Well, one more week down off the mission, only nine months left (not like I'm counting or anything haha)! It feels like I'm always here in these cybers writing you guys, or in other words, it feels like the weeks keep feeling shorter and shorter. I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing or a bad thing though. It's crazy to think that I now have the same amount of time as many of the older missionaries that I used to look up to have. You could say I'm getting closer and closer to reaching my 'prime'; the time where a missionary's been out for a considerable amount of time and knows what he's doing but not to the point where they're planning and thinking about going home soon. I would say the most successful time of a missionary's mission is anywhere between 16 and 21 months so I'm pretty close to getting there haha.
I've still been feeling kind of tired this past week, a little bit better but I'm pretty sure I'll be alright and make it through it okay haha. My comp and I have been working a lot this week but General Conference definitely gave us a nice break from everything.
Some of you guys asked about my thoughts on General Conference and to be honest I really liked it a lot. I feel like some of the major themes that were spoken about were: the Plan of Salvation, personal conversion and testimony, the importance of keeping the commandments, and being in the world but not a part of it. One thing I love about watching General Conference now as a missionary is that I can better understand the role of prophets and their importance to us as sons and daughters of God. Over the mission I've been able to better develop a testimony of the importance of following the counsel of living prophets. My favorite talk (really hard to choose just one) was probably President Uchtdorf's Saturday Morning Session talk where he talked about the gospel and that, while it is really deep and the doctrine being almost endless, what really matters are the basics of it and that we should always remember that we're members of the Church to be able to live again with our Heavenly Father, and not, for example, living it just to make sure we were 100% in our home teaching for the month.
I went on splits with my zone leader, Elder Bernhisel, on Friday and we had a good conversation about the same thing. So many members overly focus on the insignificant parts of the gospel and lose sight of what's truly important, eternal life. The gospel is so comprehensive that it takes more than a lifetime to fully understand, but at the same time it is so simple that even the youngest child can understand it. The gospel is so perfect and I love it.
I also really enjoyed Elder Larry R. Lawrence's talk about from where, and how, we can receive personal revelation to help us in our everyday lives.
It was a really great week and I know the Lord's been blessing me so much. I love being able to learn new things through the Spirit just about life at any time of the day. The Spirit has taught me so much out here, I don't know where I'd be today if I hadn't decided to serve a mission.
I think that was about my week, hopefully I didn't forget to mention anything but I just wanted to let you all know that I love each and every one of you. Through each of your examples and support you've helped me become the person that I am today. Have a great week and try and make the effort to watch or read each of the talks again this week!
Con amor,
Elder Thayne