And the winners are . . . .

During zone conferences we have a scripture chase competition, using the scriptures from the different lessons in Preach My Gospel, and a test over a chapter of Preach My Gospel. The intent is to help motivate the missionaries to study more and study better. Here are the top winners from each event!

Highest Combined Score

Elder Malvaez

Scripture Chase Winners For Each Zone Conference

Elder Flores (de Nicargua)

Hermana Hernandez

Elder Tejada

Hermana Lozano

Elder Calixto

Elder Williams

Hermana Gonzalez (de Colombia)

Elder Acevedo

Elder Morales

Elder Malvaez

100% on the test

Elder Brighton

Elder Solomon

Elder Klingler

Elder Smith

Elder Malvaez

Elder Molina

Elder Flores (de los Estados Unidos)

Elder Eldredge

Elder Izucar

Elder Knight

Hermana Moreno

Hermana Gonzalez (de Mexico)

Hermana Kortas

Congratulations to you all!!

FINALLY!! Week Three of Zone Conferences

I am so sorry it has taken me so long to post these pictures. Life sort of went a little crazy on us for a couple weeks and I was not able to get to it. But here are pictures from our last week of zone conferences. I am so sad that several of the elders in the pictures have already gone home! Better late than never, though, right?:-)

This week we were in Guadalajara meeting with the awesome zones here. We first met with the Lomas zone and then the following day, due to a scheduling conflict, we had to combine Independencia and Union. We don't usually like to have such big groups of missionaries for training, but it was unavoidable. However, we were so very much blessed!! The spirit was so strong and was poured out upon everyone in abundance. All the conferences were good, but the last one was amazing. I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father for the blessing we received, especially at a time of much personal difficulty.

Birthdays!!

Some of the scripture chase champions! I hope the mother of Elder M reads the sign! :-)

Best Area Book winners:

And a few more missionaries who received 100% on their Preach My Gospel exam. Missing is: Elder Smith and Elder Malvaez.

And  bonus pictures!!

Lunch . . .

Change Day!

As I have mentioned before, change day is one of my favorite days because I get to see so many of our awesome missionaries! It is also a crazy day and I spend most of it with the new missionaries, but I also try to sneak out of the training for a minute or two to take a few pictures. Here are the pictures I was able to get this time.

New Missionaries Part 2

These missionaries arrived late Monday night from the Provo MTC.

Here they are with their companions . . .

Los Nuevos!!

Aquí tenemos los nuevos que vinieron de la CCM en México. So de México, Bolivia y Guatemala!

Y aquí están con sus compañeros! Bienvendio a todos!

Mission Council Pictures!

We have had some crazy things going on recently that have been a little distracting (in addition to new grandbabies:-) so I am a little behind on updating. But here are some pictures of our mission council from last week. I don't have access to my memory card right now to finish zone conferences but I will get to it as quickly as I can--so maybe this weekend. And then we have changes!! Always busy!

I didn't get pictures of everyone, but I did get some!

Sister leader trainers and a couple extra sisters as well! (Bonus--the sisters on each end are fairly new and still in training.)

 The assistants. They do it all!! Plan, set up, teach and clean up! What would we do without them?!

Where My Heart Is . . .

I love the missionaries!! I really do! But this past week my heart has been elsewhere! First it was with this cute little guy, born almost a week ago to my daughter and her husband in Colorado. They have three other children--ages 5,3,2 so their house is a busy one!

Here he is at birth . . .

He had a little trouble breathing and ended up in the NICU for a few hours.

But here he is 6 days old!

 Then a few days later came this cute little guy to my son and his wife in Phoenix!

I love this picture. Kali has a very difficult time with pregnancies so he had to come almost five weeks early but now everyone is doing great!!

And after just one day he was headed home to play with his two older brothers--ages 3 and 2! Yeah, they are going to have their hands full! :-)

And we are very proud grandparents of 2 granddaughters and 7 grandsons!

Zone Conferences, Week 2

This past week we visited the north side of the mission for three zone conferences. We began in Tepic, followed by Santiago, and then finished up in Puerto Vallarta! Here are some picture from our conferences:

First the zones:

Here are the winners of the best area book competition!!

And we added some missionaries to the 100% club!! Each of these received 100% on the Preach My Gospel Exam. Good job!!

Here are the scripture chase champs!! In the spirit of the Olympics we gave them "gold medals" or at least a candy box necklace with gold ribbon. And in the spirit of good sportsman ship, the champs from this round of conferences came from three different countries--Peru, Mexico and Nicaragua! Bien hecho!!

And of course we celebrate birthdays!! Here are the birthdays for the months January, February and March. And yes, that is Elder Sanders in the picture below. He "resurrected" and dropped by for a visit, so we celebrated his birthday as well!