A Great Week of Zone Conferences

This blog is a few days late, or a few early - depending on the point of view. We were very busy last week with Zone Conferences. We had 4 of them in 5 days. I had to attend all of them for about 5 hours and was able to stay the whole time at the one in Buffalo last Saturday. This was the time when we needed to upgrade and replace all of the cell phones for the young missionaries. I had quite a time trying to get 40 phones charged up, match serial numbers with phone numbers and then collect the phones at each conference. Things mostly went smoothly. They were happy to have a nice new phone. They are an essential missionary tool these days. They assist so much in planning appointments, encouraging investigators, giving the President and office staff a way to quickly contact each pair.

The spirit at the Zone Conference on Saturday was very strong. We loved having great instruction on faith and how to strengthen it. As a missionary you have such a unique perspective of things. We realize that as we strive to be strictly obedient to the mission rules and church standards, we are promised great blessings. Elder Bednar has said that we should do all we can and expect nothing in return. We were promised that the success of a missionary is not dependent on the number of baptisms, but on being faithful and following the spirit. Those missionaries will have success (even though it may not be measured in baptisms). We should be more concerned with our standing with the Lord and how much effort we are putting into serving the Him.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be hosting a Christmas Open House in the John Young pioneer home that we live in. It is a 185 year old home that was built by Brigham and his dad, John. We will be showing guests the old cellar and unused attic area.
We will also share information about the nearby site where Brigham had his mill and home and where he, Heber C. Kimball and 63 others were baptized. We will report on that soon. We hope that you all can enjoy the season and get ready for the celebration of our Savior, Jesus Christ.