Zone conferences! So good!

This week we have been holding our zone conferences.  So far we have held 3, and have one more to go tomorrow.  We LOVE zone conferences!  There is such a great spirit in each of them, and we just have so much fun with our missionaries and enjoy them so much.  In these conferences we have focused on seeking personal revelation as President Nelson has counseled us to do.  Each of the missionaries were able to go for 15 minutes and pray and 'pour out the longings of their hearts' to the Lord and seek their own personal revelation.  It was really a great experience for them as they really listened to the spirit and wrote down the things that came to their minds.
We also practiced teaching the lesson on the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in 6 minutes!  We did this to help them learn to teach simply.  It was really fun to hear them role play in companionships, and then we had 9 missionaries volunteer to come up front and each one would take a concept and they would just go in order and teach the whole group the first lesson.  They did a great job, and we all learned how to just teach the basics, and cut out the things we really don't need to say.  Then we discussed how just asking inspired questions to get our investigators talking, and using specific scriptures would really be the only other things they would need to add.
We also had great trainings from different companionships on how to develop a Christlike attribute--how to choose one (being prayerful about it), how to study about it,  and basically just how we could do our best to emulate our Savior and try to be more like Him.  We had asked each missionary to come prepared with a 3 minute talk about the attribute they are working on, and Steve asked two to randomly come up and share their thoughts.  It was great!
We also did a little training on preparing for baptismal services...how to make them sacred, special experiences for our investigators.  To do this requires planning and preparation, and we read through the guidelines in Preach My Gospel to help us with this.
Following lunch we had the assistants lead a discussion on using social media and share 'best practices' and also addressing challenges the missionaries are having.  Being that we are new to using smartphones and using Facebook and all that, it is definitely a learning process!  So, we are all trying to help each other and use technology to enhance our work!  We emphasized following the Safeguards for Technology always!  We know that as we stay in tune with spiritual promptings, stay focused on our missionary purpose, be disciplined, and be one with our companions, we will be able to use technology the way it was intended.
We ended the day discussing a talk on the atonement of the Savior by Elder Bednar entitled, "In the Strength of the Lord".  It is an amazing talk which taught us that the gospel of Jesus Christ is to help bad men become good, and good men become better, and that only happens as we rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ.  Our missionaries have such incredible insights!  I am so impressed as we listen to them share their thoughts.  Studying the atonement together has really helped our missionaries' testimonies grow in such incredible ways.  It is such a wonderful thing to witness.
Following that we had a testimony meeting which is always a highlight for us.  We love hearing the testimonies of our missionaries.  We really cherish these times.  We love seeing them grow in the gospel and faith.  Our greatest desire is for them to have deep, abiding testimonies for their entire lives...we want them to really know that this gospel will bless their lives forever, and bring them so much happiness as they stay true to their covenants.  Our lives have been so abundantly blessed because of it.  We love this gospel!

Love all these elders! Zone Conference in the north!

Love our sisters!

Yummy lunch of chili and cornbread!

Elders waiting in line for lunch!

Lunch is the best!

Elders Neulinger, Grider, Darden & Wolfe with their birthday bags!

Zone conference pics from Lethbridge!