Conference Weekend! A weekend we have been waiting for!
This week there isn't very much to report apart from:
L, an investigator that is just amazing. I love her! She has accepted to be baptized, but has not chosen a date. She is going through a hard time as she is going through a separation from her boyfriend. We saw them talking outside yesterday with all of his things on the front lawn. She is such a strong woman!
Divisions! We did divisions with our STL's this week and it was so great! My companion stayed in our area with Hermana Haggard and I went to Belen with Hermana Pizza. I love these two valiant, exemplary sister missionaries! They are always a good influence for me!
S! We were finally able to see her yesterday! We are trying to help her cut out coffee and have put a goal for her to only drink 3 cups today! And J, M, and A. They are doing well, but are not yet ready to be baptized. J and M came to the Sunday afternoon conference and seemed to like it. We must help them have a spiritual experience so they can feel a change in their hearts and feel ready for baptism!
Other than that, I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on General Conference:
1 - I truly am grateful for a living prophet. Without the direct guidance of real priesthood holders and those with the keys to guide the Lord's church under God's direction, we would be utterly and hopelessly lost in apostasy. And this is NOT the plan that a loving Father in Heaven has for His beloved children. He seeks to guide us. We are in the last days!
2 - There are those who have allowed the influences of the world to "choke" (as Dallin H. Oaks mentioned), their testimony and block their hearts from opening to the many extensions of love that God gives us. We must be strong in what we already do know. I loved what Sister Rosemary M. Wixom taught about trusting what we know! Holding to the ground we have gained, as Jeffrey R. Holland shared in a past conference. What we know may not be a perfect knowledge, as it states in Alma 32:21, but it is OUR OWN PERSONAL knowledge. "You have enough."
3 - We are truly in the last days! That's why we are the "Latter-Day Saints." More than 200 years have passed since the restoration of this glorious gospel! And it is still glorious! We must prepare! We must ask ourselves: Do we truly fear God more than the opinions of man and seek to please the Father without guile? Have we turned the music of the joy of the gospel down and shut out the marvelous light of these times that we live in? Are we trying to be proper, worthy Latter-Day Saints or just latter-day sinners/hypocrites?
4 - We live in amazing times! Elder Uchtdorf's and Holland's talks were amazing! Easter morning is a morning of victory! Victory paid through the blood of Christ for us! For you! He pleads for us to return unto Him! The price has been paid!
"This Easter, I thank Him and the Father who gave Him to us that Jesus still stands, triumphant over death, although He stands on wounded feet. This Easter, I thank Him and the Father who gave Him to us that He still extends unending grace although He extends it with pierced palms and scarred wrists. This Easter, I thank Him and the Father who gave Him to us that we can sing before a sweat-stained garden, a nail-driven cross, and a gloriously empty tomb: how great, how glorious, how complete redemption's grand design where justice' love and mercy meet in harmony divine." Jeffrey R. Holland
I testify of the words of this apostle of Christ and of the words of the other inspired speakers of this Easter General Conference. I testify that there is a living prophet of God who is guided by divine inspiration of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. This church is true and will continue to reach the ends of the earth! I love this gospel and invite you all to love it as well!
Hermana Whitman
Photo: On divisions this week, an investigator's father gifted me this beautiful water bottle. Although it was quite dirty and used, I still felt touched as this man that I had barely met found something to give. What an example of love! This was what Jesus Christ taught and expects from each of us.