Hello!
This week was pretty good. We worked hard to bring people to General Conference to hear the prophet and apostles speak. The Conference was awesome. I love General Conference, it always lifts me up so much. I hope everyone watched it. For those of you who might have missed part of it, don`t worry, I`m going to do a review right now. But you should watch it online later today.
Saturday Morning Session:
Something weird happened. President Monson showed up late. During the opening song one of the elders watching with us pointed out that he wasn`t in his seat and then instead of having President Monson give the welcoming remarks as always, the conference started with Elder Scott. Elder Scott told us we need to memorize more scriptures and not neglect the Old Testament. Then Sister Thompson from the Relief Society presidency spoke. She talked about revelation, but she spoke really fast and I didn`t catch all of it. Then came Elder Clayton (hey! I know him) and he talked about how much the church has grown throught the world. Apparently only 83 years ago the first converts were baptized in South America and now the church is HUGE here. A stone cut out of the mountain without hands has filled the whole earth. He also mentioned Buenos Aires (yeah, we are that cool). Then a song then President Monson showed up. President Eyring seemed a little confused as he was announcing it, but that`s alright. Presient Monson announced a bunch of new temples, another one in Provo! And one in the home town of my companion in Columbia! We were both way excited about that. I love the temple. I miss it so much. I really hope the temple in Buenos Aires opens before I go home. Then some seventy with a thick spanish accent spoke. It was hard to understand, but he said to do the right thing at the right time without delay. Then Elder Packer talked about when he was a boy, as normal. The conference ended with President Uchtdorf. I loved his talk. The human paradox: compared to God, man is nothing; but to God, man is everything. It was a great talk.
Saturday Afternoon
Elder Bednar opened the session by dropping the hammer about family history. Do it! Now! He was the first to talk about not wasting time on facebook, a theme that was repeated in several talks... He was followed by Elder Anderson. Basically, if you don`t have children it is because you don`t have faith and you are breaking a commandment. Becca and Bryan, I hope you listened well! I tried to not worry to much about that commandment for now... Then some guy with a thick british accent spoke. It was hard to listen to him too. But he spoke very strongly about not wasting time on facebook and other things like that. He pretty much said we should grind our iphone into dust. Two more talks by seventies. They were good. Elder Christofferson delivered a home run about repentance. Repentance is good. We should do it more often. Then Elder Perry talked about how big the church is and that we need to be bold in our declaration of our belief in Christ, another repeated theme.
Sunday Morning
President Eyring cries alot. And he`s not even related to mom. But his talk was good. Another `we need to bold in our declaration of Christ` talk. Elder Hales isn`t looking too good, he spoke from a chair. But another, `we believe in Chirst` talk. Then Elder Callister gave an awesome talk about the Book of Mormon. I loved his analogy of the dots. If there is only one dot (the Bible) we can draw a ton of lines through it (interpret it lots of ways, lots of diferent doctrines, lots of different churches). But if we have two dots (the Bible and the Book of Mormon) we can only draw one line (one doctrine, one church). I liked this analogy because of the doctrine and the math concepts. He also mentioned that there is no middle ground, another repeated theme throughout the conference. Sister Dalton gave a talk about raising daughters. Can`t think about that right now... Elder Ballard then talked once again about how we belief in Christ and how our church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and not the Mormon Church. Now it was President Monson`s turn. He was in a funny mood. I love it when he is in a funny mood. He told some good stories and talked mainly about prayer and following the inspiration we recieve.
Sunday Afternoon
Elder Nelson spoke about covenants then Elder Oaks about how we belief in Christ. I`ll be honest, neither of the talks really grabbed my attention. Brother Richardson gave a great talk about teaching. We need to focus on individuals and invite them to act (to do something). Then Elder Bennet talked. It was about choices. My notes say, `Don`t be pathetic.` I`m not sure why... Then Elder Cornish spoke. He seems like a goofball. But his talk was really good. The first thing I wrote: `I like chicken.` Don`t ask. But I liked this quote, `Doing things the Lord`s way will make me happier than doing things my way.` That`s true. Elder Cook finished it off with some interesting stories about the Titanic. I had no idea that some missionaries were going to go home on it. Good thing they showed up late! Then President Monson bidded us farewell until next time, in six months.
I hope you enjoyed the review. If you didn`t watch it, please go to lds.org and take the time to watch it. It is worth the time. And if you did watch it, remember what you learned and apply it, do something different because of what you learned! I can`t wait until next conference in April.
Well, that`s it. Love you all,
Elder Gardner
Birthday party with an investigator family. There are ten kids in the family.
Yeah, we are kind of weird.
Lunch party inbetween conference sessions.
No comments:
Post a Comment