My lone picture this week... the zoneeeeee
This week has been... well quite ordinary, to be honest with all of you. Except for... GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! Man oh man, that was just out of this world. If you didn't get a chance, I highly suggest you go to lds.org and listen to the talks. It was overall so motivating and it just felt like I was persistently slapped in the face with the Spirit. And that is one good feeling, my friends.
One of the talks that really inspired me was President Uchtdorf's in the General Women's Session (yes, we are a little late getting that). I loved his focus on faith. One of the questions that I went to conference with was how I could continually strengthen and build my faith, and his talk immediately made me feel the assurance that the Lord was aware of my question, and it was answered so beautifully. And of course I loved the FOURTH FLOOR, LAST DOOR. Gave me some good motivation in the missionary work. The miracles come after we put in all of our effort and have FAITH. I wish I could tell you all about some cool experience we had with the last door this week... but it hasn't happened quite yet. But I'll be sure to inform you when it does!
Here is a section from President Uchtdorf's talk that I loved:
"Faith is a strong conviction about something we believe -- a conviction so strong that it moves us to do things that we otherwise might not do. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
"While this makes sense to believing people, it is often confusing to nonbelievers. They shake their heads and ask, 'How can anyone be certain of what they cannot see?' To them, this is eveidence of the irrationality of religion.
"What they fail to understand is that there are more ways to see than with our eyes, more ways to feel than with our hands, more ways to hear than with our ears.
"It's something like the experience of a young girl who was walking with her grandmother. The song of the birds was glorious to the little girl, and she pointed out every sound to her grandmother.
"'Do you hear that?' the little girl asked again and again. But her grandmother was hard of hearing and could not make out the sounds.
"Finally the grandmother knelt down and said, 'I'm sorry, dear. Grandma doesn't hear so well.'
"Exasperated, the little girl took her grandmother's face in her hands, looked intently into her eyes, and said, 'Grandma, listen harder!'
"There are lessons in this story for both the nonbeliever and the believer. Just because we can't hear something doesn't mean there is nothing to hear. Two people can listen to the same message or read the same scripture, and one might feel the witness of the Spirit while the other doesn't.
"On the other hand, in our efforts to help our loved ones experience the voice of the Spirit and the vast, eternal, and profound beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, telling them to 'listen harder' may not be the most helpful way.
"Perhaps better advice for anyone who wants to increase faith is to listen differently. The Apostle Paul encourages us to seek the voice that speaks to our spirit, not just to our ears. He taught, 'The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.'"
Loved this talk.
Sorry my email doesn't have a lot of jazziness. I'm trying to think of what I could do to spice it up...
I found out that the punctuation mark "." is not called a "period" here, it is called a "full stop." I got the weirdest response from my foreign pals over here when I tried to call it a period.
Also, the chapel here is constantly FREEZING. Typing this email has been a struggle because my fingers are moving at the speed of a snail. I felt like I was in the tundra throughout all of conference, but it was still SO GOOD.
OK I love you all! Have an amazing week!
Love,
Sister Syddall
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