September 26, 2016

Group email:

I've never been this excited for General Conference before...

Seriously, it's kinda weird, but also awesome.
It is seriously such a privilege to be able to hear the words of
prophets of God!
Take some time this week to think about some questions or concerns you
are dealing with in your life and write them down- General Conference
will help answer those questions for you :)

Everyone is doing well here in Loveland. I have a sneaky sinking
feeling that this is my last full week here, with transfers coming up.
I hope not.

Dave's baptism:



















Zandra and Ward Mission Leader






Amanda and her family









To Mom:

I thought you would like that video. I thought it was cool, and funny too. It was neat to go back and see all of the things that have happened in the past few months. I have now been in this ward for about 4 and a half months. I still don't want to leave, but whatever happens will be the Lord's will, i know that. 

I sent owen's badge late last week, so hopefully it gets there soon. I will try to send leslie's soon. I'm glad they loved it. It has been a way for me to try to encourage them to keep doing good things and to prepare for their missions. I look forward to being able to see them all. They are growing up so fast. I absolutely loved that video of Reuben's talk, and i showed it to amanda because he mentioned her. She thought it was adorable too. 

That is so cool that you were able to participate in helping her progress. Good for leslie on helping her integrate into the church. I am learning more and more about how important it is to have support from friends at church. In almost every instance where people fall inactive, it's because they lose friends or are offended by someone. Now, i don't think it's right for people to leave because they were offended or because they don't have friends, because the church is more than just a social club, but when we are friends to those new converts, then they probably won't ever fall away because they have support. 

Yeah i have heard that the women's conference was super awesome. I am excited to go through and read the talks. In gospel principles class, the teacher was already using quotes from that session, which i thought was pretty funny. I am so excited for general conference this weekend! It doesn't seem like it was that long ago when we had the last one! I am already preparing questions to take and stuff like that. 

It is so true. When we just hold our feelings inside, eventually. It all explodes, and it is never pleasant. That is why we have to have companionship inventory every week. We need to express annoyances or conflicts and discuss what we can do to improve our obedience and our relationship. Sounds cheesy, but it works. Maybe something like that could help the kids express their feelings. A one-on-one thing where they can just say how they feel and you can talk about it. It might help them learn to express their feelings in an appropriate way in an appropriate setting.

Your thoughts about eternal families really strike a chord with me too, because on Saturday we watched a family take a big step towards being sealed for time and all eternity. It was so cool to watch that. At dave's baptism, his kids were jumping up and down with excitement. It was so cute! It was amazing to watch them rejoice and celebrate together. The actual baptism was interesting. Dave is about 6 feet tall, and for some reason the font wasn't filling up quickly enough, so it only went up to his thighs. He had to kneel down in the font to be baptized lol plus the water was about 120 degrees so that was interesting. But it happened by immersion, and it only had to happen once, so that was nice. I'll include a picture. 

Other than that, the week was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that on sunday we also discovered that there is someone else who wants to get

baptized. her name is kara, and she is has been coming to church for a
while. She is 10, and her grandmother is a member. She decided she wanted
to get baptized, and they finally got permission from her dad, so they came
to us and now we are teaching them the lessons. We are super excited for her! We just keep seeing little miracles like that, and we are super duper excited to keep working even harder so we can see more. 

Ive been studying a lot about mercy this week, because i always struggle with being really hard on myself because i'm not very good at a lot of things. President McMurray told me to study all the scriptures listed in the mercy section of the index. It has really been helping me, and i am learning a lot about the atonement, which is making me even more grateful for it. 

I'm also almost finished with Jesus the Christ. What an amazing book! I am learning so much about the Savior. Now that i am close to the ned of that book, he talks about the first vision. I am so astounded by the fact that Joseph Smith the God the Eternal Father! I am only beginning to realize just how great of a privilege that was, not only for him, but also for all of us!

So cool.