Great Mission Conference with Elder and Sister Ardern

The week here has been really good. It has seemed really long, yet really short at the same time. Especially having the mission Conference with Elder Ardern. There were two days of the conference and so half the mission was at each of the two days. The day that weattended, Tuesday, was at our Stake Center here in Keizer so Elder Patterson and I had to make sure everything was prepped and ready to go. The meeting went extremely well. Elder Ardern and his wife are both really amazing.  It was amazing to see how in tune with the Spirit they both were. They talked about a ton of different things, but it was cool because it was all by the Spirit. They talked a lot about how our first responsibility as missionaries, and I believe that is not just full-time missionaries but all members, is to prepare spiritually. It's important to obtain knowledge of the Savior and use the knowledge that we have as He would. He also talked about how Obedience Opens Opportunity. I really liked that. Because it is so true. I know that when I feel like I'm being as obedient as I can, I feel a light come into my life. It's something to always strive for. He also talked about really studying the scriptures and not turning until you learn. How we can learn something personal in every single page. Overall, there are so many notes and so many different things that I learned from that conference that I can't even come close to writing them all down. But it definitely helped me recognize that there are a ton of different things that I need to work on and
continue to try and improve. 

Other than that, things are going well out here. I've met a lot of the active members. There are only about 75-80 that come every week. We have found some more people to teach though. We actually found a guy, Jeff, my second day out here. He was just working on his motorcycle and we went up and talked to him and he has progressed a lot over the past couple of weeks. It has been cool to see how he has had some spiritual experiences and how he is coming to learn more and more of the gospel!

I heard about President Monson. It stinks that his health is declining in the way that it has been. But he is an awesome example of serving the Lord. I'm grateful to know that we have a prophet of God on the Earth and the direction that that provides us. And it's so cool
to see how the Lord has set up His church in such a way that it won't miss a beat. We are blessed to be a part of the Lords Kingdom established on the Earth again.

One thing that I studied about this week was in Alma 10. It's in verses 5 and 6 and it's Amulek talking about how he didn't pay attention and hearken to the Lord. He recognized that he had seen the hand of the Lord in his life, but didn't really give it the heed and consideration that it deserved. That's something I feel like we all need to pay attention to. It's important to do our best to recognize the hand of the Lord and then to act on what we see. It's something I'm really trying to work on personally.

Oh a member shined my shoes with a blowtorch, so that was pretty cool 

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