Dear Family and Friends,
All experience is precious. We participate in sacred teaching moments almost every day, often with the young missionaries, but always with the Holy Spirit in some measure and often in abundance.
A few days ago we shared a gospel message and scriptures regarding the temple with a beautiful lady, widow, and mother of five grown children. Before she was baptized, she shared this spiritual experience with us:
Our little flat with new member guests and missionaries, l to r Christine, Phil, Wilma, Elders, Joan (of whom we write)The missionaries had been teaching her. They were inspired to come one evening unannounced and date her for baptism. After being seated and offering a prayer, there was a moment when no words were spoken, none were needed nor could any words convey the feelings that were felt. She looked at a picture of Michael, her husband, on the mantle and felt his presence and certain approval that she should join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Tears flowed then and tears flowed when she related the sacred experience with us. She is preparing to enter the temple as soon as allowed and do all the work necessary to be sealed to her departed husband and father of her five children all of whom live in the UK.
I share the Gospel with this lady everyday. Liverpool ferry dock. Departing for the Isle.At the time of the above mentioned recent message about the blessings of the temple, a month following her baptism, this dear sister had just started chemotherapy for breast cancer and was feeling a little burdened although her attitude and continence is always bright. At the end of the message, the young elders said they wanted to sing to her. They knelt on the floor, opened a hymn book, and in sweet harmony, sang all three verses of “Nearer My God to Thee”. The experience was very special for all of us and again tears were evident as the Spirit warmed our hearts to overflowing.
Sharing the Gospel brings
the greatest joy we can experience in this life. The joy of sharing the gospel comes with more frequency perhaps to full time missionaries but is by no means the exclusive “property” of the set apart missionaries of the Church.D&C 18:15 And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one asoul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!
16 And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the akingdom of my Father, how great will be your bjoy if you should bring many csouls unto me!
Sharing the Gospel with each other in our recent district meeting on the Isle of Man In each and every sharing-the- Gospel experience where the Holy Ghost is present, we have experienced joy, such as blessing a baby, anointing and blessing the
sick, praying for a brother or sister on both sides of the veil, teaching in the class room or in the home, providing sacred ordinances in the temple for ancestors, teaching a child by example and by word, kneeling in family prayer, reading the scriptures as a family and with your spouse, visiting a brother/sister in the hospital or in prison, declaring by word and deed the Lord’s good news at all times, in all places, and in all things.We are sharing the Gospel with
this recently married couple helping them to become more active and preparing them for the Temple. Hop Tu Naa (Halloween)How do we cry repentance unto this people? Could “this people” be my spouse, my children, my friend, my neighbor, my ancestor, my enemy, my family, my brother, my sister, my friend? And could “crying repentance” simply mean loving your neighbor as yourself by sharing of the Restored Gospel that sings in your heart like a fire is burning? Could it be that all experience is precious bringing repentance, forgiveness, and love into the lives of all with whom we are privileged to be? Could it be that God’s every word will be fulfilled “whether by mine own voice or the voice of my servants, it is the same”? Could it be? 
Alex and Christina Buck with whom we share the Gospel as their Valiant leaders. Their mother is from Hungaria and these children speak more than one language. They wanted to do a silly picture with us, after we took a good photo for a Talent Night
Since 1830 the Restored Gospel has been shared by millions to millions and will continue to be shared from one end of heaven to the other until the Lord comes and the earth be filled with light and truth as the waters cover the deep.
Between 1840 and 1860 tens of
thousands of Latter-day Saints embarked from these docks on ships that carried them from their homeland to gather with the Saints in America.Among these were many of our fore bearers. The family statue could easily represent our great grandparents.
Statue of convert family leaving the Albert docks, Liverpool, England 1840 to 1860My great grandfather joined the Church at the age of 22 and emigrated from Newport, Shropshire, from these docks on the ship Jacavia in 1854. His son, Joseph married my grandmother who emigrated from Warwickshire from these docks in 1908
when she was 19. The missionaries taught her the Gospel in England. Tens of thousands of people have been blessed and will be blessed for each faithful Latter-day Saint baptized. One can multiply into many among those who are faithful to their covenants from those early converts in England as well as those baptized today.Painting of the Albert docks, Liverpool—1800’sIn 1837 on a ship like these, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde of the Quorum of the Twelve, Joseph Fielding and Isaac Russell, Willard Richards, John Goodson, and John Snider disembarked on these docks. They knew no one, had no place to stay, no place to preach, and had little or no money. They knew they had been called of God by a Prophet. They knew the Restored Gospel was true. They had the Book of Mormon and knew it was true.
Douglas, Isle of Man. The promenade arches around the bay for 2.5 milesElder John Taylor first shared the Restored Gospel here with the people of Douglas 17 September, 1840, after first contacting his wife’s girlhood friends. Leonora Cannon Taylor grew up in Peel on the Isle of Man. As he set foot on the Isle of Man, John Taylor’s lonesomeness for Leonora came flooding back, for it was here, he knew, that she had spent her youth. He allowed himself to think also of her privations and suffering and the ordeal of separation they both endured, but he comforted himself by crying inwardly: “A few more struggles and the battle will be fought, the victory will be ours.” The “minister” from America soon organized a branch of the Church on the Isle of Man and left it in good hands when he departed in mid November. Among those baptized were Charles Cowley who had been “seeking and praying for correct information concerning the will of God”, and John Quayle who, with his family, was convinced that John Taylor was an Apostle with a message from God. We are all engaged until the conflict is over. Happy are we! Happy are we!
We love you all. Mom and Dad, Grandpa and Grandma, Elder and Sister Allen
