Phone Calls are the Best! Plus Some Insight From Elder Alley

Another trip to the Las Vegas Temple. It's awesome that the missionaries get to attend
the temple on a regular basis.

At transfers 

Transfers pics with missionary friends. Yes, that is Elder Hartsock,
BYU basketball player, on the right. His Kentucky buddy, Elder Gee is on the left.
(I got these pics from the mission website, so I don't know who the sister is.)

With his current companion, Elder Martinez, and his former companion, Elder Walker

At Leadership Council

There's Elder Alley, down at the very end. :)

The next four pics are ones I got off the mission website, too. They are random
sightings of Elder Alley. I cropped them to get as much of him as possible. A
missionary mom is willing to take drastic measures for a mere glimpse of her son. ;) 

Peek-a-boo. I see you.

Obviously, deep in a gospel conversation.

Oh, good. He got a popsicle. :)

At 3:30pm (PST), Elder Alley called from a member's house. There wasn't access
to a computer with Skype, so he used their phone to Facetime. Shout out to the
Martinez family for their generosity in letting Elder Alley use their phone!
(Btw, nice faces, kids. haha)

He moved outside to get a better connection. (Looks like another sunny day in Vegas.)
The connection wasn't very good and kept pausing or cutting out. It made it really hard
to talk so we ended up just going to a regular phone call. I was kind of disappointed
because I love to look at my kids' faces when they're talking. I miss seeing them all
so much. I was grateful we got to see him for a little bit, though, and it was awesome to still be
able to talk to him. I won't complain because years ago there were no phone calls
and even letters took a long time to go back and forth. I love modern technology!
Plus, I'm glad this didn't happen during his first call home at Christmas. He loved talking
to us this time, but he didn't "need" it like he did at Christmas. He is doing so great
now and loving his mission!

Elder Alley's May 11, 2015 email:

I hope you have your floaties on, because it's about to get deep up in here.

I just had a Skype session with the Fam Bam, and therefore they're pretty caught up with my life. So, if you're curious, just ask them. So in the meantime I figured I would share some insight (dare I say "revelation") this last week that really changed my perspective on how I look at some things. 

1) The Nature of the Priesthoods: So the back story to this is that I was doing some ordinances in the temple and this is something I realized. The nature of the Aaronic Priesthood is to cleanse us, or to separate us from the world. That is why it is called the preparatory priesthood, and then the nature of the Melchizedek Priesthood is to put in us divine power. For example, with the Aaronic Priesthood you can baptize someone, which cleanses them of their sins and puts them in a clean, forgiven state. BUT, you need the Melchizedek Priesthood in order to give someone the gift of the Holy Ghost which is literally putting in someone a divine power. So, one is to wash us clean and prepare us to receive the second, which anoints us with Divinity. So I thought that was a cool new way to look at them.

2) The Meaning of Salvation: So here is the question, what is salvation? Or perhaps a different way to put it. What is the difference between those who are "saved" and those who are "damned?" To me, what I realized is that it all boils down to one word: Progression. Those who are damned are stripped of their ability to progress, to become more and better. While those who are "saved" are allowed to keep that gift and to use it for the rest of the eternities, which is what gives us infinite potential. Because a line at even a 1 degree angle, if allowed to continue to stretch forth into infinity, has infinite growth. Whereas a line with no slope, at 0 degrees, even if allowed to continue forever, will always stay the same. THEREFORE, it is my suggestion that a big part of the Judgment will be God simply asking us and looking to see if we used this precious gift of Progression while we were here on the Earth. Did we repent? Did we use the Atonement to fix our faults, to smoothen our edges? Or did we come back the same as we left? Did we feel content with who we were and simply said "This is just who I am, and people don't change." Because the whole purpose of this life is to CHANGE, to become BETTER, to be a little closer to our Heavenly Father in character tomorrow than we were yesterday and if He sees that we did not use this gift of Progression during our time on the Earth, why would He bother to let us keep that gift in the next life? And that is what "damns" a person. So, in all the many things we need to do during this life, the most important is this: change for the better. Become a little more patient, a little more kind, a little more charitable day-to-day and week-to-week and year-to-year. 

Nothing irritates me more than this whole mindset of "People don't change" or "I am the way I am and my faults will always stay the same." That completely defeats the purpose of our life on Earth in every aspect of the word. That mind-set discredits the Atonement and everything that the Savior strived to make possible for us. People can change. We all can become better than who we are right now if we are willing to follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make AND keep the covenants that He has provided us. 

Anyways, missions are amazing because you get to finally understand how the Holy Ghost works, and how to receive revelation, and then you start learning crazy cool things like that. So that was my week:) 

Les quiero muchisimo,

Elder Alley