Week 54  General Conference in all the Languages

Well talk about a weird week. It has felt both long and short at the same time. So this week we watched general conference. On Tuesday and Wednesday, with all the missionaries, we binge watched it all. Conference was amazing! I especially loved the Women's Conference! I'll get into a specific talk in my spiritual thought later. We met with our investigator "Em" this week a few times. She is progressing just rather slowly. She came to both conference sessions on Saturday and Sunday which made me so happy. She said that she wouldn't be coming to the Sunday one, but I turned around during conference and there she was! Something very special happened this week. I got to meet and see with M and Y again from my old area. I went to the Temka church with some of the sisters to meet with them since M asked specifically for my help her. Of course I got permission to go. M wanted me to help Y because she is looking into some animation schools. I basically played like her academic councilor as I helped her look at schools. M is still taking lessons from the translator and her testimony is even stronger than before. Its just her personal situation is worse. Family matters in her country have gotten really bad...and actually pretty scary. Listening to what has been happening there just made me realize; one how small my trails are and two that the world can sometimes be truly unfair. Yet, through all of what has happened, "M"still looks to Christ. Seeing her and Y again made my entire week. We all shed a few tears at our meeting since it has been so long. Because of work she has had no time for anything else. She finally made it clear to her manager that she is not working on Sundays. She even came to general conference! Conference in Georgia is the weekend after GC becuase it takes a while to get it translated into the other languages...and it was a dozy. On Saturday we had it showing in Russian, English, and Persian. I watched it in Russian. We only have the Sunday session translated into Georgian. So we sat with our members and our investigator through the entire conference in Russian. I have never been so bored in my entire life. I mean that many hours of conference is sometimes hard to get through in English let alone in a language you don't even know. Sunday I watched the first session in Georgian...wow talk about a language study. I have progressed, but still was hard at times. I mean they just talk so dang fast! The second session I joined M in the Persian room. We sat and ate cake, which she brought, and watched conference in Persian. I was beyond happy. For me it was a dear moment sitting together, feeling the spirit, and eating cake with her. Its moments like these that make my entire mission. Something that I have truly learned is the we are literally all brothers and sisters. It's so amazing! l got a little choked up to be honest. Today we are going to უფლისციხე with all the missionaries. Looks like our new president changed the rule and we can go outside of Tbilisi! 

Spiritual thought: I especially loved Elder Ballard's talk. It's actually something I have been thinking about a lot. This fight between our physical self, natural man, and our eternal self. Elder Ballard said, "It seems clear to me that one of the most important things we can learn in this life is how to emphasize our eternal spiritual nature and control our evil desires". I have been thinking about that in regards to the scripture in Matthew 16:25 which states, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it". When we put off our natural self and our selfish desires and look outwards we find ourselves, either that looking outwards is to Christ or to others. I think what it means is that we find our eternal selves when we lose ourselves in the service of others and in the gospel. It's during those times when our natural man can fade away to let our eternal spirits shine through. We are able to find and rediscover who we really are. It's in those moments when we progress the most and learn the most. That may be why missionaries grow so much on their missions...because they put off their world desires, their natural man, and serve for 2 years or 18 months. They let their eternal selves shine through. Now this thought is based on the idea that they put their whole heart into, if they truly lose themselves in the work, then indefinitely they will grow. Anyway to sum this thought all up, we can grow and be who we really are, our eternal spirits, if we look to Christ and outwards to others.

Well that was the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი 

PS. Sorry not a lot of pictures😬