Last weekend was General Conference, and it was excellent. If you don't know what General Conference is: two times a year (once in April, once in October) the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints hold "General Conference" in Salt Lake city, and it is broadcasted throughout the Church. There are 6 sessions more or less, 4 of the conference itself, 2 on sunday and saturday each. I'll leave it at that, if you want to find out *what* General Conference is you can probably look it up yourself, haha.
What's important is that we have a chance to hear from our present-day Prophet and Apostles, who are called of God--so what they have to say is the will of God. I urge everyone to watch General Conference if you have not done so already, or watch it again if you have!
If you don't know much about the Church and you are reading this blog, I recommend that you go to the lds.org website and look for the talk given by "Elder Russel M. Nelson" in the saturday morning session of conference. His talk was one of my favorites--from it, you will be able to learn about missionary work, i.e. what I am doing right now.
Truth be told, I could say the same about any of the talks from General Conference--as in, watch it, it was one of my favorites, etc, haha. All of the talks given were inspired and uplifting, as they always are. Even the announcements were incredible! The Church has announced that young men are able to serve missions at 18 now instead of 19, and young women at 19 instead of 21! It's impossible to put into words how huge of a change this is, only time will show and tell. I can only say that I know it is God's will, and that it is part of His plan. As was the norm I suppose before this announcement, I did two semesters at college before reaching the age of 19 and serving a mission. I personally feel that without that year, I wouldn't have been prepared to serve as I am. However, with the recent changes in Sunday School and the Youth programs, those younger than me *will* be more likely to be prepared right out of high school.
Anyways, back to the talks, haha. My personal favorites from each session were Elder Nelson and President Uchtdorf's from the Saturday morning session, Elder Hawk and Elder Oaks' from the afternoon session, the talks of the entire First Presidency (our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, and his two counselers, Henry B. Eyring and Dieter F. Uchtdorf) from the priesthood session--especially President Monsons's--Elder Holland and President Monson's from the Sunday morning session, and Elder Bednar's from the afternoon session.
I invite all of you to watch these talks, and others. Feel free to write me about them, too; I'd love to hear what you think and send you my own thoughts back! There simply isn't enough time to talk about them all in the limited emailing time I have.
So for General Conference, our schedules were completely altered--no classes or specified study time, just the sessions, the meals, and personal time (well we use the personal time for study anyway). After the final session on sunday, we resumed as normal, meaning that we had dinner and then a Fireside. The speaker was none other than Chad Lewis, of the Philadelphia Eagles! I had no idea, but he want on his mission to Taiwan, Taizhong mission (I think that's how it's spelled)--so he speaks Chinese! Learning Chinese on his mission opened doors for him later in his life that he had never seen coming. For example, he is the NFL Ambassador to China, and had the opportunity to be an announcer for the Super Bowl in Chinese! Of course, he only knew missionary Chinese, so he sometimes said things like this: "I testify that Tom Brady throws true passes," etc. That was pretty funny. His fireside was excellent, and afterwards some of the elders from our district who are going to his old mission had the opportunity to go talk to him.
I can't believe that I only have a few more P-days--I think two?--I'm looking forward to getting to Australia. The MTC has been a great experience, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to be here. That's all for today, wish me luck, send letters!
Elder Ladd
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