Monday, October 5, 2015

Wow.... Conference was incredible. Never in my life have I actually stayed up and intently listened and taken notes on every single speaker. I was able to listen in English. I have about 25 pages of notes from conference. I am so very grateful for the divine callings of prophets and apostles and for their willingness to give their whole souls to the Lord. There are so many talks I would like to talk about, but there is no where near enough time to share all my thoughts. I'll start with a few ideas I pulled out of the general spirit of conference. First the plan of salvation is real, God exists and Christ does too, they work through divinely called leaders in the church. Second, what we learn in the scriptures and from the word of prophets and apostles are not just good words to hear, they are things to apply. Application of what we learn is essential to holding on to the "old ship zion" we can not jump out and try to swim to exaltation on our own. Third, the sacrament is so incredibly important to our lives and to our salvation. We received very strong correction from Francisco J. Viñas, as he told us we should not be late to sacrament and we should not arrive without preparing ourselves before. Go back and watch that one... from the first session on Saturday, and the talk by Elder Eyring was super good too where he spoke of the role of the spirit in our lives through the sacrament. Fourth, the men that are called as leaders of the church are men called of God, we need to sustain them by applying the things they teach, if we do not apply what we learn, they serve us no purpose. My question is how long will it be until we forget what was taught. 1 week... 2 weeks..,. a month? ...or do we have to wait 6 months to relearn and reapply.... if you ask me each conference is a step in a staircase to exaltation. Are we just jumping up and down on the first step or are we slowly making our way up the stairs building ourselves upwards off of each step. We need to apply everyday until it is habit, that is how we become like christ, apply what we have learned in our hearts, nuestro corezones. I'd like to share a few of my notes from one of the talks, one of my favorites. 

This is from some of my reflection on conference.

" The Talk by Larry R. Lawrence is one of my favorite talks thus far into conference. First thing is first we must be humble and teachable and if we are, the Lord will take us by the hand and show us the way. Then we must pray and if we are to receive an answer we must be willing to act when we receive that answer. That is part of being teachable. As we ask humble, sincere questions in prayer, the spirit will give us personalized answers that may shock us. The spirit is going to be honest with us. Sacrament is the perfect time to reflect on ourselves and ask the question "what lack I yet." Elder Lawrence then gave us a commitment (in spanish we say compromiso... not sure if that's a good translation) to kneel down and sincerely and humbly ask "what is keeping me from progression?" with the desire and humility to act on whatever answer we receive. the speed of our progression is nowhere near as important as is our direction, towards Exaltation." 

Before my mission I knew nothing... suddenly it is as if my eyes are opening, I am understanding things in my heart that I always knew in my mind. This is crucial I think to our progression... the growth of understanding in one's heart... there is so much more I would like to share but my words are not the prophets, for this reason I invite all of you to get on the church website and watch these talks again and take heartfelt notes even on things you do not think apply to you. I'd like to end with my reflections on elder Holland's talk. 

As usual Jeffrey R holland gave a powerful talk specifically of and too mothers. Christ's love for us is just like that of a mothers, never failing. This love of a mother to her child is divine and because it is divine children can cause their mothers great pain, the same way they cause the savior pain. I echo the word of Elder Holland, but specifically to my mother "Thank you, you are doing Better than you think you are."

Want to know more about what the Prophet asked of us?  Click on the link below:

https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/october-2015-general-conference-invitations-from-the-prophet?cid=HP_SU_10-4-2015_dPTH_fCNWS_xLIDyL1-A_&lang=eng

This link below will take you to all of the wonderful conference talks spoken about above:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2015/10?lang=eng