::Spring Conference::

Cody is having an awesome mission.  He loves his companions and the people he meets, as well as the Missionary President and his wife.  He says they have weekly meetings to go over what they are doing well and what they need to try and improve on.  Everyone says Cody is doing an excellent job.  He does lack a little confidence and he needs to be like Doug in the movie UP.  This is a great goal that he has set to work on.  He loved conference because it focused on forgiveness and families.  These are very important aspects of our religion that people need to continually do to have an eternal family.  These aspects are a central part of our church.  But we always need to work on these and make sure that we always have harmony within our family.  Also forgiveness isn't just for families.  Forgiveness is an important process for everyone in society including our church members and leaders. President Uchtdorf spoke about not judging others, that we must find it in our hearts to forgive.  He said the acts of unfriendliness, ignoring, unkindness, and gossiping plague our souls.  We need to try hard not to do these things to anyone but especially our families.  Because they will plague our family relationships.  That is not what God wants.  God wants us to have eternal families and by participating in these things it will only separate our families.  He said when we find ourselves doing these things, we need to JUST STOP IT!! I like when he said, "in a world of accusations and unfriendliness, it is easy to gather and cast stones. “Brothers and sisters, let us put down our stones. Let us be kind. Let us forgive. Let us talk peacefully with each other. Let the love of God fill our hearts. Let us do good unto all men (Galatians 6:10)"  If we treat each other well and put our stones down there won't be broken homes, and hurt feelings of other members of our family, church and society.  We accomplish this by unconditional love towards everyone and forgiveness.  We need to be honest with everyone we deal with.  If we tell someone that we will do something or promise them something, we must make sure that we carry out that action.  If we don't keep our promises we are letting down ourselves and the person we made a promise to.  By not carrying these out shows others that we are untrustworthy and we are sinning, because one of the ten commandments is to be honest.  This is not just for the population of the world, it is amplified if our church leaders don't keep their promises and aren't honest with others.  This is more damning if done by our leadership in the church, because it makes the members of the ward, investigators and friends that it's ok to be dishonest and not keep our promises.  This is even worse when our church leadership sins and validates it because of their stature in the church or our leaders of our community.  For if we don't we are sinning and need to repent and ask forgiveness.  We have a group of four Missionaries and one car but we do most things with two and two. Just Studying, Planning, Service, p-day, and driving we do together.  Elder Jones is always happy when he goes to the temple.  His favorite hymn right now is "nearer my god to thee."  Elder Jones challenges everyone to take heed to the things that President Uchtdorf said.  If you missed conference or want to refresh your memory you can see it on lds.org.  Cody wants everyone to be happy and have a great week.