Weekly Mail, Elder Winegar

To those of you who actually read these, apologies for missing a week. I kinda figured nobody would really notice, but a few did. For you few, this one's for you. :) 

The power of God in great glory attended the work in Los Gatos this week in spectacular ways. In fact, so many marvelous miracles occurred I'm unsure how to put it all. Ammon, in his rejoicing, put it well when he said, "Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel" (Alma 26:16).

This week, before my very eyes, I have seen the forces of good and evil working. I have seen God's children, the people of the earth, face oppression from a very real adversary (Acts 10:38). And, with a power that is tangibly greater, I have seen the intervention of an undeniably real and undeniably loving God in the lives of His children, who could only be treated with such meticulous compassion if they were His everything, even His very "work and [His] glory" (Moses 1:39). That's what we are to God Our Father and Jesus Christ. We are their everything. I know it without a doubt.

The Lord is working wonders for His children. He will confound the confusing falsehoods of our day for us. He will heal us of all our infirmities, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual ones. And if he doesn't do that, He will not leave you comfortless. He will be there to minister to you, to succor you, just when all seems to be lost. 

I know the Lord will do these things because this week He has. And He did them through me. I watched as I was,"made [an] instrument in the hands of God to bring about this great work" (Alma 26:3). 

This week, by no merit of my own, I was guided in ways so profound, I cannot describe them with words. I found myself in certain places at such a precise moment, I knew that my meeting certain individuals could only have been orchestrated by omniscience. I spoke words and thoughts that I could not have dreamed, but that surely were written above. And the feeling! Oh there could not be a greater joy experienced amongst all things living! There is nothing greater than to be used in the hands of God!

Even so, with Zion's fountains seemingly bursting around me, "my heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities" (2 Nephi 4:17). 

As I was encompassed in the perfection of the Lord, my own inadequacies became strikingly apparent. As the Lord fixed that which was broken around me, I remembered all that I had broken myself. I recalled my many weaknesses and all the poor choices I had made on my mission. My heart rejoiced in the goodness of God, but was filled with chagrin and regret for my own carnal nature.

But then I was taught in my studies this magnificent truth; "God can make good come …not just from our successes but also from our failures and the failures of others that cause us pain. God is that good and that powerful." I finally understood that God was the one who gave me my weaknesses and thus He could certainly manage the messes they would cause. I understood what Isaiah meant when he taught that the Lord could give me beauty for the ashes of my life (Isaiah 61:3). 

He will do the same for you! Christ said of Himself, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised" (Luke 4:18). It is my prayer that each of you will cast your burden on the Lord, come unto The Master Physician, and let Him heal you through His sweet forgiving. 

I thought I would leave you some holier songs that have warmed my heart these past weeks, but there has also been one nagging at me from the back of my mind so just ignore that last one. 

🌌

Beautiful Zion, Built Above—Tabernacle Choir

Beautiful Savior—Tabernacle Choir

…

Lithium—Nirvana

ahem, AAAANYways, I hope you're well. I think of you and pray for you. I love you.

bye, 

Elder Winegar