February 23, 2010

so I've been reading Jesus the Christ (this is my third time reading it) its the most insightful book ever. I'm towards the end where its talking about what happened after Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. i was reading in Jesus the Christ where it talks about where john and the three nephite apostles pretty much asked Jesus if they could live till the second coming. and i thought well what are they doing? I've come to the conclusion that all four of them are in different parts of the world preparing other people to hear the gospel. so there in parts of the world like India and china. they can't be actively proselyting because the media would of picked up on it, because they'd be such bomb missionaries they'd be baptising a ton. so there just preparing people. another thing that i've been studing alot if the parable of the good samaritain. a talk that i read from an older ensign (attached to the email) discusses the deeper symbolism of the parable jesus was teaching. the good samaritan really teaces the plan of salvation really well. in luke 10:30 it starts out "a certain man went down from jerusalem to jericho" this certain man is adam he's representing all of us. went down this implies the he went down willingly knowing the riskes. so adam or us is going from the garden into the world. so we've all come from heaven knowing what were going to be tempted with. jerusalem is used because back then it was a holy city so it was representing heaven. jericho which is 825 feet below sea level because its the lowest city on earth. so recap we all came from heaven (jerusalem) to the earth (jericho) knowing the temptations (risks). "and fell among thieves" which is satan or temptations that were faced with. "which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead" when we passed through the veil we lost our immortal bodies (stripped him of his ramient). "and wounded him" is talking about the pains of life and sin. "leaving him half dead" thats talking about when we come down to earth we suffer our first death being seperated from heavenly father. then the scripture goes on and talks about the two people that passed by. a certain priest (the law of moses) which happened before jesus came into the earth and a levite which is talking about all the prophets that came before jesus and prepared the way. "and brought him to an inn, and took care of him" the inn is the church which symbolizes a safe haven away from the world. "and on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host and said unto him, take care of him and whatsoever thou spendest more when i come again i will repay thee" the host or manager of the inn is the head of the church or the prophet. he leads and guides and " take(s) care of" us. and the last part when i come again. its jesus talking about the second coming when he comes again to reign of the earth. the article does the storey way more justice than i can, so print it out and read it.

but alot of things have happened since the last time i wrote. we had two baptisims trevan and levi. i forgot my camera so next week ill send them. but my companion and i our doing really well. i really love elder ramsey, he's been teaching me alot. we always have a ton of fun. thanks so much for all the birthday wishes. so funny story, i was on exchanges with elder santiago (two weeks out) and we stopped by a young womens presidents house. it just happened to be YW's night over there. it was wedding night. i asked if we could teach the young women how to invite their friends to meet with the missionaries. blame the missionaries, promise blessings, testify, and end with a will you question like "will you come to the church". and we did a really cool object lesson where an egg gets sucked into a gatorade bottle by fire. and afterwards we were leaving and the YW's prez asked us when we got home what were some of the qualities we were looking for in a young lady. it got really awkward because we had all theses young women staring at us waiting for us to answer. but it was really funny. good storey to go into the journal.

Love,
Elder Tyler Herring

link: The Good Samaritan: Forgotten Symbols, Liahona, February 2007