Whew!

Yesterday was pretty intense. We went up to Zone Conference in Bari. It went pretty well. It also went a little long (they normally end at 4 but this ended after 5).

Me and Anziano Marzolla talked about how we can use our time wisely and be more effective. We talked about a lot of things specific to missionaries, but at the same time I think it applies to everyone. For example, we talked about being focused, what to focus on, and how we should be constantly thinking about our purpose. I think that in life it's important that we have goals and we are constantly trying to reach them. We also taught that you should break down your goals into smaller fractions of time. You have mission goals, transfer goals, weekly goals, daily goals, and you can even set mini-goals throughout the day. For example, me and my companion generally set goals before taking a half hour bus ride to talk to meet two new people and teach them about the gospel. Things like that.

In life our purpose is to have joy and return to our Heavenly Father. It's pretty simple: We need to focus on being obedient to the commandments and always improving to become more like Jesus Christ. There are a few other things that I would like to share from the conference.

President Kelly told us about the mists of darkness, and I really like how he pointed out that temptation gets described in that way. He told us a story about a guy that was in jail that he was sitting there staring at his a stuffed animal of Clifford. He had been sentenced to three years in jail because he had done shifty accounting things. What had happened is first the guy above him started having him do little dishonest things, and then he just got used to doing a poor job in his accounting. He couldn't believe that it had happened.

We all need to be careful. Even this guy who had never had trouble with the law, had a family and everything started doing little things and next thing he knew he didn't even realize what he was doing. Basically the mists of darkness slowly come to us, and then we fall into sin.

He also told us another example that I really liked which was how following the spirit is like a guided missile. For example, I took from it that when we plan and stuff we set the missile in the right direction, but then to hit the target we have to follow the spirit throughout the day so that it can guide us.

Love,
Anziano Banks

p.s. I'm happy, healthy, and so is my companion.