Transfer 11 week 1

This week has been a jam packed one. Wednesday started the new transfer and that means new missionaries arriving! We picked them up at 7:00am and began interviews with them and President. In just a few hours we matched them up with their trainers and we were on our way running out of the mission office to go to my doctors appointment. I luckily only got about an inch of skin off, but about 25 stitches in total, so I have been pretty sore this week. Each day seems to be getting better though. We then ran back to the square to give a special VIP tour of the Temple Model with President Poulsen to none other than President Eyring. They are making Temple Models for the Washington DC visitor center as well as the Rome visitor center, and he wanted to know how we used it because he was presenting them. Afterwards President Eyring told us about an experience he had in Fiji. (My companion is from Fiji) He told us that he was at a concert with a small choir, they began singing and the sound was much larger than that small choir could perform. He looked up to see a choir of Angels, one of the sopranos being his mother. He continued on to tell us that the sopranos were on the viewers right side of the choir, and he cannot wait to get to heaven and tell the Mormon Tabernacle Choir that they have it backwards. hahaha it was so funny. And such a great experience to be able to talk about the Temple with a prophet of the Lord.

This week we had meeting after meeting after meeting. Thursday we had a trainer/new missionary meeting, Friday for returning outbound meeting, Saturday was Christmas training for new sisters, Sunday staff meeting, and today was MLC. All of which we conducted and gave trainings. And now it is time to prepare for zone conferences this week! You could say we've been pretty busy.

I haven't seen the Christmas lights in a week and probably won't until after zone conferences, so sorry if you are trying to find me. If you want to see my you should probably do as my outbound companion, Sister Clark, did and just get a job teaching English to the Sisters at Temple square. Seriously the BEST news ever! My best friend is going to be working in the mission office of Temple Square! My mission just got 100000x better.

Today we had such a powerful MLC (mission leadership council). In the past we have had problems with the meeting getting contentious because of the sisters ideas of problems in the mission. But this time we focused on bringing the spirit and purifying the mission by first purifying ourselves. We shared one of my favorite video's entitled Dayton's Legs, https://www.lds.org/youth/video/daytons-legs?lang=eng&cid=NEMar14 , in this video you see an example of an amazing leader, Spencer. I love how this video is not entitled "Spencer is Dayton's Legs." But rather it turns the entire focus on Dayton. Everything that Spencer does is underlined by his love and charity for those that he serves. That is how leaders should be, and how we want to change the culture in this mission to be. Leaders of the mission are truly the legs of the mission, but our job is to not only run the race to the finish line, but to help teach others to run. Every missionary in this mission is truly a leader, their influence in the mission and around the world is like no other, and we need to make sure everyone is lengthening their stride and picking up the pace to obtain our divine obsession.

Speaking of divine obsession, I'm not sure if I have mentioned it to y'all yet or not. All of the missions in Utah have been challenged to have this divine obsession of doubling our baptisms. And the divine obsession is what needs to happen to accomplish that. So in MLC today we presented a mission macro plan as well as 8 habits of highly successful missionaries to train the sisters on in zone conference, district meetings and zone meetings. But to do this we must be all in. This line came from outbound in the TSAM. When we first arrive at San Antonio, President Slaughter takes us to the Alamo and presents the story of the Alamo. We also presented this in MLC today. There was a point in the Alamo where the leader of the Texan army lined up his soldiers and drew a line across the dirt in front of them. He expressed that once they cross that line, they must be all in. No straddling the line or going back. They must give it everything they have, and leave behind all personal affairs. And this is the same when we come on our missions. When we accepted our calls, we decided to be all in. No thinking about home throughout the week. No pauses to rest. No distractions. To be all in, we have to be completely focused on our purpose. This is our goal and hope for this zone conference, is to get everyone all in.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve in this assignment and work so closely with my mission president. I have learned so much by preparing trainings, listening and counseling with the sisters, and being with my amazing companion, Sister Taito. We just have a ball together! Did I mention that she plays on the National Fiji basketball team? And she's a spiritual giant. I love my companion, I love this transfer, and I love being a missionary more than anything.

Sister Brock