President and Sister Lindahl: Consejos and Leadership Meetings

Consejos is the monthly Zone Leader meeting that we have. The day starts with the Zone Leaders having to travel from their areas (some 4 hours away). They have a quick breakfast of facturas (pastries) cereal bars (made by Sister Packer), bananas, and orange juice.

Our Fabulous Zone Leaders-
(top) Elders Frost, Fielding, Sorensen
(middle) Elders Burr, Ramos (district leader), Redd, Esplin, Menocal, Morinico, Abella, Leany (district leader), Moncur, White, Gomez, Cabranes, Sandford
(front) Elders Barra, Hopkin, Roberts, Fowler, Hyer, Harvey, Davis

Elder Leany and Ramos win the District Leader cup for March 2011 (best key indicators)

If you remember from last month, this is our honorary missionary Josh Pack. The month of March was dedicated to Josh (who appears here via Skype). He helped us award the District Leader Cup and the Zone Leader cup for the month of March and said a few encouraging words to the group. All the baptisms for the month were dedicated to Josh. In March we had 80 baptisms, all the key indicators were up and on conference Sunday the missionaries had 280 people in church. The month went really well, and we feel the results from more lessons with members present will be seen in the April numbers. There were weekly conversations with Josh and he was able to verify with some of the Zone Leaders himself on Sunday evenings. Our missionaries had a wonderful time in March, dedicating their work to Josh.

Josh talking with the winning District Leaders.

The March "Copa" goes to three zones. We had a tie. In San Luis, Elders Fowler and Hopkin. In Valle de Uco, Elders Davis and Fielding. In Maipu, Elders Redd and Abella. Congratulations to them and their zones for their fantastic work.

Elder Abella and Redd (Maipu)

Elder Davis and Fielding (Valle de Uco)

Elder Fowler and Hopkin (San Luis)

President has a hard time talking with Josh. He is always tearing up because this young man means so much to him. We had a special fast and all of our missionaries want so much for Josh to be able to serve a mission. Our missionaries know that there are many ways that people can serve a mission, and not all of them include traveling a long distance away from home. The Lord has provided many ways of service- we just have to look around our own neighborhoods to know that missionary work needs to be a life long venture.

Sister Lindahl giving her Consejo talk on the difference between just "Activity" (busy work) versus "Accomplishment".

Checking out the name of the past Zone Leaders on the Cup. This cup will go home with us, along with the District Leader cup, to be shared at reunion time.

I walked in to the office to check on how our monthly "registro" was doing. It was the last day for our reporting. There I found a whole family of past Historians downloading all the baptismal records. Elder Miller (Left- grandfather) Elder Hoggard (son) and Elder Frost (father). I know it drives the General Authorities crazy when this terminology is used, but for the purpose of this blog, I think it is cute.

Elder Orduña and Elder Barton
On Wednesday was our Leadership Meeting. Those invited to this meeting are all the District Leaders and Zone Leaders. This meeting is for the further training on the 8 Focuses that the Church Mission Department developed last October. The Assistants Elder Sorensen and Elder Leal were in charge of the meeting. Their training included three of the main focuses.