What a great week!

Well this week has really been quite a good one! We started out the week with a bunch of really good lessons right off the bat. Then this past Saturday we got to go up to the temple visitors center and listen to some general authorities speak! It was so cool! Elder Bednar of the quorum of the 12 Apostles was there, Elder Snow the church historian, Elder Gerard of the 70, and the  general Presiding Bishop of the entire church. The whole thing was awesome! It was completely different than any of us expected it to be. We had all gone just expecting to have a bunch of talks given to us but instead each one of the General Authorities just gave a brief 10 minute opening remarks and then Elder Bednar got up and asked our opinions on a few things for some time and then opened up the floor for any and all questions from the missionaries! I tried asking him a question but he wouldn't call on me haha. It was an amazing learning experience though! It was a total discussion rather than a speech to us all, and it lasted for almost 4 hours! So sweet! He really showed us the best way for us to teach our investigators. When we just talk the whole time they won't ever really learn anything, the best learning comes from them asking questions and learning on their own from our answers. So it was really cool. Then on Sunday we had Stake conference and the Presiding bishop came to that as well and spoke. He gave some amazing insights into how everyone can be missionaries and how the role of all members, especially missionaries, is to invite others to act. President Albright also got up and spoke for a bit too, and man he gave some super sweet analogies. He was talking about how most less active members or people who are "anti" the church seem to hung up on some little thing a general authority said like 150-200 years ago and therefore count the entire church as not being true. We see it happen all the time as missionaries. President Albright said he was talking to Elder Bednar about it though and he said "It's a totally unfair assumption really. It's like looking at a huge whale and seeing a small blemish somewhere on the backside of the whale and because of that, discounting the entire whale's reality and existence." Which I thought was an awesome way to describe it haha. Elder Bednar also told President Albright that after each one of these firesides or devotionals he goes to and does the Q and A style, he always goes online and Googles his name to see what people said that he said, and even just a day later people horribly misinterpret or mistranscribe whatever it was he said so that it is something completely different, so he can totally see how something that was just noted as being said 200 years ago could be so easily misinterpreted over time to mean something completely different than what the person originally said haha. Then earlier today we had a BBQ at the mission home with the Albrights, we got to just hang out and talk with everyone, play some sports out in the backyard, and eat some really good food. So overall it was a really good week. This week should be an even better one though! It'll be so great to get to skype home with my family on Sunday!!! Plus it will be Shellie's 16th birthday tomorrow! So it should be a very exciting upcoming week too! Well I hope everyone had a great week!