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| Part of the Las Vegas Zone |
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| This amazing couple got baptized last week |
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| Blurry photo of me and our fave recent RM, Bro. Barnes. I met him when an English family had us over for dinner. I soon learned that they all had lived in Spokane before and that he was recently returned from Mexico. We took him out to lots of lessons and he took us out to lots of dinners. It was a good trade. |
Haha Yupp, we got calls and Elder Walker and I will be staying right where we are for 6 weeks more! I am actually really excited. I really felt a confirmation that this is what needed to happen. I personally already feel like this will be one of the best transfers yet, and I'm going to work as hard as I can. This area hasn't produced a baptism in a while and I am determined to change that this last chance I get here.
So with that call it officially makes: 3 transfers with Elder Walker (and some time from when we were together in a trio), 5 in this area, and 7 straight in the Las Vegas Zone and the Bonanza Ward. I will be staying here until October 11 and then I'll for sure be headed somewhere else. With that, though, that means I will end up going 10 months straight in the Bonanza Ward in the Las Vegas Zone. I came over here Dec 17th of 2014 and it'll almost be Halloween when I end up leaving! haha
So, yupp, it'll be good. It's also super cool because the zone is going to be changing a lot. We had 7 different missionaries get training calls. So that means for 7 young greenies the Las Vegas Zone will be their first ever taste of missionary work and Elder Walker and I will be all of theirs first zone leaders. We feel a lot of good pressure to do all we can these next weeks to ensure that every one of these new Elders and Sisters has the best start to their mission as possible. I'm stoked to see a bunch of new, excited, but completely frightened faces here because I really do feel like it was just yesterday that I was in their still new, and shiny shoes.
Another cool thing to mention: Mom got a shout out from President Ahlander in our MLC this last week!!!
I'll explain. So ever since you (Mother Dear) sent me that email talking about President Packer and how he always ended his meetings with, "Therefore, what?" I started applying that to the Las Vegas Zone! At the end of every District Meeting, Zone Training, ZAT (Zone Additional Training, we do lots of trainings here) we would have our "Therefore, what?" Section. Everyone would pull out their iPads and open their notes app and then write 1 or 2 specific actions they were going to take that week as a result of what they had learned or felt during the meeting. It literally become Zone Culture! All the missionaries knew that at the end of a meeting, whoever was conducting would pause and then just say, "Okay Elders and Sisters, it's been a great meeting, we've felt the Spirit, we have truly been edified. But the ultimate question is this: Therefore, what?" And then everyone just goes right into doing it because they all know :D even in Spanish it translates "¿Entonces, qué?"
And then of course the next week (or whenever we follow up with people) we ask them if they did their TW? from our last meeting and yeah it's helped the zone a lot.
So the shout out was this. At MLC we always have a section called "Zone Concerns" when all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders bring up concerns they have with the mission and missionaries and then we all put our heads together as a council to try and receive revelation to solve the problem. So basically, one set of ZL's said, "So in our zone we are always working super hard to prepare these trainings for our missionaries and they go well but then we visit with them a week later and they have completely forgotten everything from the training. How can we help our missionaries to better apply the trainings we give to them?" And so instantly I knew that Mom had once again prepared me for some future endeavor with wise counsel she had given me earlier. So I shared with the council this whole experience about you sending me that email and talking about President Packer and how you were going to apply his thing to your seminary class and so then I applied it to our zone and how it's been super effective. The other ZL's loved the idea and so did many others. The best part though, was that right at the end of our MLC meeting, President Ahlander gets up and says, "It's been a greeeeeeeat meeting today Elders and Sisters, but really, it's just like how Elder Alley's mom says, 'Therefore, what?'" And then he went on to talk about taking what we had learned back to our zones and all that jazz.
So, Mom, you got a shout out from President Ahlander in our MLC!
So that, and the fact that Moroni and his friends all came to church yesterday make up the highlights of the week! I'm excited for one more here, and then it'll be on to the next adventure!
In the meantime you all take care, les amo mucho!
-Elder Alley
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