Past Zone Conferences

We have gotten a little behind on posts with the blog because we have had so many wonderful works going on in the Mission that we have scarcely had time to write, but we are going to catch you up now.

Transfer cycle #6 went from Monday February 8 through Sunday, March 21.

We like to call this transfer cycle our "Earthquakes and Miracles" transfer because we experienced one of our greatest trials: the earthquake, and we also experienced some of our greatest miracles: many people coming unto Christ.

Our goals for the transfer cycle included: "Be prepared. Be Obedient. Be Organized." We started (as we always do) with a concilio de cambios (change meeting) where all missionaries who will receive a transfer, meet in a central chapel to receive instruction and learn with whom and in what area they will be serving for the next few weeks and/or months. For me, this was one of our most spiritual meetings ever. President Laycock spoke of our dear Elder McKay Burrows who had died while serving in his mission the week before. We discussed the need for all of us to be prepared in every way and introduced that we would be spending this transfer cycle getting prepared physically and spiritually. It was a very spiritual start to our transfer cycle. Our Zone Conferences focused on the need to be prepared.

After our second Zone Conference, we had all of our Sisters stay for a Sister Conference. We were able to answer their heartfelt questions and testify to them that the Lord cannot accomplish His purposes without the help of His sisters.

Our interviews also focused on being prepared, and President Laycock and I enjoyed visiting every missionary in his or her pension to inspect for physical and spiritual safety, and to share a spiritual message about the need to be prepared. Two days after the earthquake, we enjoyed a pre-scheduled, whole-mission Family Home Evening. We were able to discuss the earthquake and the miracles that we had experienced. On Sunday, March 7 we enjoyed a broadcast from Salt Lake City as our Stake Conference. President Monson and Elder Bednar spoke to us and encouraged us and expressed the Lord's love to us. What a perfect experience for us to receive their counsel right after the devastation of the earthquakes. The Lord knows and loves His Chilean children. We feel His love in all we do. We are hopeful that all of our missionaries wrote about these experiences in their journals. They have probably already shared their experiences with you. We continue to stress to them the importance of recording all of their mission experiences so that they can share them for the rest of their lives with their loved ones.

The many blessings we received during this transfer cycle are just too numerous to recount, but as a mission we know, and we will never forget that the Lord taught us in powerful ways, that "this life is the time to prepare to meet God." We will always remember the life-lessons that we learned during this transfer cycle in the Chile Santiago East Mission. We were blessed abundantly by what we learned, and we will continue throughout eternity to feel the ripples of the wonderful blessings we received.