both in the spirit and in the flesh. Our Savior is the Firstborn in the spirit, the Only Begotten in the flesh. 10

He [Jesus Christ] is our Elder Brother and was honored by the Father with the fullness of authority and power as a member of the grand Presidency, of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost .11

Our scriptures teach that Jesus Christ is both the Father and the Son. The simple truth is that he is the Son of God by birth, both in the spirit and in the flesh. He is the Father because of the work that he has performed.12

The Savior becomes our Father, in the sense in which this term is used in the scriptures, because he offers us life, eternal life, through the atonement which he made for us. In the wonderful instruction given by King Benjamin we find this: “And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.” [Mosiah 5:7; see also verses 8–11 http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/5.8-11?lang=eng#7.]

So, we become the children, sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, through our covenants of obedience to him. Because of his divine authority and sacrifice on the cross, we become spiritually begotten sons and daughters, and he is our Father.13

“We become the children, sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, through our covenants of obedience to him.” Like the Nephites in King Benjamin’s day, we Latter-day Saints have likewise taken upon ourselves the name of Christ [see Mosiah 5:1–9 ; 6:1–2 ]. Each week at the sacrament service, as we are commanded to do, we take upon us his name always to remember him and that is what the Nephites covenanted to do.

The way that I understand it is that he is our father in the sense that he plays a fatherhood role in caring for us and in what he did for us, but he is our elder brother.

Interviews, companion exchange, the only really interesting things that happened last week were interviews and our exchange with the district leader. We had interviews with president on Thursday. It went pretty well, we just chatted at first and talked about how things are going. He told me that Elder Hyde and I won't be serving together next transfer. So one of us is definitely leaving, we'll know tonight who it is, I'll let you know as soon as I can. We also talked a little bit about one my friends in the mission who is having troubles right now, I asked if I could serve with him and president hinted that I could. He also hinted that I will be training next transfer, so fingers crossed! Our companion exchange was the next day (Friday) and lasted until Saturday. It was interesting because I went with Elder Ruka who barely knows English and has only been in the mission for about a week. He's from Kiribas (over by Fiji. I don't know the Sheldon area at all, so we spent most of it wandering around wondering where the heck we were haha. I did end up getting one of his friend's email though, she looks really pretty in the pictures he has so fingers crossed that she emails back! Haha

Love you guys so much!

Elder Sorensen