April 7, 2012, My Easter Dream

During General Conference last week one of the general authorities commented about dreams and that revelation can come through dreams. Well as I listened to that talk I thought that my dreams are definitely not ones containing any personal revelation since they are very stupid for the most part such as some of my most recent have been a playing over and over of some of the duties I have been doing in my current employment. (Moving bottles off an assembly line to a box and so forth.) Usually my dreams have nothing to do with anything useful that I have been doing that could contain any revelation. However, with that being said, I decided that I need to record the dream I had this morning with a little background for the dream.

First the history leading up to this dream.

Part A. Colby Jeffers, Dawna's second son, just received his mission call to go to Los Angeles Spanish speaking mission.

Part B. The other day, in fact last Friday, as I went outside to do some yard work I caught a bit of a conversation, heated , very heated, between he and his older brother. You know how sibling rivalries can be and even though they rope calves together and such they do have their times when they are simply brothers doing what brothers do before they are both mature and while still in the same home together, they fight.

Part C. Marie and I have been reading books together during the evenings and on sunday afternoons. I have been reading aloud from the Book of Mormon each night now for many months before we go to bed. With Clairs books we have often read them together. I usually am reading to her while she does other tasks like scrapbooking, or as in last night, filling Easter eggs for todays hunt with the grandchildren.

Part D. We recently discovered that a close friend of ours likes to read books and so we suggested some of Clair's for her to read. We would take three or four over to her and after she had read them a few days later she would bring them back for more. Well after that exchange a couple of times then she started bringing some of the others that she has read by other authors over to us and I would read them to Marie and then take them back to her. Well she gave us a book called "Rearview Mirror" by Stephanie Black. It has, as part of it's plot, two brothers that have lost their father when young and their mother. The one brother is very manipulative like the mother who died in the first part of the story. He convinces the brother to do things totally out of what should be happening and is responsible for several bad things happening in the book. Oops, I will not say any more than that now just in case you want to read it some day.

Part E. The last several months I have made it a goal to go to the temple at least one day per week and do work for the names that Uncle Vincent Houtz (mom's uncle, the funny one.) had prepared several years ago that we recently found. (He died about four or five years ago and the baptism and confirmations had been done for these names back in 2001.) So I started with about 5 or 6 names taking them through each week that I went and when completed then Britt gave me 23 more that needed initiatory and endowments completed. So one week in the first of February I did all of the initiatory with the help of one other young man and then have been doing multiple endowment sessions to try and get them all done (2 every friday morning). We were also able to complete 6 of them in one day as we went through with Colby as he received his endowments now that he has his mission call and several others during our ward temple night in early March. I have 6 left as of today. During these weekly visits the story of the creation has been a usual major part of each visit

Part F. The last several nights of reading from the B of M is where Alma and Amulek are teaching the people of Ammonihah about the Plan of Salvation.

The jest of the dream.

I am out walking with a bunch of youth, could be grandchildren or mutual age scouts or someone like that, I don't recall that part of the specifics of the dream. Anyway Colby and Trevor ride past, with another person, on their bikes. I ran after them to talk to them and when I caught up to them, (remember all things are possible in dreams including super running speeds) I remember a very vivid and detailed look at Colby and he looked just like a punk rocker and had spiked hair and nose and earrings etc. Suddenly someone else was the older brother rather than Trevor but that's all possible in dreams as well of course. I then started telling the older brother how he was wrong in telling Colby that he didn't need to serve a mission and he was responsible for how Colby was headed down the wrong tracks now instead of heading out on his mission. In other words the brothers in the book were now part of the dream in a little different setting.

The important part of the dream.

The logic that I used to try to teach the older brother why he was wrong was inspired due again to a part of one of the talks from General Conference by Elder Nelson, I think. He talked about how the creation and how the body was so complex and that it could even repair itself and then said something to the fact that it is so hard to believe all this began with a big bang after which he talked about an explosion in a printing shop and from it came a dictionary that could automatically update itself or something to that effect. Well the logic I used in the dream, and I wasn't calm as I was yelling this at the boy (not my preferred teaching style), was that all he needed to do was to look around and see the wonders of nature to realize that all we have been taught in the gospel is so true. I pointed to the flowers at the side of the road, the bees busily at work around them (inspired by recent photographs I took as the apricots were in bloom), the sunset and many other things that were instantly so vivid in the dream. I remember so strongly feeling how wonderful the creations are that are around us and that the priesthood is so powerful thatThe Lord and others were able to create all of these things through the use of that priesthood.

The lesson from the dream.

This is a wonderful world filled with so many beautiful things that were all created for our use and enjoyment that, should our testimonies ever start to falter, all we really need to do is to go on a walk and look closely at what we have around us, for everything testifies that we have a very loving Father in Heaven and a wonderful brother that gave His life for us and then rose from the dead to provide for us the same opportunity and blessing to live with them through the eternities.  Enjoy this Easter season but most of all remember why we have it and why it is so important to each of us.

Love,
Dad