Interviews!

Last week and this week we are conducting interviews with our missionaries. We did 3 zones last week up in Calgary and this week we began in Medicine Hat and are now in Lethbridge, and then we will travel to Cardston and then British Columbia. We will get home late Sunday. Then we will finish interviewing the rest of the Calgary Zones next week. It takes 3 weeks to complete them all!
But it is a great time--especially for Steve to have the one on one time with each missionary. While he is interviewing each missionary I sit out with the others and this time I have introduced an 'Exercise Challenge' for our missionaries. I have found that many of our missionaries don't exercise-some because they don't know what to do, some because they have gotten out of the habit, etc. I have also had quite a few with lower back problems, and once I have them begin doing some lower back exercises and some stretches it usually resolves itself. So, I typed up quite a few exercise routines for them to do in their apartments, and I gave them each a calendar to mark through the end of March. We are challenging them to do 5 days a week (a lot already do that, which is great!). At the end of March they will turn in their calendars to get a certificate if they did it! I just want to promote healthy lifestyle habits...but not to become obsessed with it. Most of them were quite excited about it!
Last Friday night we were able to go to the Calgary Tower and see the view from the top of it. It was fun to do--at the top you can look out in every direction and see for miles! There is also one small part where you stand that is clear 'plexi-glass' so you look down under your feet. At first I couldn't step out onto it, because it really made me a little freaked out (ha ha), but I finally did. You can eat at the restaurant at the top there, but we opted for another steakhouse at the bottom because we weren't thrilled with the menu at the top one! But it was a fun Friday night date.
We also held our monthly MLC meeting last Wednesday in Lethbridge, and we had such a great meeting. There was a great spirit there all day as we discussed the needs of our mission with these zone leaders and sister trainer leaders. We rolled out our February training plan, which was centered on the January Worldwide Missionary Broadcast we had. What better thing could we teach and train on all month than the instruction we received from our apostles and General Authorities?
On Tuesday following our interviews in Medicine Hat, we decided to order Chinese Food for that zone (it is a smaller zone) and eat together which was really fun. Then we attended their Zone Training meeting that the Zone Leaders (Elder Nawahine and Pugh had conducted) . It was a great meeting--they led a discussion from the remarks from Elder Oaks and Elder Andersen from the missionary broadcast, and all the missionaries shared thoughts from the notes they had taken. Afterwards we did role-plays on teaching the principle of repentance. We were able to role-play with Sisters Widgren and Lowe, and they did a great job teaching us on repentance. I'm not sure how well we did teaching them? Actually, I think we did pretty well considering we hadn't practiced at all. It was really fun to teach about the beautiful gift of repentance and how it blesses our lives. Later that night we were in a Stake Training Meeting with the Medicine Hat Stake President, President Salmon, along with all the bishops, ward mission leaders and Relief Society Presidents, to discuss member missionary work. It was a great meeting and we were able to share some thoughts about what our missionaries can do to support the Stake's vision in missionary work. We are so grateful to be able to work with these priesthood leaders, and are grateful for the unity we feel with them. It is exciting to see the missionary work moving forward as everyone works together.
So, it has been a great week and a half, and we are looking forward to the rest of our interviews!