A visit from an Apostle...and a baptism!!

That's right! Elder Ballard was in Berlin and they called on short-notice a mission conference to have him speak to us! Quite the feat that they pulled all 250 missionaries spread out across northern Germany together in a matter of two days. And it was worth it!

Elder Ballard was accompanied by the area president, Elder Kearon, and Elder Craig C. Christensen of the Presidency of the Seventy. They also spoke to us which was nice.

Elder Kearon said something really profound. He said that naturally we were going to write in our journals about how we shook Elder Ballard's hand tonight but that wasn't enough. We need to write, "Tonight I shook the hand of Elder M Russel Ballard, a modern-day prophet and from this night on I commit to ______ ." It really set the tone for the meeting and allowed me to focus on Elder Ballard's words.

Elder Ballard spoke on the importance of becoming a great teacher. He said, "No really, you have got to be good." And he said that when we study chapter three of Preach My Gospel and know it inside out, we will be able to adapt to any teaching situation that we find ourselves in. I talked a lot about finding as well and how we need to smile more and be bold. I have always loved finding and it was so good to get a pep talk from an apostle about it! He shared a few stories about when he was mission president in Toronto. One of which included the late Elder Franklin D. Richards. Elder Richards told the mission, "If you want to baptize more people into the church, you need to talk to more people."

A few of my favorite notes that I jotted down during the conference were: We have to believe! Its all about our attitude; When we're anxiously engaged, we end up with miracles; Rarely does the Lord interfere when he's not invited (prayer) *That's my favorite* :)

At the end he blessed us with fun, not foolishness and said that our attitude doesn't have to be, "Oh great, we get to get persecuted again...."

It was a great conference and a good pump up session! I'm ready to keep working.

The conference allowed me to go to Angelica's baptism in Marzahn! How cool it was to see everything come full circle.  Here she is, dressed in white!

We had good lessons this week and Hesam continues to progress towards his baptism.

I wish everyone a great week!

Elder Tanner Germann