Conference Notes

It's been another good week here in San Pablo but as for the work, I feel like I don't have a whole lot to report on for the week. We have to postpone LetLet's baptism because we have to follow up a little bit with some Word of Wisdom stuff and make sure she's truly prepared and ready. But I've seen her testimony grow a lot as we've continued to teach her, so hopefully she should be good to go after we take care of those little things. 

 

As always, General Conference was amazing. Growing up, I always enjoyed this weekend, but here in the mission field, I've truly come to love and appreciate it even more. Saturday and Sunday seriously passed by in a blink of an eye. Some common themes that jumped out to me was about revelation and how each of us needs to gain a testimony for ourselves (secure our own spiritual oxygen masks before securing others), caring for the poor and needy, and sustaining and following the prophet and our leaders, which means not only listening to their words but applying the things we learn and DOING what they say. (And if anyone is wondering, we did in fact listen to all the sessions in English again, which is nice.)

 

A few of my favorite talks: 

My boy (not sure if that is an appropriate term to use for an Apostle haha but...) Dieter F. Uchtdorf failed to let me down as my favorite speaker and I especially liked his talk in the priesthood session. We must not seek to find fault in other and always look inwardly to ourselves and ask, as did the Savior's disciples, "Lord, is it I?" D. Todd Christofferson is quietly also becoming one of my favorite speakers and I thought he gave a nice talk on mercy and justice.  "Beyond desiring for His help, we must take responsibility and go to work so there is something He can help us with." 

 

As Lynn G. Robbins said, we must remember which way we face. As our beloved prophet Thomas S. Monson said, we should strive to walk AS Jesus walked. And lastly, I really liked David A. Bednar's talk on WHY we share the gospel. We want to share what has been helpful for us and our desire to share the gospel to others reflects how important it is in our lives.

 

Let us all apply individually the things that we learned at Conference to become better disciples of Christ. "You can't love God and not love His commandments." On that note, can't wait until next conference and I'll talk to y'all again next week. ---Elder Larson