Interviews, MLC, Zone Conferences & visitors!

Well, once transfers were over we began again with interviews! We have done 3 zones so far, with a Mission Leadership Council in between them. In our Mission Leadership Council and in our zone conferences we are talking about making the 'culture' of our mission a Christ Centered Culture, which means everything we do is centered on Him. The missionaries suggested that a Christ Centered Mission is one where missionaries are applying the atonement in their lives, repenting, being obedient, developing Christ like attributes, studying and learning more of Christ, learning to teach as He did, being diligent like He was, loving as He did, serving as He did, teaching His doctrine of faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end, and many other things. We determined that our Standards of Excellence help us to become a Christ Centered Mission. We are excited to keep this as our focus and always ask ourselves, "What would Christ do?" We believe as we ask that and then act as He would we will become as He wants us to be.
We have had two Zone Conferences this week- both in the Calgary area, and tomorrow and Friday we will hold them down south- one in Lethbridge, and the other in Medicine Hat. Then on Sunday after we participate in the Calgary North Stake Conference with Elder Schweitzer of the Seventy, we will drive to BC to hold Zone Conference with them! And we will be gone that whole week doing interviews! So, it is always busy, busy! We love zone conferences and being with these amazing missionaries and seeing their faith, and listening to them teach and inspire each other. Steve and I are always uplifted after zone conferences. We love our missionaries!
We had a call late in the night on Sunday night from one of our elders having extreme chest pain, and we ended up sending him to the ER. He was then transported from the small hospital there to a larger one in Lethbridge and he has myopericarditis. This is an inflammation of the sack around the heart. Everything is under control and he is doing well, but he has been in the hospital since Monday morning, which is tough! We were grateful for a good companion that gave him a priesthood blessing that night. And then we are grateful for his zone and the attention and prayers they have given him! We have all been praying for him! And we are grateful for good medical care and for wonderful doctors that help us out! I have some great doctors who are LDS that have been lifesavers for us in our mission! One in Lethbridge, and one in Calgary. We are so grateful for them!
We have had a lot of visitors the past two weeks! Quite a few of our returned missionaries have stopped by to say Hi, and it is so fun to see them and catch up!
And our good friends, the Hunts, also came up and it was so fun to be with them! We had to speak in the branch in Banff on Sunday and they were with us there, which was fun for us!
There have been a lot of fires in BC, and so many days we even get the smoke from those fires! When we were in Banff on Sunday for church it was really smoky, which is too bad because it obscures the views of those incredible mountains!
We are busy as ever and are also re-energized by our new missionaries that have arrived. They bring new enthusiasm to our mission. And yesterday we went to the airport to pick up two new Mandarin speaking elders who had completed their time at the MTC. It was fun to get them and take them to meet their trainers, who are both from Taiwan! The new ones are both from Utah, so they are both getting native companions--they are going to learn Mandarin very quickly!
We love this work, and know the Savior guides us in it. At our zone conferences we have studied a talk by Elder Bednar on the Atonement, and we have a discussion about it, and we are all coming to appreciate and love what our Savior has done for us, and how his atonement not only redeems us, but gives us strength to do things we would not be able to do on our own. We are learning how His atonement changes us. It is always such a favorite part of zone conference.
This gospel is so wonderful and we are so grateful for it. It has brought us so much happiness in our lives.