General conference

Hola amigos, This past weekend was General Conference weekend, and as such, our week was pretty busy; only Thursday and Friday were our only "free days" that we had to actually do lessons and contacting. For anyone who doesn't know, what's awesome about General Conference is that we get to hear from prophets and apostles called by God who testify of Jesus Christ and direct His Church today. Furthermore, we get to hear from the President of the Church--the prophet for the whole world, not just the Church--who gives us counsel as the spokesman for God today. Like I said, it's pretty awesome, but don't take my word for it, you can watch/read their words at churchofjesuschrist.org so totally check in out. Tuesday was District Council as always, and after that, we met with a woman (Helen) and one of her friends (a member) to have dessert and explain some of our beliefs. She's willing to listen to us and have us over when she's available, and it seems like some missionaries have talked to her before, but she was still left with a lot of confusion, which we've been able to clear up. On Wednesday, we had zone conference. It was over an hour travel time to get there, and it was in the afternoon, so that took up our whole day. It was good though; something cool that President Smith told us is that we are yoked with God the Father in His work. His purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men (Moses 1:39) and since we are assisting Him in His work, we are literally working alongside Him, and as such, He will bless and strengthen us according to our diligence. Speaking of which, Thursday is really when the Lord started to bless us with miracles since He knew we were so busy with meetings this week haha. For one, we randomly went up to 3 houses in a row, and at each one, they were each totally willing to talk us later. Elder Schumann-Curtis just had the feeling to go to these random houses, and boom, the Lord blessed us with 3 new people to talk to. Then, we later met with Justin and Jacie and had a great lesson. The stake president was with us, and the Spirit was super strong, we flowed from one part of the lesson to the other without us really expecting where the conversation would go. By the end of the lesson, they readily agreed to baptism and set a specific date right there in the moment (Oct. 7), which was a miracle. They also told us that they had been praying about baptism; Justin says that he has been feeling good about it, and Jacie said she has just felt so peaceful about that decision, which was also awesome. Friday wasn't too exciting. After we did some service, we tried contacting some new people in the afternoon, but as you might expect, there aren't exactly too many people out and about in the middle of a Friday afternoon haha. Since it was General Conference weekend, we then spent most of the evening calling/messaging anyone we could in order to invite them to watch General Conference, and I got my first new person that was all by myself. As in, I did all the talking for once, and she was down to tune in to General Conference. It was over the phone, but what's cool is that we haven't talked to her in nearly 2 years, and when I called her, she was totally willing to talk, listen to General Conference, and meet with us again. Saturday was great. We watched the morning session with some other Elders and Sisters, went contacting right after, watched the afternoon session by ourselves, and then had dinner with a lady in our apartment complex and another member. It was good; I led the lesson, but after I shared what I wanted to share, she just starting asking Elder Schumann-Curtis directly some other questions she had, so I just let him talk to her for the rest of the lesson haha. But I still started it, so there's improvement for me. We later rewatched the evening session since we missed it and made some calls to check up on those who said they'd be watching the conference. Sunday was also awesome. We watched the morning session with some other Elders again, and we were able to watch the afternoon session with Justin and Jacie. They loved it; Jacie especially loved hearing Elder Anderson speak (her first time hearing one of the Apostles), and she commented that he seemed to just draw her in when he talked (almost like he's an Apostle of Jesus Christ and has power and authority from God haha). They also loved listening to President Nelson, so it was just awesome all around. We then stayed for a couple hours to talk about it and answer some of their questions, and then we started planning a bit for their upcoming baptism (which we're all excited for, they're both super committed). Later, we had dinner with our ward mission leader and started planning for the baptism with him too. My spiritual thought this week is what I took away from General Conference. I don't know if it's because I'm a missionary now or what, but this Conference was super powerful and awesome. To me, the theme of the conference seemed to revolve around refocusing ourselves on the two great commandments: love God, and love your neighbors. Once we do those two things, everything else will follow. I really liked that focus on loving God and loving each other. I also loved President Nelson's talk about the temples in the Sunday morning session and how we need to build our foundation on Christ, and I enjoyed his emphasis on temple work and temple attendance, that's something I want to do more of once I get back from my mission. Elder Nash was also someone I liked (he spoke in Saturday evening). Apparently, he had visited my mission for a few days right before I got here, and one of the people he mentions in his talk is one of our Elders right now (Elder Jimmy Ton, I believe), so that was pretty cool. But he didn't shout out our mission, so that's a little less cool haha. Anyway, he talked a bit about holding up the gospel light and how joy comes from sharing the gospel, which is something I'm trying to work on. I hope everything is going well. I always seem to be seeing miracles as I do the Lord's work, and I hope you all can see the miracles in your lives as well because I know they are there. Also, treasure the words of the Lord's prophets and Apostles and the insights you receive as you study their words, they will be valuable to you. Adios amigos, Elder Enger