The Details of Interviews--Mission History

I probably wouldn't write anymore about interviews last month, but at the end of each year we have to submit a mission history, and keeping a detailed history here, tremendously helps me put together the history we have to send to Salt Lake. So .  . . here are the details of what we did this past round during interviews.

Interviews are held every quarter, and although we use the time to do a lot of training, the only critical thing that happens during that time is that President Wagner meets personally with each missionary in the mission for approximately 15 minutes.

He discusses worthiness with them as well as any concerns the missionary may have. Some questions President Wagner always asks is where they are in their reading of the Book of Mormon, what they are learning in their reading, and what principle from the Book of Mormon are they applying in their life that day.

This time he also had everyone bring in their progress sheets for the people they are teaching and did some training on how to improve.

Meanwhile . . . .out in the cultural hall, we are doing some training as well. I met with groups of 6 and did training on how to improve our teaching by using the outlines at the back of each lessons to help us study and organize our teaching material.

I also review what they need to do to prepare for zone conference the following month. . . and I give them a treat. This time the treats were these clowns (in honor of Halloween) with a note on them that translated says, "Don't be a clown, get to work" A better English translation would be "Don't clown around, get to work".

After our group training, we divided and while I met with missionaries to review their language study goals and help the native Spanish speakers prepare for their English exam,  the zone leaders did training as well.

 They met with each companionship in their zone to review effective planning. They went over using their agendas, following the 13 steps of planning in Chapter 8 and how to more effectively plan using ward lists.

Often during interviews we are met with a few challenges. Like this man sanding the stage behind us . . .

But this one was definitely our biggest challenge to date!!

While on our way to these interviews we received a message from the zone leaders informing us that the toilets in the building were not functioning. President Wagner assumed they met there wasn't any water in the building to flush them --as that is a common problem. But no! That is not what they meant. When we arrived we discovered all the toilets sitting in the foyer.  Now that is a huge problem when you plan on being in the building the entire day.

President thought we could handle it though--after all there was a convenience store about a kilometer away that we could walk to if needed, but when they pulled out the jack hammers and electric saws, we packed up and moved to the zone leaders house to do interviews there!

This was probably the most comfortable setting for interviews we had!
** And just a side note . . . where your missionary lives does not look like this. These zone leaders live in what was once a church building so it is quite spacious, and since the Church owns the building, missionaries continue to live there.

Also included in interviews is mail!! This lucky sister got her first package ever!! And it will probably be her only package since she goes home soon. But she was sure excited to get it!!

And we take pictures. Although some missionaries aren't quite as excited about having their pictures taken as others. :-)

So those are interviews. This week we start zone conferences!!