Our conference Wednesday was great as usual. It´s always awesome to be able to see all the other Elders I know and be able to hear from our inspired leaders. I know that President Chavez receives revelation for us. He told us he strongly believes that God has seen how we´ve been working here in Chile (we´ve more than doubled the baptisms since he´s been here) and that he manifested his power unto the people of this Mission (the epicenter of the earthquake was in our Mission) and that he´s preparing a people to receive the Temple. Speaking of the temple I´d love to come back down for the dedication, that´d be so cool. Anyways like every conference we heard talks purely of The Atonement, our responsibility to teach the Gospel, and Eternity. Our President came up with something that he calls ¨The Vision.” It´s been in place since I got here, but basically we don´t teach anything more until the people hear, understand, and accept The Atonement, and understand that Baptism FOR IMMERSION and the remission of sins is the only way we can return to God. I always love those mission conferences and this conference was just special. My whole District from the MTC was there because of transfers, minus Elder Wilhelm, and it was sooo great to see all those guys. I was just filled with love and peace to be with my fellow missionaries, and really had my testimony strengthened that everyone in that room had been called by God, and we´re the only ones here in Chile Authorized to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There was a funny part of Conference too. Elder Hadfield ( you remember him right?) sang a special number and began singing the wrong words to the tune of a complete other Hymn, he stopped in the middle and just started laughing and said ¨What am I singing?¨ Everyone was laughing, it was great. As far as General Conference goes, shoot it was great! There were so many topics and I had many personal doubts and questions answered. The one thing that I can say that I learned from Conference is that Family is everything. Sooo many amazing talks on the family and how we can help each other make it back to our Heavenly Father. Also so many good talks for the Youth of our church (Mckay and Amy better have been listening!!! Follow the Prophet, Follow the Prophet, Follow the Prophet, He knows the way). You guys are in some of the most dangerous but awesome years of your life. Follow the simple council of Search (the scriptures), Ponder, and Pray, and keep the commandments and you´ll be alright. I can´t count all the promised blessings that were given by Prophets, Seers, and Revelators, we just have to do our part and follow their council and it will come to pass. I can´t wait for the May issues of the Liahona and Ensign. I feel that I´m definitely a better person from that Conference. As far as my favorite talks, I´m not going to lie I don´t remember much of what was said, but I do remember how I felt. The good thing is that I took 21 pages of notes to review to remember what they all said haha so I´ll tell you which talks were my favorite next week when I have my notebook of notes, but as President Monson said, I also believe this was one of the greatest Conferences that has ever taken place. We had 6 investigators come to listen to the Prophets and Apostles so that was really great. Ivonne was baptized yesterday too!!! It´s an exciting time here as we´ve been working more with our Lider Misional, haha i mean ward mission leader (shoot I can´t think in English when it comes to Missionary work) and we are going to start working to find Incomplete families who have been less active for a while, to bring them back to church, and baptize their kids!! Anyways I think it´s a great plan, cuz doing contacts can only get you so far. Maria José did not come to church for her cousins baptism and we were bummed for that. She was progressing SO well and was so ready to be baptized this Sunday, but during this week she´s been going to all the wrong sources for answers. She asked her Catholic priest about what he thinks about the Mormon Church, and he told her that we still practice polygamy and are in favor of abortions. I´m sure there´s more crap that he´s told her, but those were what she told us last night when we taught her again. She told us in the past when she asked God if she should be baptized and just felt peace and started crying and wanted to do it, but now her family is completely against it, she´s talking to Catholic priests, and not putting her trust in the best source, God. We told her that she already received an answer, it´s up to her to make this decision, but that she should purely trust in God and not trust in the arm of the flesh. I told her to read the Book of Mormon every day, and pray specifically asking if she should be baptized the 18th of April, and that we are going to do her interview this Wednesday. Hopefully she completes with her part, so she can receive more confidence and spiritual strength. Pray for her, as we will be doing. We had a few other people that should have come to church that didn´t come but it´s okay cuz they still have time before their baptismal date falls, and we´ve had several tell us they want to be baptized, we just have to take care of them and do all we can to help them avoid Satan´s subtle attacks. Anyways the work is awesome, true, powerful, crazy, amazing, and we´re TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!! P.S. I´m looking forward to the next conference session in October haha I love conference now. I miss Utah, I´ve decided that it´s the land of the Prophets. I miss the strength of the Church and the members there. I really feel like a shepherd sometimes here, as we always have to search, and round up our sheep here CONSTANTLY or they go astray. As the Nephite Prophets said, I too feel like a Stranger in a Foreign Land, but I´m doing the Lord´s Work and I know that even though it´s hard here now, ¨The end will be better than the beginning¨ I liked that quote from Conference.
Anyways I love you all, Mom, Dad, Mckay, Amy, Ashley, Jardin, Chelsi, Jeff, and the punks Talmage, Cadence, and Addie. Oh and Nestle and Toby of course, and thank you all for your prayers and love.
Tanner
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