Hey Momma, (Sorry you're not Mimi to me, and I don't have children.. soo... You're Momma.)

Laura's baby is amazing!! That's so awesome, and she's so stinkin cute!  Your hair is really long! I'm glad everything went alright with that.  Tell her that she has another uncle.  I'm sure she'll trust you.  No moustaches this time?

I've seen all the sessions of conference, except the Sunday night session.  I watched it in our Stake Center in Coventry.  It's not in the middle of the night.  I watched Saturday morning session at 5:00pm on Saturday, then Priesthood on Sunday morning at 10:00, then Saturday PM sesh at 1:00pm, and then the Sunday morning sesh at 5:00.  So.. I guess some of it is on in the middle of the night, but we don't watch it in the middle of the night.  I plan on downloading the Sunday afternoon conference and listening to the talks one by one, every day for the next week or so.  It's a good companionship study, and it's so freakin good.

I absolutely loved conference.  I really am angry with myself for missing out on so much over the years.  Those talks are brilliant!  I don't know how anyone can argue that this church isn't run by Christ Himself.  People are so odd.  I hadn't heard of the women priesthood issue. Funny enough, there was a recent convert in Coventry that brought his sister to Priesthood meeting, haha the missionaries didn't want to turn her away, so they quickly went and picked up a couple sister missionaries serving in the area to watch with her as well! So.. I guess we were sort of part of that.  But not really.  Those women are ridiculous.  They quite obviously don't understand the priesthood, or for that matter the Church.  You're right, they don't know who actually runs this church.  Jesus Christ and God know what they're doing, and just because some self righteous women think that they need to have the Priesthood doesn't mean that God will change his mind.  What they obviously don't understand is that through covenants, they will have complete access to the priesthood.  They also need to read their scriptures a little more.  I think they're probably skipping out on the basics of being a member so that they can fight against God.  If they read and prayed every single day, and did it with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, they would understand that it's not their will that they should worry about.  God's will is the only thing that matters.  Period.  Until they figure that out, as Elder Holland says, they're in for many long, dark nights, and empty nets.

To be fair, I am so interested in so called "deep doctrine," and I do try and study and become accountable for greater knowledge, but what I've found is that all of the Gospel, no matter how deep always returns to the basics.  We need to pray. At all times.  Not just in the morning, not just at night, although, even that would help most people, but everywhere we go.  I find myself whispering prayers in my head about absolutely everything lately, and how is it turning out? Not the way I want it to, every time, but the way I know God wants it to, and that's infinitely more important.  We also need to read the scriptures.  So many people think they know everything that's in those books.  They're dead wrong.  And unfortunately, they're literally, spiritually, dead.  There is so much knowledge in the standard works, it's incredible.  Nobody, including the Prophet himself, knows the scriptures as well as we should.  We should spend all our time in those books, and the rest of the time showing others what is found in those books. 

The biggest problem this world has today is pride.  I'm hearing about so many people falling away from the Church.  It's amazing that they don't see and understand that it is not only foretold in the scriptures like a thousand million times, but also every sign and action of pride is quite explicitly detailed so that we can stay away from it.  It's so obvious, it's almost all the scriptures talk about.  Back to Elder Holland, who goes back to Christ.  The greatest commandment of all.  We need to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.  I LOVE what he says.  "I'm not sure what our experience on Judgement day will be, but I'll be surprised if God doesn't ask us the same question that He asked Peter.  Did you love me?"  That one commandment could be it, if we weren't such idiots. Such stupidly dumb creatures.  If we loved God with everything that we had, there wouldn't be any problems with "the early church" or "gay marriage" or "women not having the priesthood."  We would all say, who gives a crap!? Let's just love God, and everything else will fall perfectly into play.

Sorry.  I rant.

This week has been good.  I've definitely overcome a lot of the things that I was stressed out about, although, I think I'm going to get a priesthood blessing from President Rasmussen this week, if he has time.  If not, I'll just ask my District Leader or something.  The other two missionaries are good now, so I don't worry about them as much.  Although, it will help when they get an investigator of their own.  Elder Wrenger and I have gotten along a lot better this week, and I'm sure this coming week is going to be even better.  Michele is still going to get baptized on Saturday, as far as I know, and Patrick will be dunked before I leave Warwick, mark my words.  Everything is totally fine.  I whinged last week, but I didn't mean for you to worry about me, only to realize what I'm coming to realize.  That this big bad world needs to repent.  That's including me, you, and everyone.  And my, does it take faith, humility and diligence.

Repentance, and faith.  That's it.  That's all I've been called to preach.  I'm starting to understand that a bit better now.  It's much more profound than I've ever realized and much more important than I think I understand.  Or ever will, to be fair.  But life is good Momma.  I like it here, and the Lord lives.  How cool is that?  You know what's even cooler? Listening to talks about how to raise your children in the Gospel and realizing just how amazing my parents are.  You guys win.  Give Dad a spiritual high-five, because you guys are amazing.  I love you so much.  I'm going to write more later on today, but I've ran out of time for now.  I love you so so much, and I want to be the same kind of awesome as you and Dad when I'm older. I'll need your help.  But I'm sure I'll get it, cause you're amazing.

I love you,

Love,

Colton