This week we are all shorter and wider than usual. Don't know why. Some kind of unfavorable trick photography going on. Our zone leaders are handsome just the same.
I'm not sure how many more of these I can do. Dart guns, mustaches, hats, signs, etc. a lot of planning goes into this picture. It boggles my mind just how much planning they put into it.As is typical for a week one, we held our zone leaders council this week. We are now reviewing the mission goals and past performance with the zone leaders on a monthly basis rather than on a transfer basis, so when our week one doesn’t line up near the beginning of a month, we will hold a telephonic zone leaders council at the beginning of the month, and hold our in person council on week one. This week we were again impressed with these young leaders and all they want to do to build the kingdom. Some of the zones leaders, whose zones had the most success in the past month, seemed the most interested in learning how they could do more to improve. This hunger to learn more and do better, is likely a key reason why they are doing so much better than some of the other zones right now. It was a good time to teach these young men. We pray they will all go back to their zones and lift those they have stewardship over.
This next week we will have the opportunity to have our missionaries meet with, and be instructed by, Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as well as two members of the 70 who will be traveling with him. Some of this week was spent making sure we have the physical details of the meeting arranged, (gratefully most of this is being handled very well by others) and also ensuring the spiritual preparations are being done. All of us have been invited to read two articles written by Elder Bednar, “Ask in Faith” and “Seek Learning by Faith.” These articles have been read individually, in our companionship studies, and have been discussed as we travel around the mission for interviews. We started this week with interviews in Coos Bay and we were impressed with how well these missionaries had read and understood the principles of faith taught in these two articles.
Sister Macdonald and I are often impressed by how others see our missionaries. People will stop us to tell us how impressed they were by one missionary or another. Of course we get some of the other feelings expressed as well, but any negative remarks we may hear are by far in the minority. Anyway, last week as our missionaries were leaving, one of the airport security personnel came over to us. He handed us two pocket knives and told us, “One of your elders forgot to pack these in his checked luggage and wondered if you would mail them home to him. His name is Elder Buck.” Now there was not anything particularly unique about that, except their travel documents do not refer to them as elder, but rather by their first and last name, and yet this security man had developed enough respect for our representatives over the years that he referred to him by his missionary title of “Elder.” Our thanks go out to all the missionaries who have passed through that area acting as they should, so that they and other missionaries would be treated with respect.
This week we said goodbye to the Idiarts who have served as an office couple for the last year. They have done a great job and will be sorely missed. We also spent our P-Day on Saturday with the Campbells and Watsons who now serve in the office. We went to the coast and showed them around. I think we all had a good time and they got to see how really beautiful the coast area is.
This week is fast Sunday and on that day I have the privilege of attending two of the local stake presidency meetings to discuss missionary work. It is great to see their excitement for this great work. Although I won’t always be invited into leadership meetings, I can always go to church, as I did today, praying and fasting for a spiritual lift and receive it. Because I had made a conscious effort to prepare myself to be willing and able to hear, I was blessed time and time again with the blessing of having the Spirit confirm the truth of what was being taught to me.
This next week we will have the opportunity to have our missionaries meet with, and be instructed by, Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as well as two members of the 70 who will be traveling with him. Some of this week was spent making sure we have the physical details of the meeting arranged, (gratefully most of this is being handled very well by others) and also ensuring the spiritual preparations are being done. All of us have been invited to read two articles written by Elder Bednar, “Ask in Faith” and “Seek Learning by Faith.” These articles have been read individually, in our companionship studies, and have been discussed as we travel around the mission for interviews. We started this week with interviews in Coos Bay and we were impressed with how well these missionaries had read and understood the principles of faith taught in these two articles.
Sister Macdonald and I are often impressed by how others see our missionaries. People will stop us to tell us how impressed they were by one missionary or another. Of course we get some of the other feelings expressed as well, but any negative remarks we may hear are by far in the minority. Anyway, last week as our missionaries were leaving, one of the airport security personnel came over to us. He handed us two pocket knives and told us, “One of your elders forgot to pack these in his checked luggage and wondered if you would mail them home to him. His name is Elder Buck.” Now there was not anything particularly unique about that, except their travel documents do not refer to them as elder, but rather by their first and last name, and yet this security man had developed enough respect for our representatives over the years that he referred to him by his missionary title of “Elder.” Our thanks go out to all the missionaries who have passed through that area acting as they should, so that they and other missionaries would be treated with respect.
This week we said goodbye to the Idiarts who have served as an office couple for the last year. They have done a great job and will be sorely missed. We also spent our P-Day on Saturday with the Campbells and Watsons who now serve in the office. We went to the coast and showed them around. I think we all had a good time and they got to see how really beautiful the coast area is.
This week is fast Sunday and on that day I have the privilege of attending two of the local stake presidency meetings to discuss missionary work. It is great to see their excitement for this great work. Although I won’t always be invited into leadership meetings, I can always go to church, as I did today, praying and fasting for a spiritual lift and receive it. Because I had made a conscious effort to prepare myself to be willing and able to hear, I was blessed time and time again with the blessing of having the Spirit confirm the truth of what was being taught to me.
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