General Conference

Dearest Familia,

I am glad that Grandma had such a great Birthday. I'm SUPER Jealous that you guys had a huge family party without me. I'm sorry that you won't be seeing Dad for a while, I haven't seen him for a while either. :'( I hope that Disneyland is fun, and I'm sure that Logan will end up ditching Micah. He would. We were over at our Bishop's house for dinner and his daughters were watching "Sing" in the other room. It looks pretty decent. I heard one of my favorite Beatles songs being sung on it (which is one of their not-well-known songs) and I got pretty excited. I'm sure I'll see it soon enough. I'm glad you got the one night shift, Mom. Don't vomit. And don't worry about me eating too much ice cream. Elder Babbel has made it his job to make sure I don't eat ice cream or bad things. And trust me, this is the guy that pep talked me through eating a WOW size Poutine. He can make me do incredible things. Haha.

I do however, have to get Dairy Queen this Saturday, because of the family tradition for General Conference. But Elder Babbel will allow that. TRADITION!!

The only things I can think about wanting you to send me, is an electrical razor and a French-Cuff White Shirt. My only cuff-link shirt has gone to shreds and I'm going to turn it into a short-sleeve shirt. Other than that, if you want to buy me anything for my birthday, I would advise you to keep it at home and give it too me for a late birthday/coming home gift; because I do NOT want to have extra stuff to pack. I'm probably already bringing a bunch of things home for all of you. Also, I probably won't be bringing much clothes home, because most of my missionary clothes are just about done for, so I'm going to wear them out in the next few months, and then either leave them or throw them away. The only clothes I'll bring home will probably be the ones I'll wear on the plane. And then I'll probably burn all that once I get released. So new church clothes for when I get home might be nice. :) Also, for my Birthday Dinner this year, I would like to go to the Cheesecake Factory. :) That's basically the first thing I want to do when I get back: go to Temple Square and to the Cheesecake Factory with all of you. So let's make that happen!!

Holo Logan. Good luck with the ACT. That's weird that they're having you do it on the computer. Lucky. If you can get 30 or higher, I'll be proud of you. That was my dream. But then I woke up. :| What AP Tests are you taking?? APUSH, what else?? Remember Logan: SCOL IS 4 CHUMPS!! Way To Go Sophie!! Nice job holding things for ransom. That's my girl!! And I'm glad you can stop worshiping Satan now, Logan. I can tell you stories about why you shouldn't do that... I think the two worst things in the world you could possibly lose are your Wallet and your USB (or other Storage Device). I lost my USB last week and I'm pretty distraught about it. Mainly because I lost a TON of pictures I've collected on the mission. I bought a new USB today and have salvaged most of the pictures I've sent you all or other people, but that's not even half of what I had. I'll find my other USB though. I have the faith.  Sorry about Preference and all the food. It's just preparing you for the mission life. I'm telling you, some days, you eat All-You-Can-Eat Sushi, and then a few hours later you go to a member's house where they feed you a feast! It's awful. But beautiful.

Now Logan. I'm happy for your new friend. But let me give you a few scriptures to warn you about the Canadian type:

Deuteronomy 7: 1 When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the CANADIANITES, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:

3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

I don't know what to tell you Logan. Just be careful with those Canadians. Now, if she was Hispanic, I wouldn't be worried about you at all, but she's not.

Yeah, that's basically what I did during the Knowledge Bowl (answer all the questions). I remember the day we lost, I ended that round getting 40 points in a row. We knew before those points that we were going to lose, but I decided to go out with a bang anyways. So good luck. And you better send me more emails before the end of my mission. And one more thing. Ouagadougou. Nice Try.

Lacrosse sounds sweet, Micah. Honestly, it's just as popular here in Canada than it is in the United States. I'm glad you're making a lot of friends and having Logan chauffeur you around. Fun stuff. The temple trip you and Logan are planning sounds SWEET! You should wait a few months to go on it and I'll go with you kids. Like an End of Summer Road Trip. That'd be DOPE!! Believe you me Micah, 9th 10th and 11th grades are what matters. And part of 12th grade. 12th grade is when you start applying for Scholarships, so after that, nothing matters. ;) Let me know when you get the Book of Mormon done.

So this week was pretty above average.

Monday we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for the Birthday of Elder Bahr. It was super fun. There wasn't very many people there so it was great. Our waitress was from El Salvador so it was double great. Afterwards, we played sports with the Zone. One of our Zone Leaders challenged me to race him from and to the stage in the gym. So I did. And I totally won, then I lost. I had planned on jumping on the stage at the end of the race and sliding on my belly, but I jumped too late and ran full speed right into the stage. I have a HUGE bruise on my stomach right now and it hurt SO bad. So that's fun. Later on Monday we had a sweet Family Home Evening with an Uruguatian family. They remind me SO much of you guys it hurts. A lot of fighting, a lot of "Shut Ups," a lot of "Idiots," the works.

Tuesday we taught people and English (except not English because we didn't have any students :(

Wednesday we had Zone Conference in Hamilton (a city not too far from us). I had to prepare another Musical Number. This time we rocked it. We did the song "Dear To The Heart Of The Shepherd," and supposedly it was fantastic (I just played the piano). So yeah. The rest of the Conference was really good. President Shields has challenged all the missionaries to read the book "Jesus The Christ" before the end of their mission. AH!! I'm totally going to do it though. We also talked about good music and a lot of things about Jesus Christ and his Gospel. It was a really good conference.

Thursday we taught people and did service.

Friday we taught people.

WAIT! Friday was actually a stellar day. Other than the fact that one of our big appointments bombed. Elder Babbel and one of our APs, Elder Taylor were going to Buffalo Wild Wings to do the Blazin' Challenge for lunch; so we decided to join them. So the Blazin' Challenge. At Buffalo Wild Wings they have their hottest sauce called the Blazin' sauce. The challenge is that you have to eat 10 Chicken Wings in five minutes or shorter. You can not take any drink or wipe your face and hands. It was SO...easy.

Yeah, it was pretty easy. The hardest part was how hot the wings were, not how spicy. I got them done in like three and a half minutes. Elder Babbel got it done in two minutes and 11 seconds. Once the sauce touches your outer skin, though, it burns pretty bad for a while. So that was fun. We got shirts for it though. I'll send you a picture once I get them. And the video of me eating the wings. It was super fun and definitely one of the highs of the week.

Saturday we taught English Classes, and then we were supposed to go with our Investigator to a baptism Downtown in the Christie Ward (which I was pretty excited about) but he bailed on us to go to his cousin's bachelor party or something, so that was pretty upsetting. So we taught the people that live in his basement instead and committed them to coming to church. So that was good.

Sunday I gave a talk in church and I did a pretty stellar job. I made a joke about how I messed up on the piano in Sacrament Meeting and lots of people laughed. So it was good to be able to laugh at myself. I'll talk about what I talked about later. A member told me today that while I was giving a talk, he received revelation that I'm going to become a General Authority. And then he told me that he has the gift of prophecy and during my talk there was a light glowing around me. So that was pretty funny... I guess. The rest of Sunday was us running around inviting people to General Conference, so that was pretty fun.

They had me give my talk on General Conference and the Prophet during Church. So I shared a talk and story by the Prophet that changed my life and my mission. In the 2015 October General Conference, President Thomas S. Monson gave the talk "Be an Example of Light," in which he shared the following account. "At that time, leaders of the Church met with officials in Jerusalem to work out a lease agreement for land on which the Church’s Jerusalem Center would be built. In order to obtain the permissions needed, the Church had to agree that no proselyting would be undertaken by our members who would occupy the center. After that agreement had been made, one of the Israeli officials, who was well acquainted with the Church and its members, remarked that he knew the Church would honor the no-proselyting agreement. “But,” he said, referring to the students who would attend there, “what are we going to do about the light that is in their eyes?” For may that special light ever shine within us, that it might be recognized and appreciated by others." I echo what the Prophet says. I heard that talk my first few weeks in the mission, which was the hardest time I've ever had in my life. I decided to take it to heart and probably the biggest change I've experienced on my mission is the changed I've felt in myself in my love for other people. My charity in the mission has grown ten fold. Now, as I go to watch my final General Conference in the mission, I can't help but feel appreciation for the Prophet, Thomas S Monson. I know that he is a Prophet called of God and the he leads the church today. Due to his medical condition, we might not have him for very much longer, so Go, listen to him, sustain him, remember him as the Prophet he is. I love you all and hope you all LOVE General Conference. I know I WILL!!