Elder David y Hna. Pam Johnson

Sunday, October 4, 2009 - GENERAL CONFERENCE

This morni ng we were out of our apartment early to make sure we would be on time for Music and the Spoken Word before the first session of conference at the home of the temple president. We were driving down the coast road toward the temple and realized we would be very early so we stopped and enjoyed the breeze & surf of the coast line. I got to take some pictures. This is close to the same place that I stopped at last night to take pictures of the Santo Domingo Harbor under a full moon.

Next we got to enjoy another fine day of General Conference sessions, and this time all of the Elders and Sisters of the mission attended with their investigators. It seems that all missionaries love to attend conference even if it is only by satellite.

Between sessions we were invited to eat lunch with Elder and Sister (Jim & Judy) Bowcut. They are temple workers here in the Dominican Republic temple. This is their second mission; their first was as Church Education System (CES) Missionaries in Peru. They’ve been on this mission for about 8 months now. They were very gracious and opened up their home to us.

Like all of the temple missionaries, the Bowcuts live here at the “Casa de Huespedes” (Accommodation Center) next to the temple. The church provides them a nice, 1bedroom, 1bath apartment at about half the price we are paying for our 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment here in the city. The best part of their apartment is the full air conditioning. Plus the church provides a complete water purification system for the temple, MTC and accommodation center which means the water is safe to drink. Wow, that is a real blessing.

After the final session of conference Hna. Johnson and I went back to the mission office were we logged onto the internet where we saw and talked to our family on the webcam. As usual it was great to visit with them and especially our grandchildren.

Hna Johnson and I really enjoyed our conference weekend. We were spiritually fed and uplifted. The talks of the brethren give us the spiritual strength to carry on with the work, to achieve our goals and endure to the end. Sometimes we are faced with huge obstacles in our callings but the words of the Apostles and the Prophet give us renewed energy and we know we can do our calling and our offering to the Lord, no matter how small, will be accepted by Him.