It's been a while

Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged. Sorry about that, I'll try to be a bit more frequent with my posting. Life here in Utah has been pretty good the past few weeks. We've just been hanging out here in Ogden the past few weeks. Last week we had a break from teams and were able to just spend some time together as an intern family as well as having a week of rest and relaxation.

We've still been able to do quite a bit of ministry at Temple Square as well as just overtly through attending Ward every week. If you don't know what Ward is, it's the LDS version of a church congregation/church service. It's 3 hours long and includes the sacrament meeting, a Sunday school class, and the elder's quorum/priesthood session for men or relief society for women. Sacrament meeting is the most boring of the 3 hours. They sing a few hymns, two or three members are selected to get up and give a message on a pre-selected topic. In addition, they partake of the sacrament, which is bread and water. It's a pretty gross perversion of communion, first off because they use water instead of wine because Joseph Smith got 'revelation' from god saying that water should be used. (I use a lower-case god because the LDS god and the Christian God are two completely different beings.) Second of all they just buy regular old wheat bread from the store and cut it into pieces. Then the 'priesthood' blesses it with a 'prayer' and it's handed out. Lastly, the entire purpose of the sacrament is to renew your covenant of baptism with God that you will be obedient to His commandments. It really has nothing to do with Christ, and completely with your own worth and obedience.

Sunday School is quite a bit better. We've been attending a New-Testament class right now, and we're going through the Book of Matthew right now. We're able to share bits of truth throughout the class, although sometimes the teacher will ignore and not call on us, since they don't like what we have to say. It amazes me how, when we do share truth, it goes right over their heads or they don't even contemplate it. Kelly always whispers or yells "BIRDS!" after the service, equating it to the parable of the sowers, where the seed falls on rocky soil and the birds come and snatch it up. Satan has placed blinders over these people's eyes and it's so frustrating to see truth ignored!

Elder's quorum is always interesting, and we're going through the Gospel Principles manual. To me it seems like we always talk about behavior modification or how we serve God to receive blessings, or how important it is to live worthily because as they said last Sunday, "God needs us to be the men and proper priesthood holders here on the Earth." I felt like shouting, "God doesn't need you. He's so much bigger than you can even imagine." That's the thing with the LDS, they diminish who God is by limiting Him to being a former man who is and will eternally be progressing and growing.

This past week was extremely encouraging. The Blue House played host to 22 Chinese people from California. Their servant heart was incredible. They came in with the mindset of service, and man did they serve. They were up at 6 AM every morning and went to work by 6:30 every single morning. They were able to paint the Blue House, fix several problems with the ceiling, and do some construction work on a fellowship room at Joe Filer's house. We as an intern family were very encouraged and enjoyed the brief time we had with the team.

Prayer requests:
Pray for the people we've been able to meet with regularly: Ryan, Nathan, Kyle, Nathan, Tyler, Becky, Elder Savoia, Elder Walz, and the countless Sister Missionaries we meet on Temple Square every week.
Pray for the team that is here currently, and the last two teams that will be coming in the next few weeks.
Pray for unity among our team, that God continues to grow us together and to enjoy quality fellowship time.
Pray God continues to draw more workers to this tough mission field.
Pray for my focus as I'm growing anxious to be back to school.

If you have any questions or would like to know anything at all, feel free to email me at any time: casey.dague@gmail.com

God Bless!