week 41...Lasam Philippines

Conference Weekend...


The only thing I have to report this week is about conference. I was spiritually fed and had many prayers answered.

Priesthood session was the first thing we watched and it was amazing. I feel like the as we priesthood bearers, we got chastised pretty good. The guy who said the opening prayer even ask that we would get chastised haha. It was awesome. I was blown away by every person that spoke and felt the spirit real strong. Especially the Prophets short yet powerful message. Especially the story about the 2 guys stranded in the ocean waiting for the rescue boat, and then one of them commanded the boat with the priesthood to turn around and pick them up. I got chills when to prophet told that story.  Both sessions on Sunday also blew me away.

I will record some of what I wrote in my journal last night as in relation to conference...

'I feel this conference that I was spiritually fed. I prayed before hand, and asked that the Lord would teach me great things from on high by his Spirit this weekend, and He has answered my prayers.  I feel sufficiently chastened and desire to repent, improve and follow the Savior.  I desire to call upon God and humble myself sufficiently before Him. I desire to honor the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood which I bare, and honor my covenants, and from this time forth to rededicate myself to serve God with all my heart, might, mind and strength. I feel someone ashamed of the attitude and level of dedication that I have allowed to overcome me and deceive me these past few months of my mission. I wish to repent and offer a sacrifice of acceptable and complete service and dedication to the Lord.  I Know the Lord knows me, and that my mission has been constructed to help me grow, and I believe that the Lord has called me to the Philippines Laoag mission that I may be tested, and be exposed to opposition, because I know the Lord trusts me and expects me to overcome and rise above my trials and my challenges. I know I am in God's hands, and I am but clay in the potters hands. I feel anew a desire to work harder and exercise faith, and fear no man. I chose to humble myself before the Lord and fear God. I feel I have not sufficiently feared God lately, and I have feared man too much. I must repent.'

Yes its true I need to do better.  I remember something one of my best friends said in one of his emails a few weeks back. Elder Winget who is serving in Mexico said' " ....if you come home with a bunch of energy and aren't tired, you know you didn't give it your all that week. I have yet to find a reason to have a bunch of energy in the nights of a mission. The only thing we should have is happiness and tiredness that we did our best today and that's that."

I complete agree. Now there have been nights on my mission, maybe  the majority of them, where I came home and was dead tired. Unfortunately however, I have had to many nights where I have come home after work and I wasn't all that tired. Now I am not saying that just because you aren't tired after your work means that you are a bad missionary. But for me I have had too many nights where i felt like I didn't give everything I had to the Lord that day.  I don't want to have those days anymore.  I want to give Him everything. Every thought. Every breath. Everything.

I prayed that conference would provide the help and encouragement I needed and thanks be to God, because it did.  Also thanks be to God for my many family members and friends who have reached out to me with words of love and encouragement. May God bless you all.

I love this Gospel, I love this Church. I love Jesus Christ. I have covenanted to serve Him, and though I am far from perfect, I truly am trying my hardest. Yes I stumble sometimes just like we all do.  Jeffrey R Holland said that "In the gospel we even get credit for trying."  I am so grateful for this amazing opportunity that I have to serve Him for two years and with all of my waking hours. It is only short time and it cannot afford to be wasted.  The mission has been nothing like i expected it to be. It is not easy, as I expected it to be. This is the hardest mental and emotional thing I have ever done. But that is mortality is it not?  Elder Oaks talked about opposition, and we cant grow with out it. We need trials. We need hard things. We need to be stretched and tested and tempered and refined. This life was never meant to be easy, and thanks be to God that it isn't easy. It was never part of God's plan that this life would be easy, so we shouldn't be surprised when it gets hard every once in a while, nor whine or complain about it.  

Anyways... I have learned a lot this week, and also these past 9 months. And I am more than positive that there is a whole lot left for me to learn in the next 15.

I love you all. 

-Elder Andersen

We rode this thing to conference haha

And I rode on the top