Conferencia General #3

"It's been the best of times, and it's been the best of times" - me because it's been a good week 

I think for the past two weeks I've been telling my companion "man, I just don't understand why I am not satisfied with my work" but the Lord has been giving me a lot of inspiration this week on how to change my thoughts about it. Here is what I found: 

> It's not that I am not satisfied, it's that sometimes I lack the patience and negate all of the seeds planted. Because I have been satisfied with my work from time to time. 

> Being Present means that you will be present for the good and the bad things. Both are needed. It's been one of my goals to be more present in life and seeing it that way makes me feel a lot more excited that I have been seeing more personal growth. 

> This one is simple but is just profound to me: Missionary work involves love and just trying to do what the Savior did. If I can define my success based on how much love I have put into others, well, I have loved a TON. A lot more than I could have ever imagined possible. And I know that I have helped out friends feel Christ's love. 

> there's a couple of ways of finding Joy in life. One is finding joy in redemption. 

I'm starting the my plan course right now and it's been interesting. They gave me 3 boxes to write down all that I have learned on my mission. One of them I put down is to never make decisions when you are tired, upset, angry, or any other vulnerable state like that. It's been one of the greatest life lessons ever. If I had allowed myself to make the choice to go home during those times when I felt that way, I would have been home 9 months ago. 

I have been studying grace for a couple of weeks. I heard it a lot in my Grandma's Baptist church when I was younger, and I had no idea what that word was. But to define it in my terms, it is the power that God gives us to redeem us, and then transform us to become like Jesus Christ. To recieve Grace, it's a delicate balance of trying to come to him but realizing you fall short and you need his help. It takes Faith and Humility as well. But studying about it has me convinced now that anyone can recieve help and recieve the power to change through Jesus Christ. 

I saw Kelsey Johnson in the Logan Temple!! She was a missionary that served in my home ward back in Florida. It was so cool to see her! 

We had a good talk with the STL's during our exchange. Hermana Palafox told me that a friend that I met in J2 was baptized! His name was Santos! He was such a cool person. I was so happy to hear about that news. Miracles do happen after the missions of other missionaries too. 

We went up to Malad Idaho this week and went to a stake coordination meeting. Idaho has a different but good different vibe than Utah. They found out that I have 2 months left and they mentioned 5 or 6 times in the meeting that I need to meet this Elder that served here in Malad when I go back to SVU, it was hilarious. But they really want us to start working in their stake and we walked out with 2 referrals which was so awesome! 

Me and my companion participated in what might be the weirdest service I have ever participated in. We got asked to do our dances that we did at the Fiesta International.... at a care center. All the (what should I say...seniors?) Were just watching us dance and it was OK. It wasn't bad but it was interesting. 

Would you pray for Presidente Ruiz? Our mission president announced in one of our mission zooms that his cancer is terminal. He was such a help as a counselor in the mission presidency, especially for us Spanish Missionaries. It's been hard losing people, especially when you know them. 

We met this refugee from Guatemala and we read a scripture with her (it was not the right one... 2 Nephi 1:7) and apparently one of the words in the scriptures is a bad word in Guatemala. In English it translates to "curse" so it was an eye opener for me. 

Ok CONFERENCE TIME 

We were like 50 feet from the authorities on the pulpit. It was so close! And 10 feet away from us (in the same row of seats) was sister Bonnie H. Tyler and Sister Kraven? Craigin? Another past general authority. 

Shoutout to all of these people I saw

Hermana Seagraves 

Mackenna Jones 

I'm pretty sure that Hermana Asmus's mom was serving in the Tabernacle choir. It was so cool!

My Sister!!!!

So my sister decided to try to catch me after the Saturday Morning session, well I had to go straight to the train after. So apparently she came sprinting from the Conference Center (she was a runner in High school) and comes up behind me on my walk to the train and says "LAUREN VESTEL" and tackles me. I saw her, cried for like 20 seconds and we caught up. I was worried that I would feel super trunky after seeing her but it actually did the opposite for me. I feel like I have a stronger desire to finish these few weeks that I have left. 

So many great messages came out of Conference. I'm out of space to explain how I feel about it but I am SO excited that there's a temple in Roanoake Virginia! That's around an hour from SVU campus!! If it gets built in 4 years maybe I'll get to go inside. If not I'm totally visiting it anyways.

Jerald and his family watched the sunday morning session of Conference with a member family and us. He brought his sister too! As we were eating after she asked "where is my grandpa right now?" And we started smiling and bringing up scriptures about the Plan of Salvation and she was like "Thank you". She said that she has felt the Spirit once in her life in the Cristina Evangélica church... until right then as we were teaching her. We said "no thank you! This is all we do for 18 months! This is what gets us excited!"  

Hermana Vestel 

P.S. let me know if anyone else would like to read these emails! I would love to add them!