GENERAL CONFERENCE

April 10, 2011 Sunday

Now we know how they do it in Perth. We saw all five sessions at the stake center on satellite relay from Sydney this weekend, just a week later than in Utah. On Saturday, the sessions were at 11, 2, and 5. Today they were at 9 and 12. Since there was only an hour between sessions, most folks just brought stuff to snack on. Except Elder Baxter. He showed up at lunch today eating a Whopper. He’d bought it yesterday, put it in the fridge and warmed it up in the microwave. He is a unique guy—good thing there is only one of him. More than one would drive you crazy!
Yingping came to both sessions today. She really enjoyed Elder Bednar’s talk about light. Between sessions, Orson, Elders Kent and Able, and a fellow from the Como ward gave her a blessing. She had asked for it to be healed from all the stomach problems she has. She was blessed that she would be healed and also that she would be able to find a job. She also had a lot of questions about the temple after President Monson’s talk. We have a lot of teaching left to do with her. We had her and Maud come over for dinner on Friday. The first time they came to dinner I made a chicken satay sauce over rice, and they hardly ate any of it. This time I made macaroni salad with ham and cheese in it, and they ate seconds and took some home! So much for trying to cook Asian for them! We taught them to play Chickenfoot and Mexican Train and then showed them Legacy. Bless her heart, after seeing what the early pioneers went through, Yingping declared, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that! Maybe I can have a little trouble, but not big like they did!”
The bishop told us a week ago that he’d talked to Ariel’s dad about us teaching her again. They agreed we could if we would take it slow and easy. So tonight we visited with him to find out what he wanted. We came to find out that she has absolutely NO background in religion; so when we’d gone in and talked about the godhead, for example, in passing, she had no clue what we were talking about. She’d been raised by her Catholic mom who had given her no religious training. So we really are going to start at “square one” with her and teach her gradually just ½ hour at a visit until she’s ready for baptism. Her mom and step-dad drink and smoke. When Ariel was caught smoking at school, her mom threw her hands in the air and sent her to her dad to handle. Ariel seems to be doing really well in the family and seems to be thriving on the discipline, FHE, and family prayers. We just hope we can do our part to give her a good understanding of the gospel.