September Arrivals and Departures

Beautiful new missionaries. They are eager and ready to get to work. We love them so much already and pray that we can help them have the most wonderful mission experience ever.

New missionary on left meeting his trainers next to him and on far right. In the middle our able Assistant and next to right an able zone leader who wants to serve for 3 years because he loves his mission so much.

Seven missionaries who return home with honor. Every single one of them were obedient and served faithfully. This was a very hard group to send home, but again we are very excited for their beautiful future.

For a training on the importance of 24 hour exchanges, we listed distractions or other situations that are difficult for a new missionary..or for any missionary. The signs say things like "I'm overwhelmed", I'm discouraged", I'm stressed". 'I can't do perfect mornings'. 'I'm trunky!" 'I have companionship troubles!"
and of course, someone had to be "Satan". We then blindfolded a missionary and had him navigate those problems blindfolded. Next we had another missionary put his arm on the blindfolded missionary and guide him thru those obstacles.  Showing how the District Leaders and Zone Leaders can help a struggling mssionary. It was really great. The DL and ZL do one 24 hour exchange every transfer to help and give on the ground training.

Last we had a role play to show how to evaluate the exchange in a loving manner ie D & C 121.

More fun stuff- Missionaries love each other

Twin pictures . I tried to just upload one but two of them popped up.See how the missionaries glow...that is a good thing.

 When I complemented the sister on this beautiful spread for a baptism....she said a baptism is a very special day.

 Elder M giving a bear hug to Elder G

A happy and very close district on last day before some of them will be transferred.

Bits of odds and ends

 Some Elders of Israel are joining in song for us at ZLC  We have Elders Smith, Skousen, Berry and Packard

 These are some of my favorite people in the mission. I love them dearly and try to go with the Sisters whenever they go the their home.

 Well, I could have 'bout done a cartwheel I was so surprised to see Elder Hales at the piano. He was our accompanist at our ZLC  He has been hiding this talent from us for his whole mission....but not any more :)

Four very happy Elders who love to work hard.

 Twin ties....kinda.  Part of the training today was an evaluation of our preparedness for a storm. One conclusion was even if they are confined to their apartments, they still do missionary work...plan call etc It is not a time to sandbag and play boardgames. That is for PDay

We had a nice visit from a former missionary, Sister Thomas who is on her way to Germany for an internship. She was one of our 'first born in our wilderness'.
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Horrors!

I just read over this blog and saw I misspelled their and put there when talking about the Keyes Christmas card...thatnwill show me as that is one of my pet peeves:(

Post Storm and a Zone Conference

Well, we were so fortunate that the storm went to the gulf and missed us. We had tornadoes and some of our areas were hit but nothing like Louisanna and Mississippi, and some of our mission just got a little rain and others got nothing.  We feel so grateful and our prayers are with those other areas. We were a bit disappointed that some of the missionaries made fun of the instructions to stay in  that they received when the storm was headed this way.. or they made fun of the weakness of the storm. Storms are not something to make fun of and we were really blessed ...and again we are praying for the areas that were hit. We also know that the hurricane season is just beginning so we are continuing with preparedness preparation. :)

The Zone Leaders made a pinata and asked President to hit it with a teeny stick. The object was how we ask people to make committments. Are we bold or whimpy?

 Then they had me hit it with a baseball bat. Finally president was saying "you do this or else!" It was fun and got great laughs and The Zone Leaders explained it better so it made sense.

 Elder and Sister Keyes are in charge of the cars, phones, BCR's etc. They came to every zone conference and inspected cars in the very hot sun. In the morning as the missionaries were arriving they taught the missionaries how to check the oil, and other fluids and tires. I stepped out of the conference to take a phone call and I saw them fast asleep on the couch whilst waiting for lunch. I took this picture amidst the snores and they didn't even know I was there. I told them this could be there Christmas card picture. Aren't they darling?

 Elders Watkins and Langi as they were leaving the conference. I couldn't resist taking this picture. They look amazing in their helmets and all ready to go. These two work really hard.

As to why some of this is in blue and underlined and some is not is a mystery to me. And I don't mean to be mean about the Elders and the storm..I was just terribly worried about all of them and very stressed for the week as we watched it slowly approach us  and so relieved to have it miss most of the mission.