Monday, April 7, 2014

Happy April!!

Dearest family and friends,

Hooray for General Conference!! Hope everybody had a chance to watch Conference. It was soo great!! I had to watch the first session Saturday morning in Portuguese but after that it was all English :) I already know I will probably get carried away and write way too much in this email, but I will try to control myself. Before I get to talking about Conference, I´ll update on the novidades in Palmas 3.

My new companion is Sister Nuñez like I said last week. She is from Paraguay and has a little more than a year in the mission. Our new zone leaders, and therefore elders in our ward, are Elder Tripode and Elder Asenjo. Elder Tripode was one of the assistants and Elder Asenjo was my district leader last transfer. I think they will be great zone leaders for the group we have here in this zone. I´d be lying if I said I don´t miss Sister Timario like crazy but I am really liking being companions with Sister Nuñez too. 

On Friday morning we had a district meeting and I finally got some packages that were sent for Christmas!! haha. One was postmarked November 20th, the other November 27th and the last was December 19th. I don´t know when they actually arrived in the mission office, but they made it to my hands on April 4th, more than 4 months later. 

Ok, now on to Conference. I loved all of the talks, but there are always some that stand out more than others. I have a soft spot for President Uchtdorf and really like the message he shared about gratitude. In the mission that is one Christlike attribute I have been working hard to develop. We have so many challenges everyday that sometimes it is easy to only see what is going wrong instead of what is going right. I loved when he said that we should not be grateful for things, but be grateful in our circumstances whatever they may be. Even more than his message about gratitude, he talked about our general hesitance to accept endings in our lives. He explained that is because we are of an eternal nature; "endings are not our destiny." That was a comfort for me especially as my mission is coming to an end. I have been feeling somewhat sad knowing this part of my life will be over, but it is not the end of anything, just the beginning of the next phase. 

Richard G. Scott´s talk was cute the way he still admires his wife all these years later. I liked his message about being a significant, positive influence in the life of those around us. Elder Ballard talked a lot about missionary work which of course is a point close to my heart these days and hopefully forever. President Monson´s closing remark to "realize how close to us He is willing to come, how far He is willing to go for us, and how much He loves us" was a sweet statement. I always love hearing from the dear prophet. 

Another talk, from Elder Bednar, was an answer to my prayers. These past two weeks I have been looking for one of his talks I printed off several months ago called "The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality." I couldn´t find it even though I knew I had printed it off. I had been really wanting to read it, but ended up not being able to find it. Yesterday, his talk was very similar to the words that were said in the other talk I was looking for. It was a reminder that the Lord is mindful of me. An even greater reminder was when I found the talk this morning! haha. I had a thought come to mind to just read what I had written about it in my other journal. When I went to grab my other journal, I opened it up and saw the talk in the front cover :) 

Karol continues to be a miracle in my life. Man, I will have to update more about her next week, but just know she is amazingly wonderful. Life is great! I am immensely happy and loving how much I am learning on the mission. 

If you find time, write a little about your favorite talk or something that stood out to you from Conference and send it my way :) I love seeing the various ways one idea can have significance in our lives. 

Hope you are all happy & healthy!! Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Kerr

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