It's definitely been a week of lots of highs and lows. General Conference was this past weekend, which was incredible to watch as a missionary. My whole zone got together to watch the first session (which was around 6 pm our time) and just had a ton of treats and cinnamon rolls as we watched our prophets, seers, and revelators give us divinely inspired talks about how "Salvation is a personal matter, but Exaltation is a family one." I think I heard that multiple times that first session, and when you hear something enough times in Conference, you write it down. Anyway, that was a really special experience and I am glad that we were able to watch General Conference all together. On Sunday, all of our lessons fell through and that was a little rough, but we got to watch three more sessions of General Conference! One of my favorite talks was by President M. Russell Ballard. He was unable to read the teleprompter, so he just spoke from memory for his talk and gave a powerful testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He also talked a lot about the blessings of the Restoration, such as how we know the answers to life's most difficult questions: "Who am I? Where did we come from? Where are we going?" I was able to reflect how grateful I was for this gospel. It has blessed my life in countless ways to know that I am a daughter of Heavenly Parents, who have an infinite love for me and know me better than I know myself. I am glad that I have the opportunity to testify that God loves each of us, that we are His children. I also have been listening to each of the prophet and the apostles' testimony of Jesus Christ, and I really loved how President Ballard said, "I know Jesus is the Christ. He is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Best Friend." He is our Best Friend. We recently got a question from a friend asking why Jesus Christ, the Perfect Son of God, suffered so much pain and sorrow, to save us. I have a strong testimony that it is because He loves us more than we can possibly comprehend. I have been reading in the New Testament, trying to learn more about the character of Jesus Christ, and everytime that I read about His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, being mocked, hit, and spit on, and how He was crucified, I have had the spirit testify to me that He did this because He loves us. So, what I learned is that I want to work on being best friends with Him and that I need to learn more about Him.
This Sunday, we were able to go to a member's house for dinner and to watch General Conference. We got there and helped finish making some of the food since it wasn't all done yet. My companion and I got cookie duty and were busy getting cookie dough made for decorating cookies during Conference. Well, in the process of helping, I accidentally tipped over a bottle of Almond flavoring and got it all over my dress and ended up having to wear one of their daughters dresses for Conference. Although the dress was pretty and I smelled great because of the almond flavoring, when Joni L. Koch got up and started talking about how "When we choose not to be humble, we will be humiliated" I had to sit there and laugh at myself a little bit. So, what I learned was that I needed to be humble and think of this as a teaching moment.
On Monday, our lessons fell through, again. The good news was that we were able to watch the last session of General Conference and hear President Nelson speak. It seemed to me that a lot he also mentioned a lot of the common themes in General Conference in his talk, such as the emphasis on families, that we are Children of God, the importance of having deep, meaningful scripture study and prayer, but also tied it all back to one thing: "Think Celestially" It was a great talk and I am so thankful that we got to hear from a living prophet. I also was excited to hear him announce 20 more temples, one of them being the Tulsa, Oklahoma Temple!!! That was so incredible to watch and I am so grateful Tulsa will be getting a temple!
On Tuesday, again, almost all of our lessons canceled on us. However, one of our members called us and said that he and a couple other members wanted to help more with finding people and building up the Istanbul Branch in Turkey, which was super cool. We later called some people and one person that I called spoke only French. He wanted to stay on the call and I had to be like the only French I know is
"Bonjour, je m'appelle Peyton. Au revoir." He understood at least the name part and responded with his name and another question. I kept putting things into google translate, listening to them, and then trying to say it to him on the phone before I eventually just hung up. We also called another guy who answered and kept telling me that my Turkish was very weak, which was kind. He kept going off how I needed to at least know some Turkish if I was going to teach. Eventually, after a very long conversation about all of that, the phone call ended and I just burst out laughing. This guy was not very kind on the phone and was not being patient at all, so, if he ever really wants to learn about the gospel, I hope that he calls again and we can have a real discussion.
We had our Zone Conference yesterday, which was super fun! It was great to hear ways that we could improve our finding and I got some insights into some doctrinal topics. The focus of the conference was repentance, and it was really great to hear everyone's testimony of the power of the atonement and the importance of daily repentance. I also learned a little something about being meek and again had the thought that we need to be teachable and not prideful. Overall, it was a really special experience and I am so glad we got to hear from everyone.
There definitely were some really happy moments this week and some not-so-happy moments this week, but overall I learned so much about becoming a better missionary and a better person. I have a testimony that this is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I highly recommend listening to the talks from General Conference, especially President Nelsons talk about thinking celestially. I am so thankful for living prophets!
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