Eight is Great!!

We had our 8th Zone Leader Council at our house today.

We have 9 zones with two zone leaders each and this month we had five new zone leaders.

We look forward to great things from each of them and know they will be a tremendous influence on the zones they serve.

We began with a breakfast of scrambled eggs, homemade biscuits (still need to work on those!:-) and country gravy. 

Then everyone met in the living room for instruction. 

President Wagner begins and covers such items as key indicators and the missionary manual.

 The assistants (the one on the right is new this change) then covered exchanges and Fundamental lesson #7

Of course there were practices.

We follow the training model which is

Explain

Demonstrate

Practice

Evaluate

Re-practice

Another thing we like to add at the end is to ask all the missionaries what they learned during the practices. Most share great insights. 

I spoke on using Chapter 11 of Preach My Gospel and the principles in it on helping people make and keep commitments as a guide in their divisions with the district leaders as well.

Then President Wagner talked about the need to be great teachers and how to improve their teaching techniques (Preach My Gospel Chapter 10). 

He also always takes the zone leaders on quite a journey through the scriptures which is so much fun and everyone learns a lot. 

After all the hard work (learning is hard work!) comes lunch.

This month (in addition to a yogurt and granola snack mid-way through the meeting) we had taco salad and cinnamon rolls.

I am still learning a lot about the culture here. Taco Salad was a bit of a hard concept for many of the local missionaries to grasp.

We had plates already out with chips on them and they moved the chips to the side and put each item for the salad in a separate place on their plate. 

I then had to show them how to mix it all together. 

Then comes the clean up!!

They are all so good to help clean--which is very much appreciated. 

One funny thing about today is President Wagner told the missionaries they needed to be better about expressing gratitude for the food they received. (Which was very true) 

He also suggested that the quality of the food they received just might depend on the depth of their gratitude.

Apparently that was great motivation because they were all super sweet and showered Sister Hernandez (the lady who helps me and makes it all possible!) and myself with a bounty of thank you's.

Photo Gallery

Elder C--checking out his belly to be sure it was full. :-)

 Looks like a very serious conversation

 Elder L (on the left) always show up at all conferences and training meetings wearing a matching tie with his companion. 

We love this one. President Wagner and Elder Call (Senior Missionary) both also have a tie just like it!

 Sometimes even the tallest missionaries need a little boost. :-)

Well, now that we have expressing gratitude down, perhaps next month we can have a little lesson on how to fold a table cloth. :-)

Sure love them all!!

Can't wait until next week when we start zone conferences!