Dear Family,
 
WOW! Steak! Holy Carp! That was amazing! I didn't know you could ship steak to people! :) That was "just a real nice surprise." :) I haven't cooked them yet, but we will soon. :) Thanks! All the packages(as far as I can tell) got here safely. So, thank you! :)
 
I can't wait for you to open up the package I sent you. I hope you enjoyed the job I did taping that thing, haha. I may have went a little overboard. I used most of a roll of packing tape, haha.
 
We've had a pretty good week. We've had some good success tracting. We're really excited for a family that we're going to go teach tonight at 7. They seem golden. So, if you wouldn't mind saying a prayer that the Floyd family will be receptive to the Gospel, that would be wonderful. :)
 
For phone calls, I will call around 11:00 a.m. here. So 10:00 a.m. there, if all goes well. I look forward to hearing you. :)

 
I would like to share with you something I've learned from my studies recently. I went through the Savior's Discourse in 3 Nephi Chapters 12-14 and compared it side-by-side to the sermon on the mount(this is a study activity suggested in Preach My Gospel). At first glance they're almost identical. But there's a few significant differences. The difference that caught my attention the most is this:
 
3 Ne. 12:23-24 reads:
 
"Therefore, if ye shall come unto me, or shall desire to come unto me, and rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee- Go thy way unto thy brother, and first be reconciled to they brother, and then come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I will receive you."
 
So, we must repent and forgive our neighbors before we can come unto Christ, but that's not what I'd like to focus on at the moment. Cross reference this with Matthew 5:23-24:
 
"Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there they gift before the alter, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer they gift."
 
Interesting difference there. In one place he tells us to come to the altar, in another place he tells us to come unto Him. I realized(or rather it was revealed to me) that to come to the altar is to come unto Christ. That's what we're doing when we go to an altar. Now, where do we have altars? Primarily in 2 places. First, in the Temple. There are many altars there, all used for seemingly different purposes, but if we really think about it, the purpose is the same. Christ. Coming unto Him to receive Salvation.
 
The other typical location of an altar is the Chapel. The Sacrament table is an altar. Every week we have an opportunity to come to the Altar, to come unto Christ through the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. As I was pondering this yesterday while the Sacrament was passed to the Congregation, I thought of the words of the Sacramental Prayers which plead to the lord to "sanctify" the bread and water to our souls. My mind was cast to another scripture on the topic of Sanctification. Moroni 10:32-33:
 
"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all  ungodliness, and love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye shall in nowise deny the power of God. And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the Grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot."
 
So, we come unto Christ by going to the Altar. We go to church to partake of the Sacrament. We repent and commit to deny ourselves of all our ungodliness. We choose to follow Christ and not Satan. We do not lay hold upon the unclean thing. We love God. Then he makes us perfect in Christ. You and I will never attain perfection in this life. We sin daily. But if we do our VERY best, and we follow Christ with all our hearts, we can become perfect in Christ through His Grace. He makes up the difference. The gaps are filled. The rough places are smoothed over. His infinite atoning power pays the debt of which we are so incapable of paying. Now when this happens, if we do not deny the faith and God's power, we become Sanctified. We become holy, without spot. We retain the remission of our sins. What blessing! The "covenant of the Father unto the remission of [our] sins" is Baptism. Where do we renew that covenant? At the altar. At the feet of the Savior. We have now come full circle. We now understand how we may lay hold upon Eternal Life. Do you understand how totally, supremely important it is that we partake of the Sacrament each week? We WILL not and CAN not receive Salvation and Exaltation without it. We will not be sanctified. We will not be holy. We will not be perfect in Christ. We will be of a lesser glory. Of a terrestrial or telestial glory.
 
So that's what I learned yesterday as I partook of the Sacrament. I know it to be a true, saving ordinance. We MUST do everything in our power to partake of it regularly. May the Lord bless us as we do so is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
 
Love,
Elder Bracken