Great. Weekend.

I want to say that General Conference was better this weekend than it has ever been before, but I know that my appreciation of it is a result of my own increased spiritual preparation more than past conferences being sub-par.  This has made me a little bit sad, realizing how much more I could have gotten out of General Conference before now but I'm trying to just strengthen my newfound love for it and determine to never forget again how much it means to me.  
That said -- best General Conference ever!  One of the cool things about being a missionary is that even when there was a talk that didn't make me think "That totally applies to me!" I could think "That totally applies to _______!" What a blessing.  And then, of course, there were the talks that were totally given just for me and I just got to soak in the enlightenment while everyone else had to wait for the "Customized for Sister Lonas" talk to be over.
There are SO many specific things I would love to share concerning what I learned from Conference (I'll probably be including little things for the next couple of weeks) but one thing I learned is from Vern P Stanfill -- The light and comfort the Savior extends to us is far too precious to lose to pride. That might be an exact quote, it might not be, but whether it's in my own words or his I just love it, and the thought came from him either way.  I know that pride is something I really struggle with, and I work every day on trying to recognize when I am having feelings of pride and how to eradicate them completely.  It's really hard for me.  But I know that I cannot feel the spirit when I am being prideful.  My pride is not precious, everything the Savior offers is.

I really love the General Authorities.

And punctuating my General Conference weekend were preparations for Larry's BAPTISM, which really did happen :) Larry is a brand new member of the church and he's doing great.  He's super happy to have been baptized, and excited to receive the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting next week and then prepare himself to receive the priesthood.  Seeing his progression has been an absolute miracle in the truest sense.  For the rest of forever, if anyone ever asks me if I've witnessed a miracle, I will think about him and the way the Atonement of Christ has completely changed his life.

AND I made a delicious dessert for after his baptism, so there have been culinary as well as spiritual successes for everyone to enjoy.

Some other things about this week, last PDay a less active member called us and asked if we could do service for her and we said "Absolutely, we can." because before we hadn't been able to meet with her, but then it turned out that the "service" she wanted us to do was letting her do our makeup and take before and after pictures for some job thing.  So we got permission from our district leader just because it was so weird, but then we totally went and the whole time she was doing our makeup she just went on and on about how beautiful we looked and then when we actually looked in mirrors we were surprised to find that Sister Schmuhl looked like a clown and I looked like a prostitute. This was an experience I didn't expect to have on the mission!


One of our members broke into Larry's house in her overzealous effort to return his phone he left in her car.  We're grateful he still wanted to be baptized.

The new sister in the apartment is Sister Shelley, she's from Utah and she's way cute :) And she can sing, which is a blessing, so we were able to continue with our plan to sing at Larry's baptism and that went well.

I'm a happy camper!  It's a glorious time to be a Latter-Day Saint!
I love you all very very much!
Souvenez-vous qui vous etes ♥