Conferencia General

This was a fantastic week for our church as we enjoyed receiving instruction and council from our Prophet and other church leaders.  There were so many inspiring messages and counsel to help us improve our faith, strengthen our family, and grow closer to Christ.  I am including a few of Ryan's thoughts about conference that he shared with different people:

So the first conference here in the field was amazing, I enjoyed it so much!  I actually talked to president to see if we could watch it in English, and he said he recommends that those language missionaries watch it in English, because the revelation you can receive during it is such a blessing and an amazing opportunity we have.  We didn't have any of the people we are working with come to the church to watch it, but I guess we can always hope that they tuned in on their own on tv or the website.  Honestly the whole 2 hour church thing just makes sense in the time we are in, especially from a missionary standpoint.  I think the importance of receiving revelation individually rather than just being given lessons is so important.  This new way will give the opportunity for people to grow their individual testimonies and just grow much stronger in the long run.  As well as the family was mentioned so much as being crucial for a place to learn the gospel.  And this will lead to a family that is just centered and structured to securely in the gospel when it is properly used.  This conference was just amazing, and the revelation they gave us was something I loved his week.  Honestly I have realized how important it is to heed to their words.  As President Nelson said in one of his talks.  "As we do these things we will have blessings like we have never seen before poured out on us"  it was something like that.  And I think if we take that and honestly strive to do and heed to the words, we will be able to take part in that deeper amount of blessings in our lives.  

I got to see conference live, I was very blessed to do so, and man was it just amazing?  It shows the importance that nowadays we need to have that personal conversion and be able to receive the personal revelation if we want our testimonies to be unwavering throughout the trials that are in the world.  We are very blessed to be able to receive that kind of revelation, and I think the more we try and change and apply conference in our lives now that it has happened, the more and more blessing we will see and the further the work all over the world, and in our homes, will be.

It was crazy with the whole church change, but I think overall it'll better test and prepare those of the church.  It leads more room for that personal growth and revelation, and it'll show who has faith to study on their own outside of the church setting, and who just takes it as they have an hour of more nap time on Sundays now.  I think it absolutely makes sense and the opportunities with it are immense if we strive to use it with the guidance of the Lord.

Group Letter:

Hey everyone!  It was a great week here in Minnesota!  I'll start by giving you all the crazy things that happened here.  So in the beginning of the week we were giving this lesson outside and it was going really well and then the tornado alarms started going off all throughout the city, and for those who don't know, they pretty much sound exactly like air raid sirens.  So we wrapped up our lessons and let our person get inside as to not fret, and me and my companion just kept on biking through the day, and all was well with us, no problems and no tornados.  

We got some insane rain this week here, and that just soaked us, and made us miss our car quite a bit, but hey what can you do?  We rode through all the puddles and just accepted it all.  When you have something like that, what can you do besides look at the good side and take the best from it?  That is applicable with everything.  Me and my companion also found a loaded wallet on the side of the road this week, and in trying to return it, we found out this guy is on the government watch list and whatnot, so we just dropped it at the police station and decided to leave it at that haha.  

Also one cool experience is for the past weeks we have been texting this less active "Soribeth" trying to set up a time and meet with her.  Well it turns out that we had the wrong number, and the person we were texting just went with us using the wrong name.  So we finally went over and at the house we realized this was not Soribeth's house, so we kinda just were a little bit thrown.  So we followed through anyways and it turns out it was a less active family that had been wanting to meet with the missionaries and figure out whether to come back or not, so blessings in the most crazy way right there, even if it was a VERY long bike ride away.  

So finally I just want to bring up conference that we were blessed to have this weekend.  I wanna say that I heed you all to follow every word the prophet says.  Because he isn't saying that words from himself, he is merely the spokesperson.  And I encourage you all to take this church change to heart and strive to make it as meaningful as possible.  It is inspired, and in these coming days in "Preparing for the second coming" we will need to all be so strong individually and be close as families if we want to survive all that Satan plans to throw at us.  So study the talks that we were given in those two days and follow their counsel.  They are men of God, and if you will take their words and do all you can to be exactly obedient and change from what you heard, God will not hold back in the blessings that He gives to you.  Now is the time, don't be afraid to be a member of His church.

So that was this week in a nutshell for all of you.  I hope you all continue to have a good time in your different places and keep on doing the good things of life, God loves you all

-Elder Pickering

For general conference our family always makes cinnamon rolls.  I was proud that Ryan kept up the tradition.