Well, What did you think of general conference? I will tell you what I thought of conference. Well first I will start by saying that I listened to the entire thing in Spanish Now this was good and bad. First of all it was bad because i couldn't understand about a third to half of it. But at the same time, I learned just as much as I would have if I had listened in English, if not more. The reason for that is, because it was in Spanish I had to give all my focus the entire time. And because I couldn't understand everything that was being said by the speakers, I was able to listen to what was being said by the Spirit. Just to give an example of how little I really understood, my mom asked me about a one of the talks and I have no idea what she was talking about... haha.
Here are a few of the things that I learned anyway. First, is the importance of family, (wow i couldn't think of how to say that in English for a little bit). Here in Chile almost everyone lives with a lot of family, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, everyone. Family is very important to them. But one thing they don´t understand is that their family can be together forever. As I listened to conference it really just struck me how important families really are.
Second, is how to be happy in life. There were many moments where I felt like the speakers were saying that the key to being happy in life depends on you. It has nothing to do with what you have, or anything else. Your happiness in life depends on your attitude. If you want to be happy, change yourself, not what's around you, and as you change yourself you will find your surroundings changing as well.
The third thing that i will share is another thing about how to be happy with your life. If you can´t find anything good in life, in a day, in a moment, then you aren't looking hard enough. Take the time to enjoy the life around you, the small things. I had a moment like this one day here in Chile. I had had a terrible day. We barely taught any lessons, no one wanted to talk to us, and so we walked. And walked. And walked. But at the end of the day, we saw the sunset, and it was so beautiful. I felt in that moment, happiness. I had had a terrible day, but it wasn't because the day was terrible, but because I was too busy thinking of all the things that could be, and not the beautiful things around me, of the love that Christ has for each person that rejected us, or the opportunity I have to serve my Lord. These small moments in life pass us by in every moment, we just have to stop and look.
So now all you girls are going to go serve a mission? haha. That was a big announcement. I really enjoyed watching the faces of everyone in the conference center, and then realized that I was making the same face, staring at the screen mouth hanging open. haha. I think it is absolutely amazing that they made this change. For the boys it won´t make a huge difference, but enough that there will be a lot more young missionaries. For the girls, I think it is amazing that now there will be more sister missionaries. They have an amazing spirit and can do a lot that elders can´t. There are always more people that need the gospel then there are missionaries to teach them. We always need more missionaries.
Everything is basically the same with me here. The food is not much different from the US, the culture is also basically the same. The Spanish, I don´t think that I will ever be totally comfortable with the language, but I am learning.
Just a little side note, if you are going to write me a letter you should email me because the mail takes about three weeks to get to me. I got some letters 3 or 4 days ago that were dated like... 12th of September or something like that. So you can send it through the mail if you want, but it is pretty slow. I don´t know what else to say right now... I had thought of some things last night but I forgot... yeah.. Hope you are all doing well!
¬Elder Michael Knapp
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