Hey
I’m glad you guys had a great time over in Utah. Lame that Katie
and Claire had to stay back and watch conference alone, I guess that’s what
happens to the last couple of kids in the family. Hey that’s super awesome that
Claire participated in singing for some Houston soccer hooligans. But it’s just one more step to being a real Texan,
right.
Last week was pretty fantastic, especially when it’s
conference week. This was officially my last conference in the mission, no more
ya fue. But conference week is always pretty great, there were some really
great talks that I really appreciated. It was kind of interesting as I was watching
conference, because I was thinking “wow there's a lot of really good talks
this conference,” then I realized that all the talks in conference are really
great, I just paid attention more. But that’s how it is, if you look to get
something out of conference, you appreciate more of the talks, and every talk
becomes a great talk. But I agree with mom, I really loved Elder Oaks talk; I thought
it explained exceptionally well the LDS perspective of the family. We say that
the family is important to our religion, and you might say that the Importance
of family isn’t a distinct belief. I mention the Importance of the family in every
one of my lessons and everyone agrees saying, yeah that’s how it is in my
religion as well. Yah, but the Mormon faith explains well and deeper the eternal
aspect of the family. We know that the family is ordained of God, as said in
the family proclamation to the world. And I thought it was well explained the meaning of a family being ordained of God. I also liked what he
mentioned about how salvation is a personal effort but exaltation is a family
effort. We might make ourselves feel better when we sin by saying it only
effects my salvation. But no, it does very much effect the future of your
family especially in the eternal exaltation of your family. So we all have a
personal responsibility to take care of ourselves but the same responsibility
for others in our families. And all commandments and all the things God asks of
us, are so that every family can reach their full potential. And to reach
one's full potential, the family is essential. One might think it’s ok to
live with their boyfriend or girlfriend, because God still loves them anyway, which
is totally true. But you are risking the destruction of a future family and it blocks the true potential that the loving father has provided for
them.
Also one of my favorite talks was in the morning session of Saturday,
from the young women president. She made some huge pointers of how many latter
day saints live and what we should change. She mainly pointed out that we are obviously
a service based church, but sometimes we focus more on serving others that we don’t
know than serving others that we do know. That we spend so much time serving
others and we don’t know. Which is totally awesome, but we completely forget
to serve those who are right in front of our faces that go to church and activities
with us each day; and they are also going through their own personal catastrophes. I
liked the story of the mother that was talking to her daughter about going to
the Mutual activity. The mom totally brings it, like p90x bring it. To her
daughter. The daughter mentions that she didn’t want to go to the Mutual activity because there’s
nothing she’s going to get out of it, that she already is strong in the church
or something like that. And then the mom says, what makes you think that you go
to Mutual for your own benefit? You go to mutual to go help someone else, who
needs a friend, who comes to mutual activities looking for help. That is why we
come together as a church. I talk to so many people who think they don’t need a
church because they have God and Jesus and the scriptures. Well it’s not about
yourself. It’s about others.
Leo came to conference yesterday, and after he asked to talk
to us about his baptism date. He asked if he could be baptized this week and
that he was willing to do all he can to make it to that date. We actually were
planning on the 14th to be the day of the baptismal service, but he said that
after conference and all the changes he has been making, makes him more anxious
to be baptized. And there’s nothing that holds him back from becoming a member,
so we are going to be visiting him every day of this week, before his baptism
and confirmation for this Saturday
We are also teaching a really sweet girl named Shilda, I don’t
really know what kind of name that is, but it’s her name. A member invited us
over to teach her, mostly because he wants to take her out and stuff like that. So that’s how we met Shilda. What an awesome investigator, she really
understands the lessons. And after she takes time to read and mark her
scriptures and every lesson she explains what she had read, and she always
marks really good scriptures. Sometimes we give scriptures for people to read
and they mark whatever scripture and explain it in a way that’s totally not
what it means. Sometimes I’ll bring members to lessons with us and we´ll start
talking about what is the meaning of the word "restoration" and this
members will start going off on faith in Jesus Christ, and it’s kind of hard to
bring the lesson back on track. Don’t do that.
Anyway great conference! Good times! I love y’all
Elder Greene
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