Some of my favorite talks from General Conference were:
Elder Cornish - You are Going to be Good Enough, Elder D Todd Christofferson - Continuing in God's Love is to Receive His Grace and be Perfected as you Qualify, President Henry B Eyring - Our Responsibility to Teach Aaronic Priesthood Holders How to Serve, President Russell M Nelson - We Teach and Baptize to Bring Joy into People's Lives, Elder M Russel Ballard - The Restoration Continues Today, Dean M Davies - Worship Involves Joy, Wonder, Awe, and Profound Thanksgiving, Elder David A Bednar - The Difference Between Knowing About Him and Knowing Him, Brian K Ashton - Grace is Divine Help to Achieve Good Works and the Sacrament Gives us the Spirit to Help us Grow, Grace by Grace.
Elder Cornish - You are Going to be Good Enough, Elder D Todd Christofferson - Continuing in God's Love is to Receive His Grace and be Perfected as you Qualify, President Henry B Eyring - Our Responsibility to Teach Aaronic Priesthood Holders How to Serve, President Russell M Nelson - We Teach and Baptize to Bring Joy into People's Lives, Elder M Russel Ballard - The Restoration Continues Today, Dean M Davies - Worship Involves Joy, Wonder, Awe, and Profound Thanksgiving, Elder David A Bednar - The Difference Between Knowing About Him and Knowing Him, Brian K Ashton - Grace is Divine Help to Achieve Good Works and the Sacrament Gives us the Spirit to Help us Grow, Grace by Grace.
So here is a good teaching experience from last week. We were finally able to meet with Benjamin and Oly again. We were able to sit down and have about an hour long discussion answering some of his questions again and he particularly wanted to know doctrines of the Book of Mormon, especially ones that matched up with the Bible. I was so thankful for having read through the Book of Mormon entirely when I first came on my mission and continuing to read it, because I was able to answer most of his questions and Elder Hagler was able to back me up. It was really interesting though because he was so open and accepting that it could all be true. Unfortunately we had to get going before we could really drive home the point about what it would mean if he did believe it to be true. Over all it was just a super solid lesson that I think broke down a lot of barriers and he took a lot of notes so if he decides to read from the Book of Mormon he has a lot of references he can turn to.
Unfortunately Vanessa seems to be internalizing a lot of her dad's concerns about her being too naive to make a choice, or not knowing enough yet. We tried to reassure her that she could make the choice for herself and that the Spirit would confirm to her that it was right. But she has lost a lot of confidence in herself, and when we left that lesson Elder Hagler and I both were kind of disappointed and frustrated. But she came to the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference and she absolutely loved it, so we told her to go home and write down how she felt about everything and we're going to talk to her about it next time we see her on Wednesday. Wednesday is going to be a make or break day for her. If she has more confidence and understanding, then she could be interviewed for baptism, but on the flip side if she really believes that she needs as much time as her dad seems to think, then we'll have to pause her. But I'll make sure the missionaries contact her again before I go home if we do end up pausing her. This is one of the few instances I've had to actually pause someone. In the past people have always just kind of disappeared before we could tell them they have to be more committed if they want to keep meeting with us. It's really hard to think that we may have to tell her that this week.
Overall this week was good, but it was very unusual and it kind of threw us out of our groove. This week we had exchanges with the AP's on Wednesday, so that really threw off our whole week because we have a lot of standing appointments on that day that we had to scramble to rearrange over the week, and then conference made it even harder because we couldn't work very much on Saturday. But we still managed a little bit of missionary work and we have recommitted to working super hard this week and being diligent with the people we do have to work with, as well as finding more people to teach. We got a couple of referrals from Salt Lake over the weekend that we still need to check out. One of them lives on the CBU (Cal Baptist University) campus so that should be an interesting situation.
It's so weird to think that I only have one General Conference left on my mission. That is still a long ways away, but once I have my last Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years in the mission field it will be totally insane to think about how quickly I will be coming home. But I'm loving it here still and everything is going great! Elder Hagler has taught me to have more fun with missionary work, while you're actually doing it. I love teaching people and when you actually see results from your work it's even better, but to just make it fun was something I hadn't really considered. He likes to make jokes while we're seeking with faith and he's also really good about being professional but not too formal in lessons. It is always interesting to see what I can learn from each companion that I serve with.
See you soon,
Elder Cornaby
Unfortunately Vanessa seems to be internalizing a lot of her dad's concerns about her being too naive to make a choice, or not knowing enough yet. We tried to reassure her that she could make the choice for herself and that the Spirit would confirm to her that it was right. But she has lost a lot of confidence in herself, and when we left that lesson Elder Hagler and I both were kind of disappointed and frustrated. But she came to the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference and she absolutely loved it, so we told her to go home and write down how she felt about everything and we're going to talk to her about it next time we see her on Wednesday. Wednesday is going to be a make or break day for her. If she has more confidence and understanding, then she could be interviewed for baptism, but on the flip side if she really believes that she needs as much time as her dad seems to think, then we'll have to pause her. But I'll make sure the missionaries contact her again before I go home if we do end up pausing her. This is one of the few instances I've had to actually pause someone. In the past people have always just kind of disappeared before we could tell them they have to be more committed if they want to keep meeting with us. It's really hard to think that we may have to tell her that this week.
Overall this week was good, but it was very unusual and it kind of threw us out of our groove. This week we had exchanges with the AP's on Wednesday, so that really threw off our whole week because we have a lot of standing appointments on that day that we had to scramble to rearrange over the week, and then conference made it even harder because we couldn't work very much on Saturday. But we still managed a little bit of missionary work and we have recommitted to working super hard this week and being diligent with the people we do have to work with, as well as finding more people to teach. We got a couple of referrals from Salt Lake over the weekend that we still need to check out. One of them lives on the CBU (Cal Baptist University) campus so that should be an interesting situation.
It's so weird to think that I only have one General Conference left on my mission. That is still a long ways away, but once I have my last Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years in the mission field it will be totally insane to think about how quickly I will be coming home. But I'm loving it here still and everything is going great! Elder Hagler has taught me to have more fun with missionary work, while you're actually doing it. I love teaching people and when you actually see results from your work it's even better, but to just make it fun was something I hadn't really considered. He likes to make jokes while we're seeking with faith and he's also really good about being professional but not too formal in lessons. It is always interesting to see what I can learn from each companion that I serve with.
See you soon,
Elder Cornaby