Elder Bryce Larson: Conference!

The first time I watched Conference as a missionary was when I was still at the MTC. The next time I watch it, I will be back home with my family...I can hardly believe that! But as for my last Conference in the field, it was awesome! I love General Conference so much and like I think I've said before, I'm pretty sure I've enjoyed it even more since being a missionary. Those ten hours felt like they were over in just a blink of an eye!

All the messages were inspired but the two main themes that stuck out for me was first on the importance of families and second on staying firm in our testimonies by making Jesus Christ our foundation. Many speakers mentioned the reality of Satan's efforts to make us question our testimonies or destroy the family but the solution is this: 'Don't let things we don't understand affect the things that we do know' (Kevin W. Pearson)

As missionaries, those are also two of the main points that we teach: One-That the gospel focuses on families and as part of God's plan, families can be together forever. Two-We invite all we teach to keep commitments that will help them come closer to Jesus Christ and help to strengthen their testimonies by becoming 'spiritually rooted' in Him and not look at the gospel through a 'keyhole view' (Dallin H. Oaks).....One of my favorite talks was by Elder Wilford W. Andersen about the old medicine man and the young doctor and dancing. For almost all of us, we have been taught the dance steps but it is up to us if we will listen to the music!

Everything else is going good as well! We are keeping busy in the area and enjoying the work. No investigators with a baptismal date yet but there is one we are hoping to extend to soon--Kathlyn (22 years old I think) is the girlfriend of a member in our branch. She has been coming to church for quite a while now and we have taught her quite a few times (at the house of the member. He has three brothers who are RMs so the fellowshipping for her is really really good). She is great and I think she has a desire to be baptized but the only thing right now is she sometimes has a hard time understanding some of the things we teach so we have to focus on teaching everything in very simple terms and then constantly review just to make sure she understands.

I got my pictures to work but these are all from last last week. I forgot to mention that last P Day we went to Santiago so we could play basketball and hang out with some of the other missionaries because everybody goes to this big mall called Robinson's to e-mail for P Day. My tatay Elder Merza goes home next week so that was probably the last time that I will get to see him. I'm so thankful he was my trainer and I'm gonna miss him!! He also trained again for his last two cycles so I finally got to meet my 'younger brother' in the mission-Elder Dialino-haha but yup, that's that. Have a good week everyone!