My Dear Friends and Family,
How are you all doing this week? Thank you to those who responded to
the last email, I loved your comments. I know that many of you are
very busy, but I do enjoy reading your thoughts and encouragement so
if you have the time, *sing songy voice* spare a thought of me =)
bonus points to whoever knows that reference.
I'm someone who loves conversation so this group email thing is kinda
weird for me because I feel like I'm just talking out into space.
That's why I ask for responses, even if it takes me a little while to
respond too. We can work on that together! As you may have noticed, I
am learning a lot as a missionary, like the best way to extend
commitments and how to help them keep them. I have found that one of
the best ways is to keep gently reminding and be willing to do it with
them; this can work miracles.
Anyway, this has been a really great week. As I promised last time,
I'll start by talking about General Conference.
As I said, I was able to go, just not in the way we had originally
planned. We had planned to go Saturday evening (2-4pm) with a recent
convert; she had to cancel on us the day off due to some unplanned
problems. We then scrambled to find someone else, another recent
convert, but we also had to find a babysitter for his kids. Basically,
everything was very last minute and we weren't out of Ogden until 1:20
and we had a 20-30 minute ride to Salt Lake. We had also been asked to
be in our seats by 1:30 so that didn't happen =) We arrived and parked
by 1:55 and then we made a mad dash for the conference center. We were
in line by 2 and they were still letting people in but the stopped
that about 8 groups ahead of us; we didn't make it. So, we went to the
tabernacle where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir does Music and the Spoken
Word Sunday mornings. There the conference was being broadcasted and
translated into Spanish so our recent convert and his wife were able
to understand. Overall, not what we planned but okay.
My companion and I felt bad for our recent convert, that he and his
wife hadn't been able to actually be AT conference so we started
asking around for tickets for the Sunday session. Miraculously, we
were able to find four, though they were in different parts of the
center. The tickets we gave to our friends were plaza seats; they were
in the seats right in front of the podium and they could see all the
prophets and apostles and general authorities!!! My companion and I
were so excited for them, even though we couldn't sit next to them;
instead, we were in the balcony seats, the highest and furthest away
from the podium =D I loved it! It was my first time to be at a live
general conference and I was even happier because of how close my
friends were. It was so beautiful and the Spirit was so strong that
all of our troubles were worth it to be there.
Let me share with you my favorite talk from Sunday
afternoon....actually, that's kinda hard because they all addressed
something I needed or had been thinking about. Instead, let me share
what I learned. One speaker, Devin G. Durrant talked about
"ponderizing", where you take a scripture and just ponder on it for a
long time. He challenged us to ponderize a scripture a week and I love
challenges. I am working on Romans 13:12 this week, and I'll share my
scriptures in the following weeks, but this one says "The night is far
spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of
darkness, and let us put on the armour of light". I love this
scripture already and how I'm taking it right now is that I'm here
helping people find their armour and put it on. I've already suited up
so now it's my turn and responsibility to go help others suit up. I've
also learned from conference that the world is no longer just
ridiculing the church, it is outright attacking it at points that are
very dear. For example, I have personally been mocked for believing in
a living prophet; I have been accused of being blind and
unintelligent. I have had some wonder "why for someone who seems
intelligent do you believe in God and in prophets?"
Now, I'm not trying to make a "woe is me" speech or even make others
feel bad, I'm just showing that I have personal experience that
confirms what the prophets have declared. We, as mankind, are in the
last days. We are living at the time that prophets of old have
prophesied about which is both great and kinda scary. This is time
where we have the fullness of the gospel on the earth and it will
never be taken away; we are preparing for Christ's return which is
marvelous! But this is also the time where wickedness is more
acceptable and it's becoming more commonplace. Now is the time that my
scripture talks about; "the day is at hand" and we must have our amour
on to be able to fight against the evil of this day. For this time in
my life, I am one of the more noticeable warriors but everyone who has
Christ's gospel is in His ranks. I would urge you to put on the full
armour of Christ and stand as a witness for Him at all times and in
all places.
Basically, because of Conference, I have found new ways to learn and
to grow and that is one of the reasons I'm so grateful for the gospel
and prophets. It is amazing to me the goodness of the Lord, that He
gave us prophets in the past and He gives them to us today. Now we
need to show our love and gratitude to the Lord by listening.
Besides General Conference, my week has been a fairly normal
missionary week. We taught lessons and helped prepare a man for
baptism this coming Friday. We spent some time doing service, ranging
from cleaning a house to moving a family; we also volunteer at the
local library now. We have also been asked to do family history for at
least 3-4 hours a week so I have started that. It's actually been
kinda interesting to me to try and find more about people that I know
are in my family but that I don't know a lot about. Though, it does
take a while to confirm that you have the right person and you've made
the right connections. We also spent a lot of time trying to find new
investigators because most of our "older" ones have been baptized. We
have found quite a few to teach now and I'm super excited! We found
most of them through techniques/activities that we had been taught in
meetings my first and second week. My family's motto comes to mind:
"Obedience brings happiness". That is all a mission is, your strict
obedience to the rules and promptings of the Spirit bring about the
miracles you need to bring others to Christ.
All in all, I'm doing great. Life is difficult at times because it's
hard at times to remember that others have agency =) but it's all
good! "It's the hard that makes it great," and I'm here to testify
that it is great. This work is one of the greatest things I have ever
done and I've only just started. I can't wait to see what the Lord has
planned for those in my area.
I love you all. I pray for you and I hope that you're all happy. Have
a great week and I can't wait until I can see your responses!
Love,
Hermana Lindh
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