Dear peoples of all the world,
How good was general conference??? Ah! I love the church!!! We have a 7 hour time difference here so we got to stay up till 11 PM to finish the afternoon session wooh!
So, I watched all of the sessions in Portuguese, so I can't quote the speakers word for word, but some of my favorite talks strengthened my testimony of the goodness of God of the restored Gospel. I loved the talk by Elder Christoffersen about God's love; he explained that God's love is not "unconditional" in the common sense, because our response to His love allows us to be partakers of His blessings. One thing that people that we teach don't understand is how God allows bad things to happen in the world - why He doesn't fix everything - and it's because God's love is divine, but not unconditional! He truly loves us, but I think His love is like that of our mortal parents in the sense that they can't force their children to do everything right, and when a crisis happens in a child's life, the parents are obviously concerned and full of love, but they can't just fix all of their child's problems for them! I saw this principle with a less active family that Elder Yoder and I found. We were looking in the member list for people in our area that we didn't know, and we passed by a pretty scetchy house without a lot of expectations, but a little family of a mom, dad, and 18 year old daughter answered the door and said it had been three years since the elders had passed by, and longer since they had been to church! I shared Alma 7:9-11ish with them about the Atonement of Christ and what He feels for that family. They were very moved by the spirit and even came to General Conference, and kept commenting on how the apostles "seemed to know what they needed." It was so amazing! It was the same feeling as anytime I have seen an investigator feel the Spirit for the first time to see this family re-see the blessings of the gospel. They had to partake of God's love to feel it - God always loved them and always will, but because it is not unconditional, they had to act to get that feeling again. Elder Ballards talk also applied well to them (and fortunately that was the session they went too) as he asked, like Peter, "where would (you) go?" In all, I loved conference and saw some very big blessings happen in a lot of peoples lives, and I LOVE the gospel! The church is true!
Follow the words of Elder Andersen and Elder Oaks this week, and be a missionary! How great will be your joy if you bring many unto Him!
Love you all!
- Elder Valentine!
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