Week 6

Hola familia y amigos!!

    This is my last weekly email from Mexico! On Monday, I leave for Nicaragua!! I'm excited, though I will miss all the friends I've made here. General Conference was AMAZING. It's never gone by so quickly cuz I was listening intently and seeking personal revelation. When the person saying the opening prayer prayer for the missionaries around the world, I got chills. That's me now! It's so incredible to know there are so many people supporting us in the Lord's work. There were some really great talks.

     I thought it was interesting how Carole M. Stephens said that when we take the sacrament, we renew not only our baptismal covenant, but all covenants we have enetered into. I hadn't thought about the sacrament being a renewal of my temple covenants. I liked Jeffrey R. Holland's talk. I thought of Zayden and Dustin Godnick and how joyous it will be on the day of the resurrection to see them with perfect bodies. Deiter F. Uchtdorf's talk taught me some things about how to address concerns about hypocrisy in the church. "The church would only be perfect if it were run by perfect beings." God is perfect, but he works through us, imperfect people. But even when members make mistakes, the divine truths that the church teaches will forever be true. We should remember that "Church is a hospital for sinners, not a sanctuary for saints." It's hard because we are supposed to look on sin with distaste, but we need to hate the sin and not the sinner. Henry B. Eyering's talk taught me how important it is to respect people's agency and love them even when they make wrong decisions, always hoping they will one day return to the straight and narrow path. I could benefit from learning to be less judgemental. I am striving to develop charity, first by learning how to hold my tongue when I'm about to say an uncharitable thing. I loved how bold Dallin H. Oaks' talk about the sanctity of marriage and family was. These times called for a talk like that. Those are some of my favorite things from conference.

     This week, we were playing volleyball on the sand court and the sand was freezing cold on our feet because it had rained earlier. I rotated out with an elder who wanted to join the game and thought it would be a good idea to sit on the grass so I could lift my bare feet off the cold ground. BAD IDEA. THe grass was wet and it left a big, dark wet spot on my light grey pants that made it look like I peed my pants. It was pretty embarrassing. Hermana Behan was cracking up. Well, at least I made her laugh, since my cheesy jokes don't seem to do the trick haha. Hermana Behan is hilarious. She makes me laugh all the time. During conference, I drifted off to sleep during one of the talks (not even for a full talk) and she took my notes and wrote on them: "1 Carribeans 3:5 "Thou shalt not fall asleep in conference, or thy notes shall be taken from thee," 3:7 "Thou shalt eat more bacon, and glorify in it." 3:9 " Thou shalt feed thy companion chocolate alll the days of thy life that thy happiness may wax strong in the CCM." Hahaha. I'm really glad she's my companion. I think we'll be friends for life.

     Today I went to the temple for the last time in the next 17 months. Crazy! It will make me appreciate so much more when I get back. We got to go to the Zarahemla store after and I got some coloful, woven scripture cases for like $4 each. They look cool.

Well, I think that's all for this week!! Love you all! Stay true to the faith, Hermana Hawkins