Great week at conference! I hope you all got to watch it because every talk was amazing and seemed to highlight different aspects of the gospel. That's one of the amazing things about conference is that they're not assigned topics, but always seem to talk about what the church members need to hear most. Which just goes to show that these talks truly are revealed, which makes it even more important for us to heed, ponder, and apply their messages.
I really liked the talks from Elder Christofferson and Elder Bednar talking about gospel truths. They highlighted some great aspects about how essential it is for us to not only apply these truths in our lives, but share them with others.
This theme of truth was what we shared with Machat in our lesson with him this week. He watched conference with his family which was great, and he said that Elder Bednar's talk was his favorite. Which I thought was perfect because Elder Bednar was specifically addressing non-members in that talk. So we chose to elaborate more on it. We read the account of Enos, which Elder Bednar briefly read from, and talked about the importance of gospel truths and the joy that comes when we apply these truths in our lives. Many of us may start off searching, wandering, or like Enos with a hungering soul. But when we apply these gospel truths and the gift of the Atonement in our lives, there truly is no greater joy, as is demonstrated in the case of Enos.
This week we also took a member out with us to see this less-active/part member family, the Sylvester family who we had that experience with in branch council just a few weeks ago. They have three girls, which I actually worked with while I was in McCully ward in my first area. We'd tried to get into their house several times, but with no avail. We took this member with us and he got in right away. We set up for a return appointment this next week and are going back to teach their two unbaptized girls again on Thursday! Their family has a lot of struggles. Their only son, and oldest child, is in jail in Arizona, and the mom suffered a huge stroke a few years ago leaving her only able to move half of her body. But they used to be strong members in the church, and we hope to get them back.
We also met this girl named Rako. She came here from the Marshall Islands to deliver her second child, and she's only 17... But she has a great desire to learn about the gospel and change her life. She doesn't speak a word of English, so it's been a great experience for me and my son to work on our Marshallese. She's also living with her cousin who just recently got baptized so we're really excited to teach her. The only set back is she's going back to the Marshall Islands for a month to get everything worked out for her to move back here permanently. But she says she can't wait to come back and be baptized!
So just a few exciting things happening for us here in Hawaii. Hope all is well with you.
Love you guys!
-Elder Merrill
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