Santiago and District Conferences

In the Church, the mission president is the presiding authority over districts (units too small to be stakes) which include several branches (units too small to be wards). In our mission there are three districts. One in Manzanillo, another in Santiago and a third in Ciudad Guzman.

The church is really quite strong in Manzanillo and so the district there will hopefully be ready to be a stake in the next year or so. Santiago is not quite as strong, but is coming along.

The past couple weekends, we were privileged to attend district conferences in both of these districts. In a couple weeks we will attend a district conference in Ciudad Guzman.

The district conference in Manzanillo was so much fun! The district president is very experienced and strong in the church, and he has a darling family.

We were also very impressed with the members from the Autlán branch. They traveled three hours by bus on a dangerous road to be able to attend the conference and provide a youth choir for it. The choir did a great job and looked very professional in their white attire, holding their green music folders.

If I lived in Autlán, I would want these two women to be my best friends. The woman on the left is the mother in law to the woman on the right, and both were so fun to watch during the program. They always had smiles on their faces and sang along silently with every word the choir sang.

After the meetings, (we had two sessions) the district president invited us to dinner in the back yard of one of the hotels he manages. We ate delicious food outside, surrounded by papaya trees. It was paradise.  We are so grateful to them and their wonderful hospitality.

We also loved our time in Santiago. Santiago is a bit more rustic of a town.

And our accommodations are not the best. Here is a picture of the area outside our hotel room door.

And here I am warming up dinner in the hotel room. Food is a bit more difficult to come by, so we take our own.

But the town has a lot of character, and a two story church building with an elevator!

We had a zone conference on Saturday until 3:00 p.m. and then immediately went into district meetings. Since all the missionaries had to stay all day, Wes' counselor in the mission presidency and his family provided a dinner for them.

It consisted of chicken mole with rice and watermelon. Being the end of the month, when the missionaries are usually out of funds, they especially appreciated it.  And we all appreciated their generosity.

Here are a few pictures from our zone conference as well.
The Entire Zone!! There are several brand new ones in this group and they are all doing great!

Practicing teaching the restoration. (By the way, this elder holds the mission record for eating the most tacos in one sitting. 42!)

And here they are practicing teaching a story from the Book of Mormon. I love how the elder had his "investigator" get on his knees to act it out.

 Definitely wins the award for the dirtiest shoes I have seen so far!!

 I love this picture!! This was taken Sunday morning. The missionaries were watching out the upstairs window of the building for their investigators to arrive.

 And this is what I saw when I looked out the window.

So many great missionaries!! So grateful to be here with them!