Area Mission Presidents Seminar

The much anticipated Area Mission Presidents Seminar was held here this past week. Our mission was the host mission. We had 22 presidents and their wives in attendance. We had the opportunity to drive the mission van to pick up four mission presidents and their wives at the airport. They included Pres. Pitt (our former Stake President from Centerville), Pres. Hess (also from Bountiful), and two others. They were accompanied by their wives. Three General Authorities from the First Quorum of Seventy also arrived: Elder Jay Jensen, Elder Marcus Nash, and Elder Jose Alonzo.

Elder Servoss had the duties delegated to him to take care of all of the physical arrangements for three different venues. It involved a lot of planning which started last month with a walk through of the Palmyra, Fayette, and Pittsford ward church buildings. He was given an outline and planned out the details. He arranged for help at each building and found a person who could supply 12 desk mics and 3 cordless mics to use. The set up started on Wednesday morning when we set up things in Palmyra. We had to put out 15 long tables with chairs in a seminar form. Each table was set with a table cloth and candy dishes, nuts, and water. Fortunately the ward members has already set up the tables and chairs for the dining area, which saved us time. At 9:45 I had to drive to the office to do some work. At 5 pm we had to be back in Palmyra to set up the sound system. Two hours later I drove home. Then the next morning (Thursday) I was back at 8:15 to open the building. The presidents arrived at 9. After 5 minutes of problems with the sound system, I got the controls tweaked and all was well for the rest of the meeting. I went back to the office to get Kae and returned to meet some of the senior missionary elders who came to help take down the tables and chairs. We finished just after 2 and then drove 45 minutes to Fayette to set up things. Kae decorated the Relief Society room tables with pumpkins, flowers, acorns, and silk leaves. We worked hard and had things ready by 7 pm. Then we had glitches with the sound system that took us until 10 pm to resolve. We got home at 11:30 pm.

Friday morning I was up early and headed off to Fayette. I spent an hour and a half there and then returned to the office to work, a 45 minute drive. At 5 pm three of us senior Elders were back there to take things down. We had help from ward members and young men and were done by 7:30 pm. We then had to drive back to Pittsford to set up things there. I had asked the High Priests to help, and was very grateful to find that they had set things up by the time we arrived at 8:30 pm. It took us over an hour to set up the sound system, and so it was about 10:30 before we arrived home.

Saturday morning I went to the church at 7:10 am. I met the bishop's councilor there and got the building unlocked. We had to hurry and move a piano into the gym and do a quick test of the sound before the 9 am arrival of the group. I stayed at the church while they had the program. At 12:30 we were able to take things down. We had plenty of help and were done in less than an hour. Everyone was very pleased with the terrific job that they said Elder Servoss and the others had done. Elder Jay Jensen (one of the 7 Presidents of the Seventy) thanked me personally and told me that he had been told many years ago, while preparing for a similar event, that if things ran smoothly it allowed the spirit to be uninhibited in the meetings. That he said had been the case over the past three days. The Area Executive Secretary, under whose direction I worked, told me that he had been doing these events for 13 years, and had never had one run so smoothly. He also had very little that he had to do for clean up, which was very unusual for him. We were happy to have had so many people who were willing to help us serve. Our mission president was very pleased with all that we did, and thanked us many times. Kae and I know that we were in the Lord's master plan a long time ago to be able to be here in New York for this event. It was a great experience, but very tiring.