Wednesday, April 4, 2012

April 2, 2012

General Conference is definitely different as a missionary.

In Arizona, general conference is held at the stake center which was weird but that is how things go down here. It was very interesting to go to. We held the conference in ASL in the relief society room while the other conference was helc in the chapel and gym.  It is good that our branch could go to conference but the bad thing is that the ASL broadcast did not work when we first started! It was only shown with closed captioned which the deaf people do not like because they have a hard time understanding the English phrases. The ASL did not work on any Saturday session including priesthood.  We didn't have a lot of people come on Saturday and those that did all had iphones so they got on lds.org and watched the sessions in ASL on their iphones.  For the priesthood session, we had a lot of deaf people come so we got some interpreters to come and help.  I am glad that Elder Bradley and I did not have to interpret, we are always 'on call' for interpreting but I am glad that we didn't have to and could take notes and listen better.

Conference is awesome in Arizona at the stake centers! It is like a huge party! Everyone comes to the stake centers and brings a lot of food (for the break and after, not in the chapel). We ate so much food during those two days; it is like the Mormon super bowl for the two day event!

We ended up having Daniel (our deaf investigator) go to the stake center for conference on Sunday morning. I am going to make a bold assumption and say that the reason the ASL actually worked on Sunday is because he would not have understood the closed captions and for that reason we prayed a lot that the stupid thing would be fixed! God does hear and answer our prayers! Danielle (our other investigator) watched both sessions on Sunday with the Agardys. I loved conference! It is different being a missionary! I pulled so much out that I wouldn't have otherwise and some stuff that they didn't say but I understood things that they were hinting at! It was amazing!

Conference did confirm one thing that has been bothering me! This last week I have had some weird dreams; I normally don't have dreams so to have 4 extremely vivid dreams in 4 consecutive nights is kind of a big deal.  The weird thing was that Elder Bradley had a dream the same night one that was really similar, it even had the same people in it. When we got to Agardy's house, Sister Agardy told us about a dream she had the same night that was similar to both of ours.  We felt that the Lord is speaking to us through our dreams and is telling me a lot about myself.  I'm not going to go into detail but we all feel that something is coming. It is going to be really hard for us and will affect me, Elder Bradley and the Agardy family.  Because we are all so close it doesn't have to involve all of us, if it happens to one of us it will affect the rest. We are praying that we will have the strength to overcome it. The reason I felt that conference confirmed this for me is that in Elder Scott's talk he spoke about dreams and their importance in helping us understand the will of the Lord. President Eyring's talk was all about overcoming trials, as I watched I felt it was for us. So we'll see what happens...

On a good note, Danielle knows that this is right for her and she will set a baptismal date as soon as she tells her mom! This makes us so happy because we know that she is actually ready for baptism and she is doing it for her!

I do love it out here! I love the whole mission experience!  Hope all is well for all of you!

Elder Banner

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