Zone Conferences, General Conference

We completed all of our zone conferences last week, and each one was just so inspiring. We had a big discussion on working with our members and what member/missionary work involves. It was something our Mission Leadership Council felt our mission needed, and as we had the discussion and addressed the concerns, we knew it was the right thing to be training on at this zone conference. We also had everyone come prepared to teach 'How to introduce the Book of Mormon' and 'Teaching someone to Pray' from Preach my Gospel and the pamphlets. That was fun-everyone had to role play with each other and some had to do it in front of everyone. We continue to emphasize how important it is to invite people to read the Book of Mormon since it is the keystone of our religion. And then to have it so re-emphasized by our apostles at General Conference was great! Our missionaries absolutely love watching General Conference. It gives them the faith they need to do this work, and they are always so excited to watch it. Steve and I just loved watching it as well. We are so grateful for our church leaders and how they lead and teach us what the Lord would want us to know at this time. We were saddened by the death of Elder Hales, and so were our missionaries. They really do love the apostles. We know they are men called of God by priesthood authority to lead the church.
We were also saddened with the tragic event in Las Vegas. One of our missionaries lost his cousin in those shootings, and it was beyond difficult to deliver that news to him. We have been praying for him and his family as they mourn the loss of their cousin, nephew, and son. We are grateful this elder has a strong testimony of the plan of salvation, and for his amazing testimony. Yet we know his heart is aching and pray he will feel the love and peace of the Savior.
On Sunday after General Conference we drove 3 hours to Medicine Hat so we could do their interviews the next day. When we woke up it was a complete blizzard! Heavy snow was coming down, and the winds were blowing like crazy. We attended a district meeting with one district in the morning, and then did some interviews with them and then began the drive up to Brooks to interview the sisters serving there. Brooks is normally about an hour drive. But the weather conditions were so bad we had to travel very slowly--there were wind gusts from 60 to 90 mph and the drifting snow was a real problem. Finally about 12 kilometers outside of Brooks all traffic stopped. It was about 4:30 by now--so that shows you how slow we had been going. There were many semis stopped and quite a few regular cars as well. We found out that we could be there for hours, stuck on the freeway! And since our car was very low on gas (lesson #1 learned--always fill up with gas!) we couldn't continue to run it to keep the heater going, because we needed to conserve fuel for when the road was open so we could make it to Brooks. So, we sat in the car until we were getting pretty cold, and then we asked a trucker if we could come in his cab! Turns out we found the nicest trucker around--Bill Leonard! He invited us in, and we could tell he was pretty excited to have company to talk to! We found out he had been a trucker for 44 years. He was a great guy, and we had a lot of fun talking with him. Because he had one of those radios in his truck, he could fill us in on what was happening. We found out there was a semi with double trailers turned over blocking both sides of the freeway, which was one big problem, and then there were 8 foot snow drifts wreaking havoc with cars and semis. By about 1:30 am we figured we would be there all night, but then the police came and told us if we could back up about 200 yards, we could cross over onto the south bound freeway and travel north to where they had cleared the northbound freeway. So, we jumped in our car, and Bill also backed up his rig, and a few more cars and semis behind us and we all crossed over and slowly went on our way.
We arrived in Brooks and found a hotel about 3:45 am. We were so grateful for Bill's kindness. It reminded us again that there are many good people in the world! He knew about Mormons and has been to temple square several times because one of his trucker friends who was Mormon invited him there. He said he has also read about half of the Book of Mormon and really enjoyed it. We encouraged him to read it again. We exchanged phone numbers at the end so we could stay in touch.
We felt blessed to have made it safely, even if it was one long night!
This week we continue on with interviews and will have them all complete by October 14. Just in time for transfer week!