Received Monday, August 12, 2013

QUESTIONS:

Talk about your Zone Conference!

It was very, very good.

If you didn’t include in the above questions, what about your backpacks?? Will you have to purchase a man/bag?

I do need to get an Adventure pack to use instead of my backpack. Elder Gallagher might have one he doesn't use though, so I'll figure it out.

 

How many missionaries in your Zone?

about 12 and I think either 3 or 4 zones come to every zone conference (as opposed to a zone meeting, which is when only 1 zone meets together, those happen every month)

 

Do the girls missionaries go to the zone conference? Do they sit in their own section? Do the boys and girls mix?

yes, they do everything. No mandatory segregation, but sometimes it happens a little. Mostly people tend to sit by their district. everyone sits by their companion. I remember one thing they mentioned early on when the flood of sisters started coming in was don't have the same elder/sister sit next to each other to many times in a row. Mostly the Packards just ask everyone to follow Jacobs advice: "Oh be wise, what more can I say?" which I think works for most everyone, but i'm sure the occasional issue does inevitably arise here and there. I don't ever expect and drastic measures to keep elders and sisters away from each other though. They do remind us fairly often the mission  policy of what to do if you find yourself attracted to someone "Keep your big mouth shut!" don't tell anyone but maybe president Packard.

 

Who talked at your zone conference? What songs did you sing?

Our whole mission presidency was there, which really made it special. The Christensen's did a great training on teaching, especially on using questions, and helping them come up with the questions they do have, even if they don't realize it. It's the first time I've seen him since like my first month here. So interesting to hear him teach. He is very good. He had a stroke a while ago, so he speaks kind of slower and looks at the ground, but at the same time you can tell his both a mental genius and a general authority like spiritual giant. The Haight's said a few different things, with maybe the biggest point of the conference when president Haight said he (and he did use all the words and more) asks/exhorts/begs/pleads us to take a member with us to every lesson. was that a very big deal for anyone else's mission? It's been around for at least as long as PMG, and they've brought it up a lot here. They showed us the stats and everything with fancy "regressional analysis" you have to have expensive buissiness technology to do showing how important it is. I don't remember the exact stats but something close is that if our mission taught an extra 7000 lessons with out a member in it, we would end up with 2 more baptisms. We we had and extra 1000 with members there baptisms would double. It's good for the investigator, good for the member, good for everyone. The AP's with president packard talked a lot on planning much better for lessons. The AP's did a little role play on it which was really good with president Packard doing most of the teaching. Sister Packard also always does a funny little game show thing during lunch about knowing cool facts about our mission. This time it was "Who wants to be a mileionnare?" and the companionships in it won some extra miles for the month. They also went over the minor rule changes. It all took most of the day. Very good. Like I said, especially good to hear from all 3 people in our mission presidency and they all bore powerful testimony's.

also the mission doctor/nurse (couple) were there and spent too long teaching us how to properly sneeze and cough and how long to wash our hands. It was funny to hear the ridiculous (not smart) things missionaries have done and gotten injured, like jumping off a stage onto a basketball to see if he would bounce (broken ankle).

 

Does your ward building have keys to open the doors, or a keypad with a combination?

keys

 

How is your dinner calendar? Did you have any meals this week?

ummm still sparse. Remember this is a branch with about 50 active people, lots of widows and old people. This week we have a member signed up for today and then our usual appointments tuesday/thursday. I think next week is already mostly filled though.

 

Ok, I can’t think of anything else. I think you have got all the news.

Now I shall go brush my teeth and go to bed. I no longer have a retainer to put in my mouth, but if I had one I would do so.

Last night I saw my companion flossing (I haven't done in a while) and putting in his retainer (I almost always do) in and I remembered I hadn't didn't do either. I said to myself "sorry body, I realize you're a temple, but I'll take better care of you tomorrow"

This week has been pretty good, we did a lot of work with members. One lame thing was when I was on exchanges with the other companionshiop in our district and I was in their area we had breakfast with a couple in their ward after doing service with them. We wanted to help them with sharing the gospel, the elder I was with said it would be hard with them. while we were eating I brought it up and paraphrased a scripture in the book of mormon where Lehi learns that every invitation or attempt and sharing the gospel was a success (1 nephi 2:1). They said that that scripture only applied to Lehi, not us and that if I were to re-read 1st nephi I would realize that everyone, including Nephi, thought Lehi was just a wierdo anyway.
 oh well, at least I tried. Lehi was not a weirdo.

Our church here in our area was especially great though. Our new leaders are still super excited and ambitious and loved the ideas that we brought up about helping with the Digital mission (which we also learned about at zone conference, maybe I'll write more about it next time).

Also, one last piece of bad news, I lost my flashdrive! I think I left it in the library in my last area. If there was an easier way to send pictures home that would be great, I think there is a way to format them so they can be emailed, maybe I'll figure that out next week too. We only have an hour on the computers here.

That's everything. I love you