ZONE CONFERENCE: Deer Valley/Glendale North & Phoenix N. 8/13

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

This week we continued on with our Zone Conferences.  We LOVE meeting with missionaries in relatively small groups of a couple zones at a time.  Nothing is small in this mission anymore though!
We had Elders shining shoes at the "Arise and Shine Forth" shoeshine station outside of the chapel before we began.  Good way to start the day!

 Our morning session involved a great presentation on FAITH by President Taylor and was the foundation to our next discussion on RULES VS PRINCIPLES.  Let me just say that if all of us understood principles, our lives would be so much more happy!
There could never be enough rules to guide us if we required rules for every decision we have to make each day.  I personally am so grateful for ETERNAL PRINCIPLES based on eternal truths.  They will not fail me!

 For example, the Jews had 613 rules for what you could or could not do on the Sabbath.  We have one principle:  Keep The Sabbath Day Holy.
Principles answer the WHY in things.

We love Zone Conferences because we also have musical numbers.  Today was no exception, they were both great!  We have a very musical mission!

 There were several "Skills Trainings" during the day where companionships or a couple of companionships would get together to practice a skill that was taught.  We learn a lot from these practices.  Practice brings revelation.

I usually introduce my health topic by having our Assistants do a skit.  Today was "Negative Ned and Positive Pete" to introduce Stress, Rest and the Power of Positive Thinking topic.

They do a great job and made it really fun!  We poke fun at ourselves and really are learning lifelong skills that will bless us in our relationships now and in the future.  Missions are such a great place to learn life skills!

Remember the principles we talked about earlier?  Well, positive thinking really is principle based.  Agency and Accountability are huge in how we deal with our thoughts and what we choose to do with them!  Put on YOUR rose colored glasses!

 At lunch, we had a bunch of ties, suits, shirts, slacks and other items for Elders to take.  We have shared a LOT at these conferences!  My garage will be less crowded and I am so happy to see Elders wearing things that were just hanging around!

Lunch is also a favorite time just to socialize and share as fellow missionaries.  This stake decorated with school supplies and donated the table decor to the missionaries!

 We bring our Mission Flag to the conferences and it is great to see if you can find your signature on the flag!  There are SO MANY signatures now!

Our Mission Fight Song is really enthusiastic and we love to sing it together.  We pretty much have THE BEST in the Arizona Phoenix Mission!!!

 We celebrated August Birthdays!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO:
Sister Gacutan
Sister Larson
Sister Turner
Sister Brewer
Elder Weiler

 Another great musical number after lunch to start our afternoon off with the Spirit!

President Taylor then taught these two zones what it will take to be ONLINE PROSELYTING MISSIONARIES.  It is a lot of work, but they are up to the tasks!

The amount of FAITH they will need to do this is huge.  The PRINCIPLES this work is based on will need to be understood...do you see how our morning discussions led to this point?
These missionaries are striving to be PERFECTLY OBEDIENT.  This is what it will take to have the focus to be an online missionary!
AND YOU CAN HELP!
FAMILY AND FRIENDS,  Please allow your missionary to teach online without distracting them.  They are not to use online tools just to communicate with you.  You may be asked to  help teach a lesson or to give referrals on those that they can teach online.  It would be good for each of you to have a MORMON.ORG PROFILE and to look at your FACEBOOK PAGE to see if it represents you as a member of Christ's Church.  How often do you post things about what you believe, or invite someone to come to something or do something that would promote their faith and lead to questions about the Church?  This is a Church that relies on MEMBER MISSIONARIES...so follow the lead of your child and invite others to come unto Christ in every activity of your life including YOUR online activities!  If you need help, ask your missionary, go to LDS.org for ideas or check out our FAQ blog where we will post more helps for you soon!