Posts by JamesEKerns
Castaways
There are so many islands in the island nation of Vanuatu that I don’t think they can be counted. Many are small, unnamed, and uninhabited.
Read MoreIncredible Morning
It is only 6:00 a.m., and I’ve already been witness to several miracles and tender mercies. These things happen more frequently when the blessings you pray for are for others, and not necessarily for yourself.
Read MoreThe Influence of a Missionary
I am sitting at my window looking down on the mile-wide channel below my house. The bay is glassy-calm.
Read MoreThe Door Is Closing
I am beset with temptations just as all men are. My greatest desire is to be good, and to do good, and to follow Jesus faithfully. But I’m weak.
Read MoreMissionary Correspondence
When my six sons were serving their missions, I wrote them a letter every week. I thought that it was important for them to get a weekly letter, so I don’t think that I ever missed.
Read MoreFor Good and Evil
As I was reading the Book of Mormon I was struck by the uses to which the river Sidon was put. In Alma 2:34 it became the receptacle for the many thousands of Lamanite bodies killed in battle.
Read MoreThe Full Keyboard
My path recently has crossed those of several Seventh-day Adventists. Comparing the doctrines of the SDA and LDS Churches has been interesting.
Read MoreSuspended
Yesterday I had to deliver letters to two 18-year-old students informing them that the Church had been unable to pay the school fees for their third terms due to their lack of attendance at church and at institute.
Read MoreA Mark of Distinction
I have an irritation. I caught glimpses of myself yesterday in windows and mirrors, and was shocked at what I saw. I saw images of a very stooped man. I tried straightening my back, and I was still stooped.
Read MoreTested, Tried and Stretched
In the conference just past (October 2014), Elder Richard G. Scott spoke about our being “tested, tried, and stretched.” As he said “stretched,” he held his fists close to one another, and pulled them apart as if stretching an object between them.
Read MoreWildlife
I awoke this morning in the pre-dawn darkness. I wasn’t ready to get up, but I was done sleeping. I began counting birds in my mind.
Read MoreFeed My Sheep
I was very grateful a short time ago to wake up and realize that I was in Vanuatu and not back home. I did it twice. I was awaking from bad dreams.
Read MoreRouster the Rooster
Rouster was a rooster. Rouster’s job was to roust everyone awake at dawn. Rouster enjoyed the sense of power that his job gave him. But Rouster had a problem.
Read MoreA Vanuatu Love Story
In June 2014 Charles Mol came to Santo Island from Gaua Island on Church business. Charles was Gaua Branch clerk. I became acquainted with him, was impressed with him, and learned that he was a 30-year-old returned missionary.
Read MoreThe Burned Book
In 1991 Adam Rosflender was an 11-year-old boy in Vanuatu. He had a job working in the fisheries. Being the youngest employee, one of his duties was to take out the rubbish.
Read MoreJohn Baba
As late as the 1990’s it was the custom on the island of Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu to bury newborn babies with their mothers if the mothers passed away as the result of childbirth.
Read MoreMahit Family, Vanuatu
In 1976 the Church was brand new in a group of South Seas islands that would become the independent nation of Vanuatu four years later.
Read MoreThree Vanuatu Missionaries
The stories of three sister missionaries serving together in Vanuatu from the Pacific Island nations of Kiribati, Tonga, and Fiji
Read MoreGod’s Focus and Greatest Creation
In 1956 Harry de Leyer went to the auction to buy a horse for his children to ride. He got there too late. All the good horses had already been sold.
Read MorePriesthood and Motherhood
Question: A strange thing has come up in YW. One family has a mom that can “tap” into the priesthood and use the power herself. She has been called on to perform certain things in the name of the priesthood.
Read MoreJohn Bennion
The story of the Church is a story of chain reactions. One step in the process of the Restoration always leads to another. A chain reaction was initiated by Joseph Smith’s reading of James 1:5 that continues today in an ever-widening, ever-lengthening chain of events that is currently linking millions of lives in miraculous ways.
Read MoreThe Apprentice and the Master Craftsman – James’ Parables
There was once a man who apprenticed himself to a master craftsman. The master craftsman was able to work with every material, in every medium, and to create beautiful things.
Read MoreActivated By Love
I frequently think of the story told by Elder Russell M. Nelson in general conference about going on a mission tour with another general authority in a dusty location. He often got up in the morning to find that his companion had shined his shoes.
Read MoreA Miracle A Day
Elder Smith is the new senior missionary who arrived with his wife in Vanuatu nine days ago. As we walked together yesterday and marveled over our experiences, he remarked in a rather dazed manner, “It’s a miracle a day!”
Read MoreWeaning, Part Two
Jacob says, “But wo unto him that…wasteth the days of his probation…” (2 Nephi 9:27).
The world is filled with time wasters.
The Records
I have a theory that I’ve written about before, which I would like to expand upon. This is conjectural, not doctrinal, but is pieced together from hints given in the scriptures.
Read MoreBlessings Follow the Sacrifice
In 2009 two brothers named Tivles lived side-by-side in a remote village in the South Seas’ island nation of Vanuatu. A pair of missionaries made an exploratory hike out of their normal area and found the two Tivles families.
Read MoreTaught By an Apostle
It’s 5:00 a.m., and I’ve just gotten up from a dream that I should record. I’m recording it because there was a good line in it, and because it’s something that Marjorie can use when she teaches her workshop in our upcoming Young Single Adult Conference.
Read MoreThere is Always More
As a teenage boy, Nephi heard his father, Lehi, tell about an important dream he had had about the tree of life. Nephi pondered over what his father had said. He sincerely wanted to know what the dream meant, and to know what impact it might have in his own life.
Read MoreAn Embarrassing Miracle
As I was preparing for bed on the evening of July 4th, my phone rang. It was Sister Torea, one of our sister missionaries. She was in tears, and scared. Her companion, Sister Lekupe, was very ill, had just fallen off the couch, and Sister Torea was unable to get her up off the floor.
Read MoreFruitfulness
Letters from home are talking about strawberries. It’s strawberry season there. Marjorie is longing to have some fresh strawberries on her cereal in the mornings. In the midst of her longings, she pointed out a very interesting observation.
Read MoreDavid Ruben
On Monday, 5 May 2014, Sister Allphin, a missionary, called to ask me to go to the hospital and administer a priesthood blessing to an investigator boy who had broken his leg.
Read MoreMt. Tambora
The volcanic eruption of Mt. Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa on 10 April 1815 caused devastating effects around the world. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives, and the lives of millions of others were affected.
Read MoreSunday’s Sermons
First pew, right side, as close to Marjorie and her keyboard as I can get without being up on the stand. That’s where I sit each week in the Luganville, Vanuatu Branch.
Read MoreThe Process of Sanctification
The authorship of the following article is 90% Marjorie, and 10% James. Women who opt out of becoming mothers, or who purposely have only one or two children—women who choose to follow men into the workplace and be like men—miss the best opportunity to become sanctified, and must achieve sanctification like men do.
Read MoreTraction
David A. Bednar told the story of his friend who bought a pickup, took it up in the snowy mountains to get a load of firewood, and promptly got stuck. He was unable to extricate the pickup from where it was stuck in the snow.
Read MoreThe Day Will Come
We spend our lives looking forward. We look forward to future events. Some we anticipate with eagerness and pleasure. Others we dread.
Read MoreRepentance and Covenants
Life has two purposes. There are two things that every soul must accomplish. One is repentance. The other is covenants. Both are supreme gifts made possible by the Lord’s Atonement.
Read MoreRedemption
In America you can’t open a magazine or a newspaper or a cereal box without finding coupons. A coupon is nothing more than an otherwise worthless scrap of paper that can be redeemed for something of value.
Read MoreThe Benefits of Seminary
Major parts of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon deal with armies and war. One is led to ask why these books of peace are so interlaced with violence. The simple answer is that we are, in fact, in the midst of an ongoing battle that began before the world was created.
Read MoreAvailability of Scriptures Through the Ages
The people in the days of Noah and the Children of Israel had no stability because they had no scriptures. Are you any better off than them if you have the scriptures and don’t read them?
Read MoreIs That in Africa?
Last June Marjorie and I were expecting some important mail. We were checking the mailbox at the bottom of our hill on a daily basis. One afternoon as we were on our way to our friends’ graduation celebration, we stopped at the mailbox once again.
Read MoreCome Join the Ranks
Major parts of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon deal with armies and war. One is led to ask why these books of peace are so interlaced with violence. The simple answer is that we are, in fact, in the midst of an ongoing battle that began before the world was created.
Read MoreBecause They Desired It
Alma said, “I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life…” (Alma 29:4).
Read MoreMonitors of the Spirit
We who have been baptized and confirmed have the right to the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, but sometimes we do things that drive the Spirit away. Wouldn’t it be a marvelous thing if we possessed a monitor that would tell us whether or not the Spirit was with us?
Read MoreComplacency
Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence. (2 Nephi 1:20).
This is a theme that runs throughout the Book of Mormon. This principle and promise was given to Nephi at the beginning of his odyssey (1 Ne. 2:20-21), is repeated two dozen times in the Book of Mormon, and carries through to the end. It is a principle and promise within the book that is demonstrated in both of its extremes many, many times. The Lord means what He says, and keeps His promises.
Sin and Sea Shells
Marjorie should not let me go out by myself. I succumbed to a big temptation yesterday. If she had been with me she could have stabilized me. She has always been a big stabilizing influence in my life. As it is, she frowned at me when I told her what I’d done.
Read MoreThinking Outside the Box
A story is told about Christopher Columbus. I don’t know whether it’s true or whether it’s apocryphal, but it’s a good story. Columbus was reportedly at a dinner when someone asked him why he thought he could accomplish something that no one else had been able to do. Columbus reached over to some hard-boiled eggs, removed one from the bowl, and challenged those present to stand it on end. Many tried, but no one succeeded in making it balance. Columbus took the egg, smashed it onto the table, and said, “That’s why I think I can do what no one else has been able to do!”
Read MoreHagoth and the Polynesians
I watched a documentary video last week that set my imagination working. The documentary concerned the possible route that Lehi and his family took to get to the Promised Land. The record states that they left Jerusalem and went southeast along the border of the Red Sea. They went as far as a place called Nahom where Ishmael died. From that point on they traveled nearly eastward until they came to a place they named Bountiful because of its much honey and fruit. There they were instructed by the Lord to build a ship. The record states that they found ore with which to make tools so that they could work the timbers of the ship. The trip from Jerusalem to Bountiful took them 8 years.
Read MoreChrist Has Come
Prophets of old foretold the coming of Jesus Christ to atone for the sins of the world. They prophesied that He would come as a baby to a virgin named Mary, and be born in a humble stable in the City of David in the land of Judea. They prophesied that a new star would arise to announce His birth. The prophets said that He would be baptized of John, and that He would go forth teaching the people, healing the sick, raising the dead, and that He would be rejected by the people. It was prophesied that the Jews and the Gentiles would both consent to His death, and that they would kill Him. It was prophesied that He would be crucified and that His body would lie in the tomb for three days.
Read More