June 8, 2015

Thank you so much for the hymn book and the posters. They came the day after you ordered them and I was so confused when I got it. I had no idea who had ordered them and wasn't sure where it had come from. My companion was dying of curiosity of who had sent it to me. And now we know. =P

This week was pretty good. 

On Tuesday, we had companion exchanges and I was with a brand-new sister training leader Hna Wolfley. She's from Idaho I think and it was pretty fun. No one was home during the entire day and we got completely soaked but we got a few laughs out of it. 

Wednesday, we had an amazing conference with President Christensen. It was his last conference and so it was a little different. We talked a bit about fasting which was great because I honestly have felt that I didn't really know the way to fast. However, thanks to all that we talked about I was able to better enjoy the fast that I did this last weekend.

We also talked a lot about marriage and families. President gave us a time at the end of the conference to ask whatever question we wanted. First, we were asking about doctrinal things or how to better help our families when we got home. Then I asked him how he knew that Hna Christensen was the one with whom he wanted to be with for eternity. I loved the answer he and Hna Christensen gave. They talked about spiritual impressions and asking the Lord to know if they should get married. I had also asked this question to a couple who I absolutely adore and they said the same thing. That they had received the spiritual guidance to know that they should get married. This brought a lot of comfort to me and I know to a few other sisters because, just like President mentioned, we're all afraid of marriage. Thank goodness I'm a missionary! =P

I also had the great opportunity to talk with President one on one. I had been struggling a lot lately and was becoming concerned. We talked about many things but one of them that touched me was the "filters" in our lives. He explained to me that we all have filters and frameworks in our minds that take our life experiences and turn them into meaning. Some times the filters are good. For example, one can take a mistake that we made and recognize it and cause us to say, "Well, that was silly but tomorrow will be better and I won't do it again." However, sometimes they can be bad and take the same mistake and recognize it and cause us to say, "I'm horrible. I can't believe that I did that. I'm never going to change." These filters are built up by our parents, our teachers, and some friends and affect all of our lives.