Phoenix and Phoenix N. ZONE CONFERENCE 5/13

 PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINE FOR ALL PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT!

Today was the great Phoenix and Phoenix North Zone Conference day!

We had a full day of instruction and sharing.  President Taylor taught us about the Scattering and Gathering of Israel...as we had been taught by the apostle Russell M Nelson last month in our semi-annual Mission President Seminar over in Scottsdale.  We have been so excited to share some of the things we were taught!

Our day goes so much smoother when we invite the Spirit to be with us through music.

Each zone had a musical number and both were excellent!

The Phoenix Zone sang and Elder Hastings played the piano.

President Taylor then taught about what kind of characteristics a missionary needs to be able to FIND people to teach.  We have been discussing this the past few months. We hope all our families back home are all working on this same concern...FINDING people for the missionaries to teach.  For that is really the most effective method, through the MEMBERS!

 As tradition, I get to teach a HEALTH LESSON each zone conference.  The Church has about 15 different lessons I am supposed to teach so it is always my goal to have as much fun with whatever topic as possible.

One way I do this is by subjecting our current Assistants to putting on a skit about the subject.
You can only imagine how much fun we had with the topic of SKIN DISORDERS.  It sounds as ominous as it was!  Ok, we had fun with it!

The highlight of the day is pretty much LUNCH.

Missionaries love to eat and they love to visit with each other!  We appreciate so much the luncheons that the wards and stakes help us out with!  I know many of you parents do this for your missions where you live.  THANK YOU!  You have no idea how much it helps mission president wives!

 We have an ever growing number of Sister missionaries...they are filling entire tables at our conferences now...and the numbers grow exponentially!

 This conference we had a clothing rack of used pants and shirts and TIES for elders.  They loved it!  We do this for the Sisters on an ongoing basis, but every once in a while, for Elders.

Elder Fenton found a few good ties!

 After lunch we sing our thank you song and our fight song.  You can tell the enthusiasm our missionaries have for the fight song!  Wish you all could hear and see it, it is so much fun!

We celebrated May and June birthdays today and had Elders Neves, Wrigley, E Jones, Vaoga, Hastings, Blake, Steinfeldt, Lemon and Cordero, Sisters Greenwood, Romano and Sister and President Taylor.

 After lunch we had another musical number by the Phoenix N Zone.  Elder Blake led it and Elder Lemon played the piano.

 They sang a nice medly about "Brightly Beams" and "Dear To The Heart"

 Next we separated into zones for instruction from our great zone leaders.

Elders Bartleson and Vaoga in Phoenix North.

 And Elders Barber and Cassiano in Phoenix.

Both zones were instructed on how to use our missionary planners using the planning guidelines we were taught a long time ago.

VISION/ GOALS/ PLANS/ TASKS/ ACCOUNTABILITY

We reviewed our planners to see how specific we were and if those elements were present.  We all set goals to improve our planning.

 The rest of the afternoon was spent by President and I talking about REPENTANCE and then moving to the element of FORGIVENESS.

We went to the scriptures to define forgiveness and it was amazing what we discovered.  We discussed what it IS and IS NOT.

 Then we looked at a simple drawing that shows how sin is anything that separates us from God.  If we do not turn back to God (repent) then we have a roadblock.
We also discussed that sometimes bad things happen to us and we mistakenly think that we have to wait for the "victimizer" to repent before we can be healed.  This is wrong.  We are in it alone with God.  We turn to the ATONEMENT and are able to be healed...just as the one who committed the sin has to do the same.
We have to LET GO of the pain or the sin and turn back to God in order to be healed.  I am personally so grateful for this understanding.  I know that we all make mistakes.  I know that we all have been victims of other peoples mistakes.  And I know that through the Atonement, we can move on and let Christ take that burden from us.  We may remember those hard things, those mistakes...but we do not have to be held back by them.  We can be free.

I wanted to get a photo of some of our missionaries with the neat handkerchiefs that they all got at conferences this week.  The Kings stamped an "APM" on each one to remind them of their mission.  They are to help us wipe the "sweat of our brows" as we labor to serve the Lord.
THANKS KINGS!!

 Just had to get the POWER TIES in a photo.  Elders Cassity, Mack and Blake all wore their orange power ties today!  And yes, Elder Cassity made that face on purpose!

I noticed a group of elders pointing to their signatures on our mission flag and thought it would be fun to get a few more in on it...isn't it fun??

We all have pride in where we are serving,  how we are serving and WHO we are serving!

Mission memories are the BEST!