In the Millenium Elders...

That kind of reminds me of that one time when they cut my underarm up in Santiago and then I went out and worked... I had a nutty trainer, you see. It was probably for the better, in all reality - you can not work when you're mission-dead.

This week we went to the temple! We finally as a mission got permission to have a conference there, so we did. The Area President before the current one said we should be able to "feel as much spirit in you personal study as you can in the temple." We're all like, "Yeah... but..."

It was a good conference, complete with Q&A with the first temple counselor. You can guess how that went. We started with sane questions, like, "Why do parents need to be sealed to their children?", "What is a temple divorce?", etc., but as the more intellectual missionaries got warmed up we saw, "What's the deal with poligamy?", and the classic "What happens to me if my wife doesn't qualify for life eternal but I do?" The conselor answered the questions... vaguely. At the end of the day, the answer for the hard questions is "Millenium, Elders. The millenium. Somebody will figure it out then."

I certainly do like the temple, though. I went with the question you can imagine would have been on my mind, knowing that next Friday I will only have four months left - "How can I finish the mission right?"

I went to General Conference with the same question and it came across more like, "When you get home, family is what matters." Then I say, "Okay, but what about the mission? It's not over 'till it's over."

The temple helped me out. I'm hesitant to tell the whole universe about what I recieved in there, but it sufficeth me to say that I know what I have to do. You can generally depend on the temple for that kind of thing. The rest of the mission is going to be fantastic. It's like when you're running and you can see the end, so you forget about all the pacing-yourself stuff and your fears about ending the race. How could I not make it to the end I can see from here? I don't worry about eating or sleeping as much - just to keep me moving. I can only do this once.

I really, really need to write a letter or two, so if you don't mind. I'll leave you with that.

Love,

Elder Crist