Best Stake Conference Ever

With a smile on my face I will preface this post by stating that I never met a Stake President that wasn't "super legit."  The last two paragraphs of Elder Wedam's letter are my favorite, both sharing several true principles that warm a mother's heart.  Warning: contagious enthusiasm abounds! Have a good good day. Monica

November 18, 2013

Well, my beloved peeps,

A really crazy week.  Elder Erekson and I were given an assignment to give a 40 minute presentation at Stake Conference Adult Session this last week about how members can help full-time missionaries with missionary work.  I'll say more than this, but I want to preface this next paragraph with God really does work miracles; we did really good and the Spirit was super strong in that meeting (with Elder Erekson's talent at the language and my inherent charm, we had everybody listening and participating).

So, we talked about the work of salvation... it encompasses 5 parts:

1) Member Missionary Work

2) Retention of Recent Converts

3) Less Active Reactivation

4) Temple and Family History

5) Teach the Gospel

And we talked about Member Missionary Work through referrals  and Less Active Reactivation through home teaching and visiting teaching.  We had members participating with discussion questions (Terry and Whitney, thank you so much for telling me your favorite mission scriptures.  They came in handy at this stake conference... as did the fact that I had really awesome home teaching companions and our family always had really awesome home teachers), and, then we told members that missionaries need the members to help in the effort of finding and teaching people.  What ensued was a fairly elderly man complimenting us on the preparation we put into the presentation and adding some really helpful comments of his own, members feeling the spirit of missionary work (which resulted in us having lunch and receiving/contacting a referral), and well, it lasted into the next day when literally EVERY member of the stake who attended the night before told us that they felt something while we were speaking and that we did really good (one man even said that it was his favorite part of the entire night).  The stake president, 이인호 회장님 is super legit.  He really tied everything together, saying that really, members have the responsibility to help missionaries... to help us find people to teach, to help us learn the language, and to help us teach.  I walked away from that Stake Conference feeling more spiritually edified than I have from a lot of other church meetings.

So, another thing to add to my "Things Accomplished" list.  Work tandem with my companion to give a 40 minute presentation at  a Stake Conference in Korea.  I know I definitely didn't think I'd be doing that when I took Korean at school some 4 years ago.  President Furniss and Sister Furniss always tried helping us believe that we can do hard things.  It's totally true.  I can do hard things.  Impossible things, actually.  But with God's help, these impossible things are possible.

I prayed so hard beforehand for us to be able to teach with spiritual power; we did all we could given what we had and knew to prepare.  And it happened.  I didn't speak the language perfectly, but my message wasn't lost.  The Holy Ghost, not me, taught.  And I'm grateful that Heavenly Father answers prayers on a dime like that.  If our desires are in line with His, we can accomplish hard, impossible things.

I love you so much.  I can honestly say that when I speak of family and friends, only the best of memories come out.  Among all the blessings of serving a mission, one of the best is having the ability to speak fondly of family and friends, and to speak of them in such a way for the benefit of the people I teach.

Until next week.

Elder Wedam