Generally Great

Uram khugarmaap khyiten boloo,
To be honest this week was a bit difficult near the end, but if anything will keep you up it’s general conference.  We had 4 baptismal interviews set for Sunday evening after conference.  Unfortunately Nacantogton's 2 year old got sick and had to be taken to the hospital where he'll be spending the next week with her.  Our golden investigator Navchaa went completely AWOL on us and we still haven’t been able to contact her since.  We met with Jargalmaa and Ankhaa right before their interviews and it was apparent that something was up.  We had known that their family was shaman, but it came out that their older brother was one of the priests and that she had been chosen to be a translator.  In any case the two of them had serious doubts and reconsiderations and the interviews became unnecessary.  Afterwards we walked the two of them home and everything turned out alright, but it was a bit of a rough evening for my companion and me.  It definitely recharged our focus on teaching for deeper conversion and preparing even better than we have been for baptism.  A bit of a tough lesson, but I think we'll both come out the other side better missionaries for it.

Wow! That was a bit of a downer, but 10 hours of General Conference was anything but. And it was highlighted by Elder Boyd, Elder Williams and myself taking a lady in a wheel chair a couple of blocks to her house after a session.  I’m still not sure if you can understand how strange three white guys pushing a lady in a wheel chair is but we collected quite the number of fantastic stares from passersby.
 

If you watched none or all of conference you should probably take the two hours to watch the Sunday morning session over again.  That might have been the single greatest session of conference of all time.
 

I’m not sure it was an overall theme, but mentioned several times was the idea of leaving your nets, whatever your nets may be, and come unto Christ.  We all of course have times when we feel a little closer to the Savior and have a renewed desire to do what’s right and follow him.  But it takes real commitment and courage to leave our “nets” for good and choose the path of the disciple as a way of life.

It's hard not to pick Elder Holland as your favorite speaker from conference, but right up there with him was President Eyring’s talk about breaking down the pavilions that we have built, obstructing God.  I love the line he included when talking about his making decisions to stay at Ricks College.  In answer to prayer he knew that the Lord would allow him to stay a bit longer.  And so it is with struggles and trials that we go through.  The Lord tells us, “you know what I'm going to let you struggle a little longer because in the end it will be for your benefit.”  How terrible would it be if as according to the plan of the adversary we weren’t able to experience trails or adversity and thus had no ability to grow. Just like Elder Bowen's talk who commented wouldn’t it be terrible if we couldn’t grieve because we didn’t know love strong enough to do so?  What an amazing force love is between the members of a family.  Although Elder Oaks talk was a bit on the sad side it was an amazing reminder of the amazing family that I have been blessed to be a part of. Elder Uchtdorf’s talk had me thinking about how grateful for the times we have set aside to be to together. Lastly Elder Richard G Scott’s talk on the temple got me supercharged to go back to the temple everyday for the rest of my life.  Especially for all of the Mongolian saints who live so far away from one here. Now its countdown till the Ensign comes out in a month so I can read all the talks again. Can’t wait!

Well, sitting next to Elders Lloyd and Boyd for the last hour and a half greatly inhibited my writing ability this week.

We'll try harder next time
Elder Neuberger