Monday, April 11, 2016

General Conference!

Hello everyone! 

This was a pretty average week except we got to watch
General Conference! It really is like Christmas as a missionary! It's
10 hours of listening to prophets and apostles and being completely
spiritually filled. Dendo after watching conference was the best. My
companion and I just had so much dendo fire and I think it was
apparent because almost every person we contacted stopped and talked
with us for at least 5-10 minutes. We really want to try and keep that
spirit with is so we can always be that effective.

To begin I would like to talk about Kodama san, he truly is so
amazing! This week we met with him twice as we usually do and talked
more about his upcoming baptism. He is excited for it but is scared he
won't be fully prepared. He is still having a little bit of difficulty
with one of the things we taught him so we decided to postpone it one
week. He felt a lot better and we all thought it would be a good idea
that would help him feel more prepared. Unfortunately, his baptism
date is now scheduled the Saturday after transfers, so if I end up
transferring I won't be here for his baptism. Although, in the grand
perspective of it all that doesn't really matter, I just want him to
be prepared and ready as he is baptized so he can continue he to live
the gospel throughout his life; which I truly think he will be. That
being said, I'm way excited for the 23rd of April now! It can't come
fast enough!

The rest of the week was pretty regular with normal dendo, we will see
if any of the return appointments we made turn into anything.
Conference was such a blessing to watch. The only bad thing was it
took so much time out of the best times to dendo! Which are Saturday
and Sunday haha. But it really was great, I learned a lot things from
what they said and through the spirit. I don't have much time but one
of the things I liked most about conference was when Elder Snow talked
about humility. He shared a wonderful verse of scripture found in Alma
32:16 that reads, "Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves
without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words,
blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized
without stubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the
word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe." From that
I learned that I should really humbles myself before the Lord has to
compel me to be humble. I have considered myself a fairly humble
person but as I have been serving my mission the Lord truly has been
making my weaknesses known unto me as he states he will in Ether 12:27
Being here and not knowing the language or the gospel as well
as I would like to really has humbled me. Seeing others sometimes poor
circumstances in life has really shown me how blessed I am in my own
life and the duty I have to help those in need.

The last speaker at conference was the one and only Elder Holland. I
really enjoy listening to him as I'm sure others do. As he talked
about keeping this feeling of conference we have with us something my
mission president has always counseled us on popped out in my head.
The counsel is after we receive training of some sort (in this case,
General Conference) we should challenge and ask ourselves, "therefore
what?" Now that we have received all this training and this great
spiritual message, what are we going to do about it? If we just idly
enjoy our training but don't act or change ourselves after watching
it, has it really benefited us? I don't think so. We must take what we
have learned from conference and apply it in our lives. Change things
about ourselves to become better men or women and ultimately a better
disciple of our Savior Jesus Christ.

General Conference was amazing, but I challenge those that watched it
to review your notes (I hope you took some) and give yourself your own
"therefore what". I truly love this Gospel and the light and joy it
brings to others. I pray I can help some of the people in Japan find
that same joy in their own lives. Last thing before I go is we have
transfer calls next week! So my pday will be changed to Tuesday
instead. I am hoping I will stay and Saijo and I think I will but you
never know! Until next week, I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Sherrill

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