October 5, 2009

Jeff's next email was after General Conference. We asked him which talks he liked best:

Yes it was a great weekend :) I´ve never enjoyed conference so much before,
kinda funny how the mission does that. But there were so many great talks. Some
of my favorites were Elder Bednar and Hollands. Both of Elder Uchtdorf´s and all
of the prophets talks. They were great, and uplifting. Those men really are
called of God, you can tell just by how powerfully they bear testimony! I do
feel I´m in the right place :) Always improving on the language so it´s good,
hard to believe I´ve officially been on my mission for 4 months already.
Have I told you we have an orange tree in our front yard? It´s been pretty
nice here, getting a lot hotter

I asked Jeff if the members cleaned their church buildings like we do here in the states:

Members do not take care of the buildings very well, it´s kinda sad.
But
they have this new program now to get the people to start doing it. We
cleaned it a little a couple weeks ago to do some service. Seriously, have
the elders come over and help out everynow and then with the yard work.

We had two investigators with baptismal dates for the 11th, but things came up and they weren´t able to get their interviews in time. They should still get baptized though, so I´m excited about that. Maybe my first 2 baptisms! These past two days haven´t got much done becuase we were at conference all day. We went to our stake center to watch them, and all the north american elders and sisters get to watch it in english, which is really nice.

But everything is going well :) We have a couple of inactive families that are getting close to returning to church so hope they do! Going to conference and hearing all the testimonies of the prophets is such a blessing, it really strengthens my testimony. I think there was one talk about how member missionary work is so much more effective, and it is true! SO I would encourage you to do all you can to help out the Anoka missionaries, I know our little ward is hard but there are still people that God has prepared to hear the gospel. I´m in the same situation here, and I know it´s true. We just have to keep working and being diligent, just like they talked about in conference.

Keep praying for me, you are always in my prayers. I love you! Don´t forget to say that often, just like the prophets counseled. Talk to you next week!Love,Elder DeLong