General Conference!

Can I just start by saying General Conference is quickly becoming one of my most anticipated weekends in the year. It's always a blessing to hear from modern prophets and leaders who love the Lord and want us to grow closer to Him. 

This week has also been a bit of a blur, we have done so many contacts. We have been reaching out to pretty much all the people who have been taught in the past that speak French. So far almost no one has responded to us, but we have been putting in the work and I know it won't be wasted. 

We did find someone named Phillip, he moved from Africa like 20 years ago, so his English is way better than his Swahili. Sadly, we're going to pass him off soon but he's so great we don't want to yet, ha-ha! He is one of the directors of a non-profit organization called Box2Box.  It helps get impoverished kids off the streets and into something productive. In this case it's usually soccer, which makes sense because it was started by African immigrants. But it is a great program because it also puts kids in touch with mentors who can help with school or other things in life, they don't have the tools to do, like finding a good job or applying for further education. But, Phillip doesn't stop there, he's super curious in what we teach and has a huge desire to learn more. It was amazing to talk with him because he has so many questions!

When I got here, we had 2 people on baptismal date, Annie and Lucia. Annie is very interesting, and we honestly think that she wants to be baptized to get rent aid, but she moved and kind of disappeared for 3 weeks until she moved into an apartment in the North area. Needless to say, she's not on baptismal date anymore ha-ha. Hopefully she sees that the gospel is here to make her life better though and continues foreword learning. 

Lucia is great! She's an older woman who moved from Angola. Which means she speaks Portuguese, French, and who knows how many other languages. But she's totally ready to be baptized. We went over and taught her on a porch, and we ran into an issue. Guess what?? She's concerned about second baptism... so we then taught about the unique promises we make when we are baptized with the proper authority. She said she understands but would have to take some time to ponder it all over. We asked if we could still have a date in the future to work towards, but she said no sadly. 

But, everyone's conference was great! We watched a couple sessions with some younger members and that was really fun. I am doing my best to start following the prophet's counsel to "think celestial," and I encourage all of you to go listen to the conference and choose at least one thing you want to incorporate into your life. 

Have a great week! 

Elder Baird