7 April 2014

7 April 2014

Dear family,

I am grateful for General Conference. I am even more grateful to be able to listen to it in English. I am quite sure that the details of many of the stories would have been lost on me in Spanish. And I still have a firm testimony that something gets lost when you try to translate a Holland talk.

Saturday was a bit of a wake-up call, wasn't it? A lot of the talks focused on being prepared to pass through trials and ready to accept that some people will reject our faith.  

Hey, did anyone notice that the auditing letter changed? It now expounds on church financial practices, reminding us to live within our means. It's a good reminder for us and I think something that the church is emphasizing right now. We're spending a lot on expanding missionary work and we have numerous temples pending. Now we are going to finish what we've undertaken before adding!

I loved the Sunday morning session. Uchtdorf's talk is destined to be a staple on the importance of gratitude. And I liked Elder Ballard's reminders and invitations.

There were some interesting repetitions in the conference--sure signs of things that should catch our attention. For instance, there were back-to-back talks that used the story of the 116 pages to talk about obedience. Just about every talk mentioned the importance of passing through difficulties with faith. And there was a non-trivial emphasis on getting to know our ancestors and continuing family history work. (I loved Elder Walker's talk.)

My favorite stories were truck stories. The jumping out of the cabin was my favorite hook of the conference. And it's so true. It's so hard sometimes to see the logic of what someone else did unless we take the time to reflect or to ask them what they were thinking (but not in the sense of condemning, rather asking with a sincere desire to understand). And the truck story by Elder Bednar to explain why we need challenges to give us spiritual traction was my favorite analogy!

Other than that, I spent a somewhat busy week traveling (perks and challenges of my current assignment all wrapped into one). Originally I was only going to be gone for one night so I only brought one change of clothes and tried to limit the rest of what I brought.  But we had a last minute change of plans, and one night away from home became four nights away from home. On the bright side, you can always wash the clothes in the pila at night to have clean clothes, and you can buy a small packet of shampoo in the pulperia when it turns out the missionary you are staying with doesn't have any shampoo either! It was an adventure in being flexible! But at the same time it was fun to have an adventure. And the most important part is that I got to watch conference and that there was another North American sister there to be my companion in the English room!

Well, I hope you have a wonderful week.

Love,

Hermana Davis