October 12, 2015

Dear Family,

Well everyone was so happy to watch conference last week weren't they?
Spoiler alerts all over my email. In Japan, we receive the live
translations of General Conference. As soon as conference is over they
mail us DVDs. But this means I'm a week behind Conference Craziness.

I don't care I'm still going to talk about it. Also, because we're
such a small group, and our leader lives so far we only actually
watched one session and it was in Portuguese. No, I'm not fluent yet,
so that was a blast. The following is my impression from reading
General Conference from the Gospel Library in my free time (no I'm
still not finished with them all):

Of course I loved Elder Nelson's talk all about women. Of course I
enjoyed hearing from three new apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ (side
note: Bishop Stevenson and Elder Rasband both came to Japan! I shook
the hands of apostles before they were apostles!) 

But my favorite talk was "It Works Wonderfully!" by Elder Utchdorf. This is my favorite
excerpt. I've written it down in my own handwriting and replaced the
"we"s with "me"s and I read it every day:
"Sometimes I feel discouraged because I am not more of
something--more spiritual, respected, intelligent, healthy, rich,
friendly, or capable. Naturally, there is nothing wrong with wanting
to improve. God created me to grow and progress. But remember, my
weaknesses can help me to be humble and turn me to Christ, who will
make weak things become strong. And Satan, on the other hand, uses my
weaknesses to the point that I am discouraged from even trying.
I learned in my life that we don't need to be more of anything to
start to become the person God intended us to become.

God will take me as I am at this very moment and begin to work with
me. All I need is a willing heart, a desire to believe, and trust in
the Lord."

See you soon,
Sister Goldsberry