Patience

In my aged state of twenty-one years I have learned many things. The most important of these things is patience. The challenging thing about patience is that it is never fully learned and ironically it takes great patience to learn patience. Through patient learning I have learned that I will never learn perfect patience. It would require perfect patience to do so and thus the paradox is formed. As you can see I thoroughly enjoyed Elder Uchtdorf's talk from priesthood session of General Conference. I wish I had heard it sooner. Yet again, I had to patiently wait to one day hear.

Conference is a wonderful thing as a missionary. It is the only church meeting you can invite and investigator to without having to fear false doctrine. We brought an investigator to the Saturday afternoon session. From this session I learned two things. One, Elder Christopherson prerecords his talks in Spanish and speaks like a native and, second, that if Elder Holland speaks about the Law of Chastity you might as well say amen and consider that principle as taught.

You will also be pleased to note that I have been thoroughly stuffed with cake on my twenty-first birthday. I baked the cake mom sent, had red velvet cake yesterday at a lunch the stake put on for the missionaries between sessions, and then had flan cheesecake last night at a member's home. I am stuffed with cake. As for my birthday, the plan is to explore downtown Redwood City and then play a rousing game of Monopoly with our district leader and his companion. There have been threats circulating for a week that Elder Pitcher has made other missionaries cry as he made them mortgage every property in their possession.

In relation to the work. Last night we taught one of the best first lessons in one of the best situations yet. We committed our investigator and her two children to baptism in the home of a young member family. It was the perfect situation because the family then had her stay for tacos barbacoa (yum). They were able to help resolve many of her concerns because they were converts from the Catholic church and had many of the same concerns. She is excited for her baptism on the 8th of May and began to make quick friends with the member family we introduced them to. Members really are the best missionaries in a ward. We should think of a nonmember family back home that we could invite to do the same.

Thank you for the birthday wishes.

Love,

Elder Christopher Badger