This week was stake conference! It was super cool because they had a canada wide boadcast in which both elder Holland and president Eyring spoke. we watched it from the caribou chapel, normally everyone travels to Saint John to the stake center, but instead we just watched the opening exercises which were held in Fredericton on one satellite connection and then switched to the broadcast from Salt lake for the rest of it. they were announcing it two weeks ago and then said "of course we know how it goes with technology, what could possibly go wrong?" the good thing is that nothing did go wrong. it was smooth and the speakers from both fredericton and SLC did a great job and we saw the whole thing. our recent converts were all there, and they really enjoyed being able to see leaders speak live for the first time. I'm not sure if they really caught the gravity of who they were, but that is okay, that comes over time with a testimony that the calling of an apostle was restored.
Elder Holland gave a really good talk themed around how Jesus Christ called Andrew and Phillip, that they followed him and he noticed saying two key phrases "what seekest thou?" and upon Phillip and Andrew saying, where do you live, he replied"come and see." "come follow me." This is Christ's invitation throughout time, come follow me, see how I spend my time, see what I do and the things I care about. that is how we will feel that he lived, and that his atonement is real, and that we can return to live with him. it's is cool to think that in a way when we are in the service of others or going about the work of salvation we are always learning, and are in a sense His apprentices. a wood worker would follow a carpenter in apprenticeship, and so too must we as disciples be apprentices to the Lord. that of course takes dilligence, patience perserverence, relying on the Spirit of God to guide us, and Love. I know for myself I could always be doing more, trying to serve others. It was nice to hear it again.
President Eyring talked about the eternal nature of our families, and how we always have a responsibility to reach out to each other in love, and to invite one another to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He then related a story about how his grandfather had been a good role model to him in his youth, and on the last visit to see him he remembers being alone with him on his front porch. his grandfather told him about his son who was not valiant in the gospel, after going to college married outside of the church and distanced himself from any faith in God, in spite of continual support and love from his parents. this uncle had a son, who had not experienced the gospel, and president Eyring's grandpa leaned over and said "go get him." he then related many accounts when life placed him and his cousin near each other, and how repeatedly he invited him to come and experience the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. the interesting thing is that his cousin and his wife were eventually killed in a car accident, after loving invitations by elder Eyring had prompted them to search for the truth, but never finding it they started their own religion and began missionary work in Indonesia. now their son is living near to President Eyring's daughter in college, where she can reach out to him. our families are eternal, and the truth is that heaven will not be heaven entirely without our family members close at hand, tied to us by the power of God through temple sealing, which can only be done by God's called representatives. that is something I feel deeply is true.
so basically stake conference was awesome.
other interesting things, we met a guy while our knocking on doors this week that stopped us as we tried to introduce ourselves, and said "do you know anyone who can do a cleansing?" It took me a minute to figure out what he was trying to say, but he'd just gotten off the line with some TV host like ghost busters because he and his mom cannot sleep at night due to paranormal disturbances in his house. they'd lived there for 20 years, and have always heard the sounds of people no longer alive hanging around the house. people running up the stairs, children's voices, people laughing creepily. weird stuff. so he was like "if you can help us have peace we'll listen to whatever you have to say." we just looked at each other like, are the Elder's able to do that? I don't really know. we told him that we'd get back to him on that.
and then there was memorial day. oh man. there was a parade! they had a hardcore parade on memorial day. that was pretty fun. Rachel who was just baptized was in it with her daughter Katherine, who is perhaps the funniest little girl I have ever met. she gave us warheads as they walked by.
They also came to the Ward Barbecue that day and had a pretty good time, until Eva and Katherine found a frog. we left shortly thereafter, so this story was related to us later, but apparently this frog thing was a fiasco. after showing all the parents the frog, eva became bored with it and said that Katherine could keep it, so she then went around to show all the other kids. once they found out that she had something cool in a cup, they all started following her around trying to grab at it, and Eva jealous of the attention snatched the frog back from katherine. Katherine has a mild sensory disorder, where too much noise or stimulation can send her over the edge, so you can imagine that this was a recipe for disaster. She tried to get the Frog back. but all the attempts to get it back from eva made Eva squeeze the frog, and Kathering began yelling "STOP SQUEEZING IT YOU'RE GOING TO KILL IT!" while all the other kids were still trying to get close or get it for themselves. Rachel, upon noticing the distress runs over and has to force the kids apart, and somehow katherine ends up with the frog trying to keep it away from the 14 other grabby hands. over the commotion rachel kept trying to tell her to let it go back into the water and in a burst of frustration kathering yelled "FINE!" and chucks the frog in a huge arc to the middle of the lake. hitting the water with a splash it floated spred eagle along the surface, and for a few seconds everyone watched as it was still. really really still. to which Katherine turned to eva and yelled "YOU STUPID IDIOT YOU KILLED THE FROG!" at this rachel said she just had to drag her to the car, feeling mortified Katherine yelling all the way. "you killed it! murderer!" when we were at her house later I just told her it's always lively at a ward barbecue.
welp, that is all for now.
Love you !
Sister christensen
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