04 September 2009 – Friday
We woke at our usual 6:00 am and leisurely got ready for the day before eating a delicious breakfast with the Bartholomews.
Zone conferences are mainly for the young missionaries but couples always learn something important.
Today’s conference started with President Mann showing some charts about the missions in the area that showed that our mission was behind the other missions in baptisms. He then told how Elder Koelliker’s comment about President Hinckley’s challenge to double the number of baptisms at first seemed like just a call to increase baptisms and besides he is not into setting number goals for baptisms because it can lead to baptizing every 14 year old girl or boy in South Africa. But then one morning he woke up at 4:00 and was told that it really needed to be done. He once again kind of brushed it away. The next morning at 4:00 the same message came to him and he finally got the message that the South Africa, Durban mission needed to do something to increase conversions.
I noticed that the statistics show that the mission holds its own for finding and progressing investigators, What it does not do well is get them into the waters of baptisms. I wrote in my notebook that we are as good as any other mission in the area for getting men on base and advancing them to second and third, but we do not do well in RBIs.
President Mann of course knew this and that is why the conference focused mainly on the Conversion process. The missionaries were introduced to a number of new tools to help them better plan for teaching each investigator. They had a couple of exercises to show them how to use the new planners.
The highlight for me was when Elder Weaver – that is Elder Peterson’s new companion – told about the experience he recently had where for the first time he felt the spirit as he taught the gospel and wonderful it felt. He said it came because he had started to live the missionary rules that included waking on time, personal study, etc. He said that he had started to do that because Elder Hoosier as District Leader had asked the district to start doing it. Now Elder Weaver is not a new missionary so he has had many opportunities to teach, but he had been selling the gospel instead doing missionary work. It was a moving testimony and I am sure everyone felt the spirit. It brought tears to my eyes.
Later I spoke Elder Peterson about the experience and he added a detail that made it even a better spiritual story. Because Elder Peterson is the DL for Richards Bay they were supposed to come down to Durban on Thursday night so they could be here for a 7:30 meeting and so they would have had to cancel the appointment that Elder Weaver testified about. But the companionship felt strongly that they needed to keep the appointment so they called and got permission for them to stay in RB for the night and then get up at 4:30 am to make sure they were at the 7:30 meeting. They agreed to do that and went to their appointment and the rest just followed. How wonderful it is when we let the spirit guide us even when it means getting up at 4:30 am.
The president went through the mission equation of Faith + Exact Obedience + Hard Work = Miracles. He asked each of the missionaries to be exactly obedient to the white handbook for one week.
After Zone Conference the couples, including the Manns went to the mall and had a nice lunch. We found that the Johnsons had been officially changed to be the new mission office couple and are being trained by the Sessions. As we sat there it was realized that this would be the last time the five couples would be together. The Sessions leave before the next Zone conference which will be held in Richards Bay instead of Durban, a month later the Barts will leave, and then in January the Johnsons will leave. When the next couples conference is held in February, we will be the only couple still serving.
After the late lunch we went back to our B&B and spent the rest of the day reviewing what we learned and relaxing. For dinner we ate some rusks and hot chocolate. Later the Rawlings went to the stake musical night and so the two couples sat around the living room just talking about family, mission experience, and life in general. It was a good evening as we got to know each other more and could share some of the joys and sad events of our lives. It is interesting that two couples who live within 30 minutes of each other in Utah, got to share an evening together some 10,000 miles from our homes. Missions are really great experiences.
It was a spiritual 2 mite day.