Hey all!
I think I've felt every single emotion this week. Like, the whole color wheel. From General Conference to transfer news to crazy lessons my own lovely demons, I'm just all outta feels, man.
♤ Transfers! So long, Elder Foster. It's been a good ride. He's heading up to Stockton, MO and I'll be staying in the YSA and serving with Elder Wasden! I've served near him before and he's a real cheery guy.
♧ Crazy lessons! We taught our first lesson to an atheist dude who was just so full of questions and he and totally I ADHD'ed out so hard while Elder Foster sat there and looked at us like we were crazy, which was a fair assumption. The best part was that when we told him that General Conference was that weekend, he basically said "Wait, your prophet is speaking in two days?? I'm watching that for sure." ("Chyesss!" - Ignacio)
◇ Rough weekend. 'Nuff said for now. Thank goodness that Christ is always there for us in our dark times.
♡ General Conference! All of the speakers were outstanding and I was so fired up and ready to share the Gospel by the time it ended haha. The Saturday evening session was probably my favorite. I'm so thankful for prophets of God and the chance we have to come to know the Savior better through their words.
☆ Went on a hike for P-day today at Devil's Den State Park and man, Arkansas is criminally underrated. This place is gorgeous. Check out some pics: https://photos.app.goo.gl/
○ Want a cool statistic? Numbers aren't everything, of course, but check this out: last year, 25,000 students attended high school seminary with their friends in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and 9,000 of them chose to be baptized and confirmed - over one-third. The math says that if three of your friends come to Seminary with you, statistically speaking, one of them will choose to join the Lord's fold. If you and your classmates each brought just one friend to seminary per quarter, you'd double your class size in less than a school year.
Song of the week: "Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground" by Coldplay
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Thought: The Triumph of Hope by Neil L. Andersen
What better way to hear the news?
Elder Andersen was the first speaker in this year's October Generall Conference, and in it, he talked all about his grand-nephew, Trey. The funny thing is, we were actually in the same ward at BYU! Lived on the same floor and everything. He was a pretty quiet dude, but I recognized him instantly. It made me so happy to see him up on the screen and even happier to hear he'd gotten accepted to the BYU accounting program and even planned to serve a full-time mission! ...And then Elder Andersen told more of his story.
Honestly, I didn't know him super well despite having gone to church with him every Sunday for two semesters, but something about the idea that one of the guys I chatted with in the hall a year and a half ago just isn't alive anymore hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm assuming a lot of us from the 122nd ward found out last weekend, too, and while everyone deals with loss differently, it probably wasn't easy to process for many of us.
But I'll say it again: what better way to hear the news? A living Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ was inspired to use Trey's story to teach the eternal truth that because of the Savior, hope will always triumph. Thanks to Christ, our story doesn't end here.
Mosiah 16:8-9:
But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.
He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.
Love,
Elder Rigby
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