A Whole New Zone!

Hello!

This is the first week of transfers, and we have a lot of changes in the zone! Eight new missionaries! (Not new, new, but new to us). So we had a great Zone Meeting on Wednesday to get to know each other, cast a vision for the zone, and get some uplifting. As a side note-- there is Zone Meeting, and then there's Zone Conference. Zone Meeting is planned and conducted by the zone leaders, and Zone Conference is planned and conducted by the Mission President and his Assistants. So, in this case, we planned the Zone Meeting. I think it went pretty well! 

First we talked about our vision of hitting the mission standards by the end of October. The mission standards are the standards for missionary work that the Mission President feels each area can be reaching each week (lessons taught, new investigators, etc.). Our zone is unfortunately the caboose of the mission, and we're going to change that! After that, we had an activity with the zone. We had told them all the week before (or at least the companion who was to stay in the zone) to take a comp unity picture with their new companion and bring it to Zone Meeting. As we passed the pictures around prior to a vote for the winner, everyone filled out a "Who You Be?" That's something I learned from Brother Blair my freshman year of seminary. It was a sheet with questions about people's favorite things, interests, family, and so on. 

After the pictures were judged, I read off the "Who You Be?" for each missionary, while everyone else was guessing who had written it. So, now we know each other pretty well! We ended by training on change. We did an object lesson with cookies. We had an Elder and a Sister come to the front of the room and have a competition to see who could stuff more cookies in their mouth without breaking them. Sister Johnson won, with ten cookies. Then we had an Elder come up and eat a few cookies. He was allowed to chew and swallow, unlike the other missionaries. He said he could definitely eat more than ten. Then we likened the cookies to the skills and tools we've been given to fulfill our purpose as missionaries. There have been a lot of changes in the mission, and a lot of new skills introduced to us in the last few months. We taught the missionaries that in order for them to be effective, they need to internalize the skills, and not just try to stuff it all into what they're already doing. When we internalize something, then we can move on and add something else without all the stress of "stuffing our mouth full of cookies."

Ashleigh is doing stellar! She is on top of things, and already knows everything we teach her. She asks us every day before a lesson what we're going to teach, and then she goes to a bunch of different sources to study the doctrine. She's really on top of things!

We also started teaching a lady named Pippy! We tracted into her at a blind apartment complex. I don't know why they have a complex designated for the blind, but they do. And she lives there! We taught her about the Restoration of the gospel, and the Book of Mormon. She told us she'd be interested in reading it! So the next day, we went to the mission office and picked up a Braille copy of the Book of Mormon. That's one big book. It's in six three-inch three-ring binders, in a big box. The following day, we took it to her and read from the introduction with her. It's amazing that people can read that! It's really impressive to see. She seems genuinely interested, and I have great hopes for her!

Other than that, we found a few new investigators and taught a few other lessons, which was good! If anything comes from them, I'll let you know!

Oh! And our third companion! Elder Bowler came out with Elder Rosequist, and now he's with us. It's just a temporary thing; he'll be leaving tomorrow. So we had him for one week! President is shipping him off, most likely to Craig, tomorrow afternoon. He's a really good Elder and a funny guy. I'm sad he's leaving. Oh well, nothing I can do! The work goes on!

Elders Rosequist, Bowler, and Rogers

I love you all! I know the Church is true! Keep the faith and press on! Until next week.

Sincerely,
Elder Rogers