2 weeks left?!

Hey everyone!!
How is everyone doing?! I hope everyone is great and doing well, I know it's hard without me there but it's all good, right? So first off, this week has been great. It went by so fast and it feels like yesterday I was just writing my last email on p-day. It's been a really good week and everything is coming along just great. I'm learning a lot more doctrine and I'm able to study the scriptures way more than I ever have before. I even was able to memorize a few scriptures along the way! I love all the time we get here to just study scriptures and study exactly what we're going to be teaching out in the field. So last Tuesday, we had an amazing speaker for out Tuesday night devotional. It was Elder Bednar!! It was so awesome to listen to him and he answered so many questions I had going into that fireside. It was after general conference and I took a bunch of notes but didn't really know what to do with them. Elder Bednar Spoke a ton about exactly what I needed to hear. He explained how we can use general conference to help us and he explained his ways of studying the talks and really getting to know them to apply them to his life. Elder Bednar said there are many ways we can study talks given at general conference as well as any other talks given. In his way, it comes down to three things that we can focus on. First we focus on the doctrine that i being talked about. Then we focus on the principles of the talk as well as on the doctrine. Then we recognize the blessings that can be given to us if we follow those principles. It was so helpful and it really allowed me to realize not only the importance of general conference, but the importance it has directly in my life. Like I said before, a ton of the talks were focused on missionary work, and now that I am one, it pertains a lot to me. I was so happy about that. Then Sunday night we had another speaker for Sunday night devotional. I forget his name right now but he talked about noticing the bird's eye view and not the worm's eye view. We need to see the overall picture of everything that we do. We need to see it in our study times, in our lessons to investigators, or anything else that we do as missionaries. The bird's eye view is what could happen as a result. He explained it as people building a beautiful building. There's a contractor and two assistants. One assistant is asked what he's doing and he says he's doing the hard labor while the contractor sits back and gets paid more than he does. Then the other assistant is asked the same question. He says he is helping his contractor build one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Both are doing the same job, but the second assistant realized the importance of his work and the overall picture of it. We need to do this in our work as well. Well that's about it from me. I love you all and thanks so much for everything!

Elder Stephens