we are required to swim against the current at times

Well, here's this week: We've had a good week. Lots of good work. Our
additional two Elders are gonna be moving out today. THe mission tour
is over. We found lots of good new investigators and less actives.
This last Sunday went amazingly. We woke up, did studies and stuff and
went out to remind all of our investigators about church. When the
truck went around, lots of new people that hadn't come in a while
came. It has a lot also to do with school just getting out for the
kids here. Yeah summer break for kiribati kids just started. We had
tons of people come to YSA. Lots of boys and girls, which is contrary
to the usual just girls. I taught the lesson. Our YSA lessons are
somewhat of a Mission prep cause most people are preparing to serve
missions any way. We went over teaching skills, and then did a role
play. Literally there were like 10 people there as opposed to the
usual 5! Haha, we also had a 'confirmation' this week. Some
misunderstanding happened with one of our old investigators. We'd been
teaching him, he moved to a different area, missionaries there get him
ready for baptism, they baptize him, and for some reason he comes to
church in our ward the next day haha, so we called AP's and they said
go ahead and just confirm him. So yeah.
Mission conference was way fun turns out we all just studied in the
chapel till president Ardern came. He asked that we all be "studying
our scriptures" when he comes. He was pretty cool. Really
knowledgeable in the scriptures. Any time you said anything about any
principle, he would be able to add to your idea with his own
scripture. He really emphasized refining our own personal missionary
skills. Becoming a PMG misssionary. And really taking every advantage
you can to become a 'gospel scholar'. I've had some really good
personal studies since. It's really good to plan out your studies and
organize the things you learn so that you're able to recall it in the
future. I've personally learned that finding answers to your questions
during studies is a sure way to have a productive study. The main
things President Ardern went over was preparing spiritually, becoming
more Christ like, and improving our teaching skills. One of the best
things he touched upon that I remember the most was that we need to
act. There's no reason to throw a mission training conference if we
don't act upon the things we learn. It's hard at times, like someone
in a recent general conference said something like: in living the
gospel of Jesus Christ we can't just float along and expect the
current to take us where we want to go (President Utchdorf) we are
required to swim against the current at times. I really love that
quote. We really do need to act. If we learn something  in the
scriptures during our study, we need to ask ourselves how we can
change and improve from the lesson we learned. It's important to set
goals, especially prayerfully. And then when we have goals we need to
swim against the current at times to achieve them. I love how we get
credit even for trying. Even though really working toward goals seems
often daunting at first, especially staying strong with them till the
end. But we get credit even for trying, just so long as we really do
try. That's one of the main things I learned from the conference and
that I want to really try to do better at. One of the things I've
learned on my mission is that as long as this two years is, it's
composed of individual days. A good mission is composed of good days.
Same with life. There's no reason we shouldn't give each day our best.
Not that I'm perfect at this, but those were some things I'd felt I'd
learned. Well, Have a good week! Love ya!!!! We also taught a good
lessons yesterday btw to a guy who recently who's been a little
reluctant to take lessons with Elders in the past. THis was our second
lessons with him. He's awesome, he's the kind of investigator that
turns the lesson into a discussion for you, which is a problem
especially here as what with the culture everyone is way too polite to
want to express their questions and doubts at first. Well, we answered
his question about D&C 130:15-16 first, and then taught about the
restoration. It went really well I feel. His name is Nakiata. If we
can get him excited on the lessons I imagine he'll let his family
who's taking lessons with us as well to be baptized . WEll, ti a
bo!!!! Love you!!!!- ELder seffker