2014-January & Beginning of February

 January's Mission Leadership Council came quickly after the Christmas and New Year's celebrations.The Elders and Sisters from Palawan unexpectedly got to spend the night at the missionhome. It's always good to see the Elders' hearts are in the right place.

 It was so fun to have a bigger family for our evening gospel study!

Then, came interviews with the President.  While waiting for interviews, the missionaries attended classes on Exercising More Faith Through Prayer (taught by the Sister Training Leaders), Ideas for Making Language Study Fun (taught by the Assistants to the President) and How to Write a Talk (taught by Sister Ostler).  We hope the things they learned will be a great blessing to them throughout their lives.

 Here, they are trying to "build a house" without any pattern or instructions, just using a bunch of random pieces of paper.

           Some missionaries got pretty creative.  This one was 3D.

 The short activity helped us realize how hard it is to build something that you don't have a pattern or directions for, especially if you don't know what it's supposed to look like.  We then learned a "blueprint" for "building" a talk.

 The Assistants had a great time teaching the missionaries some fun games they can play during language study and while walking that will increase and stretch their abilities to think and speak in their non-native language.

 These lovely sisters came and helped make cinnamon rolls on their preparation day for another zone's activity later that day.

      This Zone made great strides in reaching their OYM goals.  It is always so much fun to have the missionaries over.  They are so cheerful, helpful and cooperative.  It seems to provide a much needed break for them.

Then, it was time for Mission Leadership Council again!

         Two of our Sister Training Leaders taught us and directed fun activities to help us learn how to teach all the missionaries to budget their money.

They did a wonderful job, and all the Elders and Sisters shared great ideas.  They are an exceptional group of Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders.  Eight of them will be going home the second week of February!