2025-09-14_email_i-miss-bonnie
From: kristi.heywood@gmail.com To: kaitlynn.heywood@gmail.com, kaitlynn.heywood@missionary.org Date: 2025-09-14 Subject: I miss Bonnie
Dear Hermanabaptismo,
Woot Woot! I hope your week was wonderful! It looks like you are really enjoying your companion.
I went to AJ's homecoming. He asked about you. 😉 💗
They had me coach Mason's volleyball game. I was the star of the coaching show. I made sure they won!
Nata was super pretty for homecoming. She reminds me of you.
Bonnie is on vacation. I am lonely.
I love you. I'm proud of you!
Love,
Mom
Attached: Bryson's Sacrament Meeting Talk (9/14)
(Kristi forwarded Bryson's full talk on the parable of the prodigal son. Preserved here as part of the source.)
Introduction. Luke 15:11 - the story starts "a certain man had two sons." In this sentence, who is the certain man? In the story, he is a wealthy farmer with riches, servants, food, and two sons. This story is an analogy for our lives, and the "certain man" is our Father in Heaven. Being sons and daughters of this certain man qualifies us for the blessings of eternity. This answers one of the most important questions anyone can answer - who are you? In President Nelson's words: "First and foremost, you are a child of God, a child of the covenant, and a disciple of Jesus Christ."
The younger son asked for his inheritance, left, partied hard, spent freely, made friends, and was comfortable - but Luke 15:13 says he "wasted" his inheritance. He ran out of money, his friends disappeared, a famine came, and he ended up feeding pigs. Luke 15:16: "and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat." The footnote for "fain" means "desired, or to set the heart upon." Then he remembered who he was, and arose to return to his father, planning to beg to be a servant.
Luke 15:20-24: his father saw him a great way off, had compassion, ran, fell on his neck and kissed him, and called for the best robe, a ring, shoes, and the fatted calf, "for this my son was dead, and is alive again."
How often are we like the younger son, forgetting who we are and setting our hearts on the foolish things of this world. Bryson shared from Bob Goff's "Love Does": "When we want something that bad, it's easy to mistake what we truly need for the thing we really want... what God has for us is obscured from view, just around another bend in the road." Not only does God let us go out and experience life, He waits for us to run to Him.
The older son, returning from work, heard celebration, learned his brother had returned, and was furious - he had served faithfully for years; where was his party? The father answered: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." He reminded him of who he was and of his inheritance.
We all have a little of both brothers in us. Bryson quoted Elder Holland: "It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ's atoning sacrifice shines," and closed with the "human origami" image - the more creases we have, the better. Nothing we do disqualifies us from God's love. He invited everyone to do the thing they've been putting off - go to the temple, read scriptures, pray - to come closer to Jesus Christ even without all the answers. (Testimony followed.)
Attachments: IMG_4698.png, IMG_4693.jpeg, IMG_4649.jpeg, IMG_4700.jpeg, IMG_4634.jpeg (photos, not downloaded)