What is Institute?

I Am a Son of God

We are all the Sons and Daughters of God. As long as we are doing what is right, when trials come the Lord will be on our side and He will Fight with us!
Elder Matthews

We believe in Christ: Personal testimony

I Believe in Christ. I know he lives, I know that he is the son of God. I know he is the savor and redemer of the world I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and I know that He loves me. I know he Lives!
Elder Matthews

Why Mormons Build Temples

       From the days of the Old Testament, the Lord has commanded His people to build temples-sacred structures where He could teach, guide, and bless them. For example, the Lord told the Israelites to build a portable tabernacle that would be their temple while they traveled in the wilderness

        When Jesus Christ was on the earth, the only existing temple was known as the Temple of Herod. Jesus was often found in this temple 

       After the rejection and deaths of Jesus's Apostles, there were no temples on the earth for many centuries. When the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored in the early 1800s, the Lord again commanded His people to build temples. 

       The earliest temples of the restored Church were built in Ohio, Illinois, and eventually in Utah. Today, the Church has 133 operating temples around the world. Regardless of the place or time period, temples are the most sacred place on earth-a place where earth and heaven meet and where we feel close to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

What Matters Most

Are Mormons Christians?

Yes We Are

Elder Matthews

Roto Rooter Just a little farther

A few days ago Elder Child and I were at a members home who was having some problems with their drain and flooded their basement, (they had some family over and they think that one of the grand children flushed something.) So while we were there they called the Roto Rooter Man. When he got there he got his machine and took it down stairs and he said how this thing is 130ft and it should get to the problem so he turn it on and starts feeding it down the drain. He starts going and going and going down the drain. When he gets half way he does not hit anything, so he keeps on going until he hits the end of the line and he has hit nothing. So he sends Elder Child and I out side to the tank to see if we could hear splashing water. We ran outside to the whole in the ground and opened it, and we could not hear anything. Then he looks at the home owner and says your going to have to dig up the line and call me back then I put it in there and we should get it that way so the owner says okay and looks discouraged. Then he why don't we push the machine closer to the drain and get all we can out of it, "Okay" the Roto Rooter man said with an annoyed look on his face and so he pushes it as close as it could get to the drain, about 2ft and it hit something and the drain starts draining. Then Elder Child ran out side and looked in the hole and he could see water moving and could hear it splashing around. The Roto Rooter man said when we did that we really went 131ft. After all was done and the Roto Rooter man left we got talking and the home owner said, "How often is that the case? When we go all we think we can go and then push a little more and something great happens?" We all need to push a little more. Just take one more step, just go a little farther.
Elder Matthews

The Currant Bush

Yesterday I got a package from my mother and it had some Cd's in it so I grabbed one of the Cd's and it in and it was a talk by Elder Hugh B. Brown I heard this talk when I was very young but once I got older I never knew who it was by but it has got me through some hard times.

I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I wentout one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feethigh. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. Iwas raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and Iknew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruningshears and clipped it back until there was nothing left but stumps. It wasjust coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these littlestumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush wascrying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it),and I looked at it and smiled and said, “What are you crying about?” Youknow, I thought I heard that currant bush say this:

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I wasalmost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence,and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look downon me because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you dothis to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it somuch that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardenerhere, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruittree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, littlecurrant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thankyou, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr.Gardener.’”

Years passed, and I found myself in England. I was in command of acavalry unit in the Canadian Army. I held the rank of field officer in theBritish Canadian Army. I was proud of my position. And there was anopportunity for me to become a general. I had taken all the examinations.I had the seniority. The one man between me and the office of general inthe British Army became a casualty, and I received a telegram fromLondon. It said: “Be in my office tomorrow morning at 10:00,” signed byGeneral Turner.

I went up to London. I walked smartly into the office of the general, and Isaluted him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of a salute a seniorofficer usually gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He said, “Sitdown, Brown.” Then he said, “I’m sorry I cannot make the appointment.You are entitled to it. You have passed all the examinations. You have theseniority. You’ve been a good officer, but I can’t make the appointment.You are to return to Canada and become a training officer and a transportofficer.” That for which I had been hoping and praying for 10 yearssuddenly slipped out of my fingers.

Then he went into the other room to answer the telephone, and on hisdesk, I saw my personal history sheet. Right across the bottom of it waswritten, “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.” We were not very well liked in thosedays. When I saw that, I knew why I had not been appointed. He cameback and said, “That’s all, Brown.” I saluted him again, but not quite assmartly, and went out.

I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles away, with abroken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the wheels onthe rails seemed to say, “You are a failure.” When I got to my tent, I was sobitter that I threw my cap on the cot. I clenched my fists, and I shookthem at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have doneeverything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could havedone—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you dothis to me?” I was as bitter as gall.

And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was myown voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I wantyou to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees bythe cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness. Whilekneeling there I heard a song being sung in an adjoining tent. A number ofMormon boys met regularly every Tuesday night. I usually met with them.We would sit on the floor and have Mutual. As I was kneeling there,praying for forgiveness, I heard their singing:

“But if, by a still, small voice he calls

To paths that I do not know,

I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:

I’ll go where you want me to go.”

God knows what we can be and he knows where the path that we are on is going to take us and he is going to try to help all we need to do is trust him 

Elder Matthews