Editor’s note: Many are familiar with my daughter, Sara Arkell, also known as The Piano Gal. Sara has been called to serve in the New York Syracuse Mission. This is a series on her weekly letters that we will be posting on the site for those who wish to follow along with her mission. You can read her previous emails here.
Hello everyone! I hope you’re all riding the spiritual high from General Conference this weekend! We are SO blessed to have a living prophet on the earth today, the apostles, and all the other Church leaders to listen to and then follow their counsel which leads to JOY!!! As I watched, I was continually overcome with gratitude for this Church and I know it’s true.
I would really love to hear 1 takeaway that you received from Conference, I’m expecting my inbox to be flooding in with replies to this email 😉 (sara.arkell@missionary.org)
Here are some of my major takeaways, it was all so good but I’ll spare you a novel!
- Marcos A. Aidukaitis and M. Russell Ballard’s talks about missionary work were so powerful!!! It really is the most important work right now. There seemed to be a sense of urgency throughout all the talks, just like “help the work move forward!!”, “make covenants with God!!!”, and “don’t heed what Satan & the world want you to do!!” SO MANY BLESSINGS COME FROM SERVING A MISSIONARY. Boys – go! Girls – if you pray about it and feel like you should, I am so excited for you because it’s truly a once in a lifetime opportunity!
- I loved Elder Bednar’s talk about not heeding what the world is saying! There is SO MUCH CHAOS today and we need to learn to heed the Lord. That’s where true joy comes from, no matter what anyone else says.
- 17 more temples?! I am SO THANKFUL for temples & that the work keeps on progressing. President Nelson has announced 100 new temples since he became the Prophet which is amazing. I can’t wait until I can get back to the temple!
This week we were able to help some people whose car had run out of gas. We filled up a gas can for them at the gas station & it felt really good to help someone out in that way! They were so shocked when we wouldn’t accept money from them haha, we handed the money back with a Jesus pass along card & told them to call us if they wanted to learn more about Him. Always gotta share the good news!!
Spent Thursday night to Friday night in New Hartford on exchanges! I played a piano that was made in 1904! It was at one of the Sister’s friend’s houses and it was falling apart but it was cool. I felt prompted that we needed to sing “Nearer My God To Thee” at the end of the lesson & it turns out the service missionary who came with us really needed to hear that song at that moment. God knows what each individual needs, it’s so cool.
We get to go to the Sacred Grove this week for Zone Conference! I am so excited. It’s going to be such an amazing experience. Can’t wait to tell you all about it!