I hope you had a great week and a great conference weekend! This week went well for us. It seems like every week goes by faster than the last. One highlight this week was teaching one of our investigators, Juan Carlos. I know I mentioned him when we started teaching him a few weeks ago. He´s progressing really well and has a baptismal date scheduled for the 31st of this month. On Thursday we taught him and the bishop´s wife accompanied us. We talked about the Word of Wisdom and the Atonement, and how the Atonement can help us to overcome our addictions. As we were leaving the bishop´s wife told us that during the lesson she thought of a church video that she wanted Juan Carlos to see, so went with him to the bishop´s house the next day to watch it. It´s called "In the Master´s Hands" (or something like that), and it was such a powerful lesson. I had never seen the video, but it´s really good. We talked about the worth of souls and how God sees us for what we can become, and how He helps us to reach our potential. I was so, so grateful to Hermana Hernández (the bishop´s wife) for receiving the inspiration to watch it with him. Members are so crucial to this work!
So Saturday was absolutely nuts. The first session of Conference was going to be broadcast live in our building at 11, but we left the house at 9:30 because Alejandro, our recent convert who was baptized last week, wanted to go to all four sessions of conference and we weren´t able to find anyone with a truck who could take him in his wheelchair, so we picked him up and walked to the Church. It was an adventure, but he was so determined to see all the sessions. After dropping him off we went with a sister in the ward to pick up a couple of investigators and arrived at the church a couple of minutes before 11. We walked into the chappel were surprised when the broadcast wasn´t going. They were having major technical difficulties and couldn´t get it to work. One elder managed to pull up the audio on a member´s phone and we listened to the first two talks, and halfway through the third talk they got the broadcast to work. It lasted until the talk was finished, but then went out again and they announced that there was no internet connection in the area. So one of the ward members took our investigators to another building to catch the last 40 minutes while we stayed with Alejandro, trying to figure out how to get him to another building. The bishop from another ward ended up being able to help us take him, and we arrived in time to hear the closing hymn by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was honestly so crazy that it was hard to feel the Spirit and enjoy the Conference, but it all worked out! I was especially grateful that our investigators were able to go and see at least a part of the conference. Yesterday we were able to see both sessions and the morning session was my favorite. I loved President Nelson´s talk most of all. I absolutely love General Conference and can´t wait to go back and read the talks. When I asked you to sent me the conference Ensign a few months ago Mom, I set the goal to read all of the last session´s conference talks before this conference. And I´m so glad I did! I feel like i got so much out of them, reading them for a second time. I´m planning on doing it again with this conference.
Well, I love you all so much and hope you have a fantastic week! I´ll be praying for you lots. Thanks for all of the emails and for the pillowcase! I love it and put it on my pillow. I love you and it won´t be long before I see you again. :)
Love,
Love,
Hermana Southard
pictures:
1. A family from another ward that we met yesterday in between sessions
2. Alejandro wanted a picture with the elders: Elder Kemp, Elder Maldonado, Elder Buhler, and Elder Pérez
