Last Wednesday was the last Zone/Area Conference that I will facilitate. Another missionary who arrived last Sunday will be taking over my job and I will train her on Tuesday. It fills odd to be turning over my duties to someone else when I still have more than a month to go. I will be spending more time with ward members probably to fill my time with 'good works'.
On Tuesday night, I got a text from Sister Kacher telling me she wanted to show a video from the internet but that it was complicated. I knew I would be in ICS making sure all the technology was up to speed by the time the conference started on Wednesday morning, so I didn't have any concern at her message. Early on Wednesday morning, Sister Call and Sister Middleton stopped by to let me know that Sister Middleton was taking over my job. We arranged for the Tuesday training. I told her then that every conference has a big problem i.e. the date will change, the speakers won't show up, the technology will not be up and running, something or anything will go wrong. I was smiling and laughing when I told her that.
I was grit teeth clenched when I saw her again at that afternoon. I couldn't even talk I was so mad. I tried telling myself that ICS was overwhelmed but I couldn't get it out of my mind that I was being dumped from one person to another even though I had sent an email the week previously so they could be prepared. At 11 I walked down to ICS and after talking to 3 different people was told that D Adams would take care of my needs. At 12 D Adams told me that A Henderson else would take care of my technology needs and set up. At 2 o'clock I went down to ICS again as I hadn't heard anything where Abizi said my link to the zoom portion wouldn't work, and gave me another to send out to all. That was tricky as many forwarded the link on to others that I don't have email access to. I prayed that any who needed to hear anything that was said would be able to get on.
At 2:30 after meeting A Henderson at the chapel to set up, he told me we would be having the meeting not in the Chapel but in the second floor conference room of the Area Office. I left a note on the chapel door. At 2:45 ish a woman walked into the 2nd floor conference room and told us Elder Martinez would have a meeting at 3:15 in that room so we were asked to meet on the first floor conference room. On my way down to the first floor feeling like a leaf on a swift moving river. After the technology was set up, Sister Kacher couldn't get her video to work because it "wasn't available in this geographic area". I was sending out calls to anyone who would pick up to call others with the fact that the meeting was in a new location. Sister Kacher and Elder Dance put their heads together to figure out the video.
At 3:50 people were trickling in after walking all over the campus and it looked like the people on the zoom call couldn't hear us. A Henderson and Elder Dance were working on that. At 4 pm Jeffrey welcomed all who came we had a song without music and an opening prayer. I gave a 3 minute story about how God answers prayers and my testimony of the miracles that happen on a mission. Jeffrey talked about how Jesus Christ is the ultimate Israel as One who has persevered with God, trodden the winepress alone. He talked about President Nelson and how we are at the hinge point in the history of the Church and how life and the culture of the church are going to be changed because of the different gatherings that are taking place.
Sister Kacher said some beautiful things about working together and her video could be heard about a bob sled duo and how they had separate jobs but worked unitedly to win which she likened to couples working in the mission field. Elder Kacher quoted some scriptures and then answered some really tough questions some of the senior missionaries had - such as how to tell a keyholder he is wrong - whether that is steadying the ark or telling the emperor that he has no clothes. It was a great discussion all around.
At 5:35 I was thanking those who had helped us while Jeffrey ran up stairs to get his things. We had a "Come Follow Me" lesson we had to get to by 6:30. Luckily that morning I had made a dinner pasta salad to eat as we dumped our office things and packed up our class items. I am so glad I had frozen banana bread to grab for the 6:30 treat. That meeting went very well though not many attended - which made a nice cozy class. We got home and I was wired but very tired. Luckily Michael called and I was able to derezz while he talked about something entirely different in Concord. Life is good.
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| April 20, 2022 Zone/Area Conference |
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