Great Week!

What a great week we have just had! We completed interviews for the transfer and on Friday we held our 'Retrainer's' meeting where all the new missionaries with their trainers come for a 2 hour training.
This is such a great meeting because we can really talk about how they are adjusting as missionaries, what they have learned, what their challenges are, and we answer questions all pertaining to missionary work. They don't realize it, but we have already seen them grow! Yes, some are still quite homesick, and some are still overwhelmed, but they are beginning to really feel what it is like to be a missionary and are learning to throw themselves into the work. The quicker they can do that, the
happier they are. Sometimes it is hard to let go of home--but as they take the counsel that President Hinckley's father gave him, to 'forget yourself and go to work', the happier they are and the more effective missionary they become. It's quite a unique thing to witness! After the meeting we had a pizza lunch in the cultural hall before sending everyone on their way back to their areas.
Friday night we were able to attend the baptism of Rory Swoboda. It is just so special to attend a convert baptism! There is nothing like the sweet spirit there as you watch someone change and follow the example of the Savior and be baptized. It is also so cool to see how it impacts the ward members. It really unifies a ward, and builds their faith as they watch someone take this step.
General Conference weekend was so inspiring, and our missionaries loved it. Of course, for all of them this was the first solemn assembly they can remember, and it was very special for them to participate in it and sustain our new prophet, President Russell M. Nelson. And then to hear of all the inspired changes that were revealed--it was quite a conference to remember!
This weekend being Easter was also the day we completed our reading of the Book of Mormon together as a mission. It was very fitting that this time we underlined all the references to Jesus Christ, and to realize just how much the Book of Mormon testifies of Him. We have come to realize in an even more profound way just how much this book talks of Him. I know it was powerful for our missionaries to read it this way, and their love for their Savior grew. I know mine did. I know as we read and study His life in the Bible and Book of Mormon, we come to realize His great love for us, and also His great mercy, and goodness, and his perfect example. I am so grateful to know that He suffered for me, for each of us, because of His great love for us. And I am so grateful to know that He lives, and because of His glorious resurrection, each of us will also be resurrected and have the opportunity to live with Him forever if we remain faithful in His gospel. What a great blessing!
To have General Conference on Easter Sunday is just the best! Our missionaries just loved it, and were so inspired and lifted up.
We keep hoping for spring, but we have had some cold temperatures and snow! I don't think spring is coming until at least May! I don't think the snow in our back yard will melt until July, haha!