Hello everyone! Wow. I love general conference. I had never looked
forward to it so much as I did this past weekend as a missionary. It
felt like a vacation, or as much of a vacation as a missionary will get
anyway. We went to the stake center to watch, since it isnt broadcast on
TV here, not that we are allowed to watch tv anyway, and we cant watch
on internet either. So we made the trip down to the stake center and to
enjoy the whole day there relaxing. It was nice to relax, that is a rare
thing for a missionary.
One thing was weird,
normally in the stake centers they have the spanish broadcast for those
members who speak Spanish back home, well, here they did the same thing
for us. It felt weird to be one of 5 or so North American missionaries
watching the english broadcast. It was weird to be the minority, but its
exciting all the same. On Saturday I watched the three sessions in
english, but on sunday there were more people, so they had to use the tv
and room for more people, so I had to watch in spanish. It was cool,
and I didnt have any problems understanding anything, but it just wasnt
the same. It doesnt have the same impact. Just imagine listening to
Elder Holland talk in a monotone voice. Its not the same. On sunday
listening to the sessions in spanish something that really struck me was
the hymn in the middle where everyone sings. The video that is
broadcast to the whole world is the same, english subtitles and all, and
they dont translate the choir either, obviously, and the sound that
comes from the speakers in the intermediate hymn is the same, its in
english, so everyone brings their hymnbooks and sings the songs in
spanish while the sound is in english. It was a really neat experience.
Everyone stood up and in the background we could hear the english song
(it was the hymn Called to Serve) but I along with everyone else started
singing in Spanish. It felt weird, but it made the fact that the Church
is a worldwide one reality. It felt really cool to realize that as I
was singing in Spanish millions of other people were joining in singing
in their own language. It doesnt sound that exciting, but I promise it
was.
As far as investigators go in the sessions
of conference, for us it was a let down. We had more than 50 people
committed to go. 5 came, including 2 who we never invited in the first
place who a member brought. I felt really frustrated, but it really is
ok. Two of the people that came are a really good family who is really
interested in listening to us and I think I will see them baptized one
day. I really like that family. Speaking of baptisms, we have one lined
up for this Saturday! There are a lot of obstacles to work around this
week for it to happen, but we have plans made to take care of them, so
if all goes well we will have a baptism! I am really excited for it. I
am pretty sure its going to happen. I will tell you more about the
family next week since we dont have much time to write today. Thats all
for this week
Elder Matthew Bray
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