GROUP EMAIL 10/8/2018 12 Temples!

Alright so this week was pretty good, however, I first want to point out that I totally called the fact that there were
12 temples. And it is so cool that there are 12! That is so many. The church really is true and I can truly testify
 that when President Russell M. Nelson says that spending time in the temple will change your life, it truly will.
 I challenge all of you to try and go to the temple regularly, in fact I would go so far to even say go at least once
 a week! It really will change your life. I can speak from experience that it truly will. Especially if you do work for
your ancestors. But anyways, I will get off my soapbox about temples. They truly are amazing though. By the way,
 in case you were wondering, once all of the temples that have been announced are built, there will be 201 temples.
 That is so cool!!! Alright sorry.

This week was pretty good. The entire week I was super pumped for conference haha. I am sure my roommates
were sick of me because I was literally counting down. Isn't it so cool that we can receive revelation in our day?
Anyways, we had a couple of lessons this week. We had a lesson with Mike again this week. He is having a
really hard time with the Book of Mormon. It doesn't help that the Chinese translation is really bad. They are
 retranslating the Book of Mormon and I hope that they do it fast. I didn't realize in the MTC how much it would
affect people out here. We gave him an English Book of Mormon in case that would help because his English
 is pretty good. But we tried to read the Book of Mormon with him on Sunday as well with Qianqian, and she
actually helped him to understand which was really good.

We also had a lesson with a guy named Stanley. He is super good and we were able to set a date with him.
 It isn't until January 26 though because he wants to be baptized in Hong Kong. It is pretty cool actually. He
 is super awesome and has a desire to learn more. 

Qianqian came to general conference yesterday and we finished teaching her all the lessons. Then she
 had her baptismal interview. She will be baptized next Sunday and it is so exciting. She is super awesome
 and you can tell how the gospel has truly changed her life. It is amazing what happens. Really. The gospel
 is so true and when we follow it, it will truly change our lives. 

Finally, we had sort of a lesson with a girl named Elena. She came to America I don't know how long ago,
 but she used to really like it. However, now she doesn't like it at all. We tried to explain to her that people
in Los Angeles are different than people in the rest of America. It was kind of funny but she finally believed
 us and then she was like, you guys are really nice. Then we kind of hinted that a lot of people in our church
are like us, we are going to try and get her to church or something so she can meet all of the nice people.
She is super nice though and super awesome. 

Oh also, I started to learn how to play the guitar this week.It's going alright Haha. Elder Cameron has a
 guitar and has started to teach me a little bit. It's hard though because his guitar is pretty small and my
fingers are fat. It's fun though. Maybe I'll learn before I leave lol. 

Well, that was pretty much my week. I just want to leave you all with something. One of my favorite talks
 given in conference was Brother M. Joseph Brough from the Young Men's presidency. There were a lot
 of amazing talks, but this one was one of my favorites. It might have talked about something else, however,
the thing I got from it is how we should face trials. Something I have really realized over the last little bit is
 that when we came to earth, we agreed that we would go through trials. We would go through trials because
going through trials allows us to learn and grow. In his talk, he talked about two things that we should do when
 hard things come. The first thing we need to do is try and forgive others. If others cause us to have hard
 things and hard trials, we need to try our hardest to forgive them. I have seen in my own life that forgiveness
 truly does lift a burden from you. It allows you to not be angry and to love the person. However, sometimes
 it is hard when we have to forgive. I am sure we have all seen this in our lives. That is when the second
 part comes in, we need to trust in the Lord. Through the Atonement, we can find the way to forgive others.
We can see how He loves them and how we can forgive them. That is one of the amazing things about the
Atonement, it isn't just about repenting of our sins, through the enabling power of the Atonement, we can
find the power to forgive others, as well as other things. Also when we trust in the Lord, we will be able to
trust that he is giving us this trial for our benefit, even if it isn't caused by someone else. Sometimes, we are
 just receiving a trial to help us learn and grow. When we trust in the Lord it helps us so much to be happier.
 I really did love this talk a lot, and I invite you all to read it over again, as well as all of the others. Finally,
from this talk, when we are faced with hard things, look for the joy. If you choose to dwell on the bad things,
 life will be so much harder. We need to always be looking for the joy in our lives, and you will be surprised
 at how much you find. Anyways, sorry this is long, and I hope that it made sense lol. love you all!
 General Conference is awesome. I hope you are all doing amazing. The gospel is true.
 Anyways, good bye. Love you guys!

Elder Vander Linden