General Conference

Date: October 06, 2011 Area: Santiago, Chile Companion:Elder Metcalf

Hola,

This weekend was awesome! Conference! and holy cow, it flew by! It must be something different about being a missionary becasue I havent´ever looked forward as much or have one go by as quickly as this conference! It was great! Such great talks, I loved it. And we had 5 different investigators come which was awesome. Ronal, do you remember him? Came with his family and he loved it. He said that he wanted to keep listening to President Monson! I´m pretty sure that they are going to get baptized, at least i´m hoping. He is super excited about the church and the plan as of right now is to invite him to be baptized at our appointment this wednesday! Hes super awesome and his family tambien!

Man, there were so many talks at conference that were just awesome! I loved President Uchtdorf´s Saturday morning. That one taught me alot and that one is where I found my mission scripture, more of a goal than anything else. but he talked about being meek and humble like a child. He talked about not being discouraged because that is how the adversary works, and sometimes I forget that. He also spoke about putting in your best effort in the things that you do because that is all that God asks of us, is our best effort (I´m not sure how much of this he actually said or if its just what I thought of when he was speaking. just for the record). And his final four points of the talk were awesome, 1. god loves the humble and meek. 2. the lord trusts the gospel to be preached by the weak. That one is true because i´ve found out that I know next to nothing! Studying is so important to knowing the scriptures and gospel! 3. No matter who you are or your circumstances, Heavenly father loves you. 4. This is a probationary state. Believe in Him and follow the commandments and he will bless you because we all matter a great deal to our father in Heaven and he wants us all to return to him.

I think he used the scripture but in any case I love it. I´m not sure how much can fit on the plaque but in any case, Moroni 7:45-48. Just start in 45 and fit whatever you can. But I love the scriptures. It’s on charity. I was studying these scriptures this morning and 1 Corinthians 13 which talks about charity too. And I read the last verse in Corinthians 13 which talks about how charity is more important than faith and hope. And then verse 2 of that chapter says that if you had all knowledge and power but you didn’t have charity, nothing would really matter, none of it. And I got to thinking why that is, why charity is so important. And I think that charity is essentially the gateway to all the other attributes of Christ, the gateway to godliness. Charity is the love that Christ has for each of us, everyone. It is (i think) the driving force for why he chose to come here to suffer for our sins. It is the purist love that exists. And I think the only way to be able to develop that type of unconditional selfless love is through God and Jesus Christ. You would have to know them and understand them, the way they think, act and desire to be able to have pure charity. And if we had charity we wouldn´t ever be frustrated, angry, upset impatient discouraged, fearful because we would know of the love that Jesus and God have for us, that pure love and we would feel some portion of that love for those around us- our brothers and sisters. And at that point we would recognize them for who they are, children of God. We would see the same potential in them that we have within ourselves- to return and live with Heavenly Father and to be like him. The ultimate goal. And if we recognize that, we would give 100% effort in helping our brothers and sisters to find and stay on the pathway that leads to that goal. So I want this to be my missionary scripture because I want that to be my goal, to work with 100% dedication because I feel some portion of that love that our Lord has for us.

As for a couple of things this week... do you want the good or the bad first? bad and then good. ok good.

Well we were teaching a woman named Maria and she had a baptismal date. She really wanted to go to church and change because she could feel a difference in her life but her husband didn´t want her to. Long story short, she lost her date and she can´t meet with the missionaries anymore because her husband won´t allow it. When we went to talk to her Saturday, she had a black eye so I think that her husband hit her. It’s too bad especially because she really wanted it.

But now for the good, we received a reference from some sister missionaries for a man named Jose. And Jose is 63 and lives alone and is looking for something more in life. We went to his house last night to meet him (we had previously called him to invite him to conference but he had to work so he was unable to go) and he let us in. We had a good chat because he had a folleto from the sisters about the restoration. He read it and had some questions and he really wanted a Book of Mormon. We gave him one and talked about it and joseph Smith and how if that book is true than we have a living prophet and the church is true. He said he wanted to read it all! We then talked about baptism and set him with a baptismal date in the beginning of November!! It was great!

Thats all the time I have, I hope you all are doing well! I hope school is going well for Lindy Spencer and Cutler and that works picking up for you mom and dad! I hope you enjoyed conference and had some favorite talks- let me know which ones they were! Love you!

Elder Holland