Christmas Zone Conference

Our zone conferences in December turned out incredibly well, especially the hour that was dedicated to our Christmas program. It is always a powerful experience to gather groups of missionaries together to nourish our faith, build our skills, and strengthen our unity in the mission.

Our focus at this zone conference was to become “Master Planners”. Each week, missionaries spend 2 hours in weekly planning and 30 minutes each morning in daily planning. In these planning sessions, they plan to meet the needs of their friends they are teaching, how they can find more people to teach, and how they can unite with the leaders and members of their local congregations. We follow a specific process from Preach My Gospel of setting goals and making plans to reach those goals.

As these missionaries learn to set goals, make plans to accomplish them, and diligently carry out those plans, they begin to understand how a proactive mindset will bless them throughout the rest of their lives. These planning skills will help them to make and keep covenants with God, serve faithfully in the church, pursue education, grow in their employment, and build a strong family.

We also had a wonderful Christmas program to wrap up each zone conference. We read scriptures about the Christmas story, sang hymns, and enjoyed some incredible musical numbers as many missionaries shared their musical talents.

Cumberland and Knoxville Zones

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Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Cookeville Zones

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Asheville and Kingsport Zones

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The missionaries in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission love Sister Barlow! She has shared the most memorable messages in our zone conferences. In our last zone conference she talked about getting more gritty and “get gritty” has become somewhat of a slogan in the mission. In this conference she talked about the definition of a successful missionary, and steps they can take whenever they face discouragement in life.

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We prepared three gifts to give the missionaries. The first was a laminated daily schedule to remind them of our commitment to follow this schedule with exactness.

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The second was a special flip book of The Living Christ. Sister Barlow invited our mission to memorize The Living Christ by Valentine’s Day, and promised that memorizing this statement would help us to grow closer to Jesus Christ and draw the power of Jesus Christ into our lives.

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A new version of Preach My Gospel was released in June of this year. Our missionaries have been studying their digital copies while making it very clear that they prefer the paper copy to study. Our print copies have been on order since July, and everyone has been patiently waiting for the books to come in.

Just a few days before zone conference, we received our shipment of Preach My Gospel books, and we decided to surprise the missionaries with the books at zone conference.

Likely, only missionaries will understand their reactions:

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We love these missionaries. Zone conferences are a highlight of each transfer and we are so grateful for every opportunity we have to gather together with them.

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