Elder Holland's Conference Talk

From 4/06/09 email:

Sounds like you had an exciting conference trip. The Durfs and the Wrigleys are growing up so fast! I wish I could be there to see them grow, but I've got important things to do here! Wasn't conference amazing? Maybe I think that because I'm a missionary and I love to refill my spiritual reservoir often. I'm glad that we do have a living prophet on the earth to guide us and direct us in our mortal journey. Did you catch on to the importance of temple work? I sure did! I wish I could go to the temple more often here, but that will make it even more important when I get home. I hope you all take the advice of Elder Scott to set your own goals of temple attendance & don't let anything get in the way of it.

My favorite talk was by Elder Holland--we definitely are never alone in all our trials. As I've come to understand the Atonement more, my eyes have been opened up to the magnitude of Christ's suffering. He did it willingly & never complained. He did ask anything for himself. That's something I need to apply to my life. There was another talk that really touched me. Elder Oaks talked about unselfish service and how we need to be more willing to set our priorities below others. I've been struggling lately with the Christlike attribute of humility. I'm told in my patriarchal blessing to be humble, along with many answers to recent prayers. During the talk, I realized what Heavenly Father was trying to get across to me. Forget yourself & lose yourself in the work of the Lord. Forget what YOU want and unselfishly serve others. That hit me pretty hard because lately I've been focusing more on myself rather than others. I was sucked into the "ME generation" which prohibited much more progression. And now I'm following the advice of President Monson in saying how grateful I am for such wonderful parents! Thank you for all that you have done for me. Thanks for your unselfish sacrifice & love. Thanks for raising me up right. I love you so much!

After conference on Sunday, we met with the Steel family. Sister Steel is a member & her husband is not. The bishop said that he felt that he was ready to start the lessons again. He has taken them a couple of times in the past and I guess the time just wasn’t right. But we had an excellent lesson with them on obedience & faith. We didn’t want to completely turn him off to the missionaries by being too pushy. I started out the lesson with no idea what to say. Then the thought came to me to talk about how the gospel has blessed my life, specifically with my family. Sister Mortimer said that once I testified, the Spirit rushed in, starting the lesson off good. I know that Bro. Steel will be baptized soon. It’s not the baptism that I’m excited for. It’s the opportunity that him & his wife & daughter can be sealed in the temple for all eternity.

Friday afternoon we got to deep clean our apartment. I'm proud to say that our apartment is cured of all it's Elder-ness. We scrubbed the mold off the ceiling & tub, wiped unknown goo off of the walls, and tossed the long-expired food out of the fridge. Now we can sit in our apartment in peace. I had one casualty, though. My toothbrush met an impending doom as it dived into a pool of Pine-Sol as I was scrubbing the walls. Luckily my greenie was prepared with an extra one.

This week has been full of so many miracles. We finally got in touch with Racheeta, whom we haven’t been able to talk to since we got here. We had a wonderful lesson with her on the plan of salvation which is especially important to her because she has a son. Another investigator has realized the importance of prayer. She’s been going through a super rough time as her husband is sick. But one day she broke down & got to her knees in prayer because she couldn’t take it any longer. She immediately got that feeling of peace & comfort. Now she knows that Heavenly Father really is there and answers prayers. Other investigators have been recognizing the Lord’s hands in their lives. I love to see them light up when they tell us how their prayers have been answered.

We had another interesting experience. There is an investigator in the Kentucky Louisville Mission who called us to say that her parents were moving into our area and she wanted us to stop by & help them unpack. They moved into Westerly, RI which is clear on the other side of our area. We don’t go there very often because we just don’t have the miles. But we show up on their doorstep overlooking the crashing waves of the ocean & offer our services to them. They were super nice, but were on their last stages of unpacking so they didn't need any help. But she invited us back in a couple of weeks after everything was settled. Their investigator daughter will be come to visit them soon & wants to meet us. Hopefully something good will become of that!

I’m so happy doing the Lord’s work. It took me a while to get to this point, but now I’m here & I love it! I’m excited for the potential of this area. It seems like it has just been waiting for Sisters to get here. Hopefully we will make more miracles happen here!