Week #85 - General Conference!

Interviews in the Mission Office

 

Hola familia y amigos!

Well for me this Conference weekend had its ups and downs. I can say that I most likely lost confidence in my branch president for stuff that he is doing, but first things first.  My condolences go out to the Hatch family. I loved talking to Hna. Hatch, she was a very special person and although it’s really sad, it’s good to know that she “graduated” from this life doing to Lord´s work. 

Well I loved Conference as always, it’s that just Saturday made me a bit upset because we missed the first 4 talks, but we ended up seeing the rest. I really loved Pres. Uchtdorf´s talks, he is becoming one of my favorites to listen to. I really liked Elder Hollands talk too and I can’t get over his final words “it’s getting late” wow! I loved the choirs too, and I guess David Archuletta was singing there?! haha that’s really awesome! Well we had some investigators go and I felt like Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk Sunday morning was perfect for them and the entire branch, to stop spreading rumors, just STOP IT! We have a terrible time with that here in this area and that is way we are having problems keeping people active. This leads me to what has been happening here and why the branch president here is driving me crazy! On Friday night he came to our cooks house while we were there to tell everyone that the bus would leave late because the first session from 10-12 was just for Relief Society, then it started up again at 4 to 6, then 6 to 8! I wanted to slap him silly! We told him countless times that at 10am was for everyone and then it started again at 2pm and then at 6pm priesthood, but he wouldn’t believe us. He said he called another bishop (who apparently is in on the craziness) and confirmed that in the morning was just for RS, but it started at 2pm for everyone else, so the bus was going to leave at 1pm to get there on time, because we live pretty far out here.  Alright I was fine with that but Saturday comes around and I didn’t notice but they didn’t show up at 2pm. It turns out that he changed his mind and wanted to leave our area at 3pm. They brought 5 investigator (3 of which had never been to church before) and we were super mad because he took them all the way out there for nothing! Apparently our ward mission leader called him at 2pm asking where he was and he said they were going to leave soon but the ward mission leader told him not to bother because they were going to miss it anyways. That was bad enough, but later when we get all the cooks home and while we were there, the branch president goes around telling the members that it was our fault that they were late because we told him it was at 4pm and not at 2pm, like he had been telling us!! I got super mad because he was spreading false rumors and making us look bad so we got home super angry and had to calm down. Then Sunday we had an attendance of 52 people, but counted 72 for the 20 people that wanted to go but couldn’t, and the other bishop I mentioned earlier told the Hermanas in our district a completely different number than what was the actual attendance, and there are just a number of problems its getting me really frustrated, but I just gotta breath and keep going!

Anyway, I did really love Conference, and it’s weird to think it’s my last one in the mission, but I really enjoyed it and had a great time! Hopefully this week we can have some baptisms, and I’m going to see what I do about this area and how I can help it. I’ve got to regain confidence in my BP, but whatever, I’m sure we’ll be ok. I hope that everyone back home is doing great and that you all have a great week!

Hasta pronto,

Elder Neher