Week 33

this week was pretty good. Heard about the earthquakes in japan, prayers going out to all of them and their families. Luckily there were no earthquakes in korea so we are all safe! The Lord blessed us on that one. Because of the earthquakes in japan, elder ringwood wasnt able to come to our stake conference. I also heard an elder might have died in japan because of the earthquakes, so elder ringwood probably went back for a good reason.. so sad. but during stake conference i learned a lot. there was no translation and the speakers talked REALLY really fast so i didnt get a lot of what they were saying. But i can remember one special thing that stood out to me. one of the speakers talked about member missionary work and how they can do a better job of that. He talked about God's love. He used the Book of mormon story of lehi and the tree of life. Lehi goes to the tree and partakes of the fruit, or the love of god. once he eats the fruit, he realizes what it is, understands it, and looks up immediately to find his family. Now on the other hand, some people go to the tree and eat the fruit. instead of looking up to find their families, they look to the great and spacious building (the world) for approval and are ashamed. they fall away to the world. The speaker talked to us about us as members having taken in the fruit and how we need to take the love of god into our hearts like lehi did. If we do that, we will WANT to look up and try to share it with other people. This talk really hit me hard because that's one of the main reasons if not the biggest reason why im on a mission. Just to share a message about gods love. This was the first thing i gained a testimony about, not about the book of mormon, or joseph smith, but how much god loves us. this week i want to share messages about love, and i hope all of you can too! God bless you all. have a great week. <3

-elder carter