Email April 8, 2018

Email April 8, 2018 – Jackson Kunzler Burton

General Conference!

Hey Everyone!

                  This was a great week! On Monday we went to a botanical garden they have here in Hakodate. It was so cool! I'll send some pictures. I was trying out some of the features on my camera so some of them are pretty interesting. We also had dinner on Monday at a member's house with an investigator named Yosuke who just moved back to Hakodate after being in Tokyo for a few months. My previous companion had met him before he went to Tokyo but I hadn't so I'm excited to continue to meet with him, he's a really nice guy and has a lot of interest in the gospel. Besides that not a lot interesting has happened, it's been hard finding new investigators lately but we're working on it. We visited a family on Wednesday who wants to do FFEP, which is where we teach both English and the gospel, but they can't meet until May which is too bad. Spring is definitely here! This week was a little cooler than the week before, we had a lot of rain, but at least it's not snow! Today we're going to hike Mt. Hakodate, I'm pumped, I haven't gone hiking in so long! It's a little less cool because you can actually get to the top with this tram/gondola thing they have, but it's still gonna be way fun.

                  In other news, conference was amazing! I know in America you watched it a week ago but we just watched it this weekend and it was so great! I loved how much President Nelson spoke, his talks felt like a call to action! I know he truly is God's prophet on the earth today. I'm going to try to follow his counsel to make the Holy Ghost and personal revelation a more important part of my life and my missionary work. I also loved Elder Bednar's talk about meekness.  I've never really considered trying to become more meek, I've tried to work on my humility a lot, but I've never really realized that meekness, although related to humility, is a separate attribute that is also vital to develop. One other theme I noticed a lot from conference is the importance of unity. In order for us to be prepared for the Second Coming we must be more unified as a church. The Lord said, "And if ye are not one ye are not mine." The way we can start is by striving to be more unified with those around us, with our family, friends, companions, and leaders. But in order to really do that we need to be living righteously so we can be unified within ourselves. We can't truly be unified if we have internal conflict that comes from knowing we're not doing what's right. So those are my thoughts on conference. Obviously there was so much more, and I hope everyone studies all the talks over the next six months. I love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Burton