Apr 15 2013

General Conference was the highlight of the past week by far! I hope everyone who has not already had the chance to watch all of it will go to www.lds.org right now and watch the rest. And remember to take notes! :)

Some of the highlights for me were:

Saturday morning session: Boyd K. Packer's poem! also 65000+ missionaries ?!

Saturday afternoon session: Stanley G. Ellis's talk. Russel M. Nelson's talk. If you all weren't aware, Elder Nelson and Elder Holland are the Apostles most directly involved with the Missionary Department. Elder Nelson almost always talks to us missionaries in some way :)

Priesthood session: Tad R. Callister's expression of why we grow more as missionaries: because of the trust people have in us, the expections people have for us, and the training we recieve to fulfill those expectations. President Monson's talk. All the stories that were told!

Sunday Morning session: L. Tom Perry and his serviceman's handbook. And especially the line: "Obedience to law is liberty". I will probably use that many times in teaching investigators from now on. President Monson's stories :)

Sunday Afternoon session: Jeffrey R. Holland's talk. His manner of speaking and expounding upon the stories of the scriptures are astounding, and the lessons he can pull from just a verse or two are incredible, beyond the capacity of anyone I know. The subject of his talk was especially relevant, I used it about an hour later to teach an investigator about faith.

Undoubtedly, in the future, when I have the opportunity to study the talks again in the Ensign, other things will stand out to me, but these are just the ones that immediately stood out to me: what inspired me, what I enjoyed, what I laughed at, and so forth.

There aren't too many other events worth note this week; I'll keep this email relatively short so you can all use the time you would have otherwise spent reading it to go and study General Conference some more. :)

The first is that my companion and I were invited to the house of a relative of mine on my mom's side for dinner Wednesday night. It was good -- on recommendation from my mom they cooked one of my favorite at home, beef stroganoff. Their family were very gracious, I enjoyed the visit. I don't know about my companion, though, haha, since much of their talk was about stories of the family.

Second is that we should have a baptism coming up this week, and we also have a new baptismal date with our investigator from Taiwan. Her date is for May 9th. Her main concern is how her family will react, but so far it seems like they will be alright with it. Interestingly enough, as a side note, the parents of the investigator being baptized next week are fully in support of his choice, even encouraging of it. Cool!

That's it though. Everyone have a good week! Go watch General Conference!

Elder J. Colton Ladd