A Stake in Lome

Dearest family and friends,

Well, today the internet is being super super super super slow and so I can't open the contacts page here on the emails to send out a mass email. So be sure to spread the word around to everyone that I am alive, and tell people about my blog.

To explain the feelings that surrounded the amazingness of this District-turned-to-Stake Conference would be impossible, like in all matters of sacredness, the Spirit stands as an individual witness to all involved, and then all of those feelings are so personalized that they won't be the same as the one standing just next to you hearing the same words being said.

Elder Vincent, the Seventy that came to organize the Stake, is an Australian. It was sort of funny to see the translator struggle because how thick his accent is. He was powerful, and I dare say he has the foundations of hell rumbling a bit like Moroni. Maybe I just haven't heard a really powerful talk in a while, but I feel as though the two he gave over this conference were absolutely astounding.

He showed me so much that I need to look for in the Gospel and the things that the Lord wants for us in our lives. I loved the focus of his message on Sunday, "Focus on the Mountain of the Lord!" He spoke of an incident in Exodus 10:19 where He (the Lord) tells Moses to go down and tell the people to sanctify themselves because He wants to make Himself manifest unto ALL in three days, but the Children of Israel refused. They placed their focus on things of the world, the Gold Ram, and they wouldn't prepare themselves to go up to Sinai.

We need to all be preparing ourselves to go up unto the Mount of the Lord, and how well are we working on that? Are we putting other things above our devotion to the Lord? School, work, movies, friends, etc.? How can we turn out attention from the things, though truly important, to something of higher worth? We must turn our attention to things of eternal value, preparing ourselves for the Temple. Making and keeping covenants with our Heavenly Father, be it for ourselves, or most importantly, be it for our eternal families.

I miss the Temple very much. I wish I had a Temple that I was able to go to every once in a while here, but alas I don't. I just need to remember the beautiful things of the House of the Lord, and continue to prepare myself for the next time I get to go. I have realized that things in this life need to be taken seriously, for they are far too easily taken for granted. Hold on to the precious things that you can take with you into the next life, and don't overburden yourself with useless temporal things that have no importance in the grand scheme of it all.

Find your testimony in the beauty of Eternal Life, it carries you over the most difficult of times.

That is a bit of what I learned this week! I love you all, have a great week!

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Sincerely,
Elder Robert Haggard

Mission Bénin Cotonou
Cadjehoun Lot°1158 Bloc F
01 BP 3323
Cotonou, Bénin