It’s always good to gather together as missionaries. The Savior said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, as touching one thing, behold, there will I be in the midst of them—even so am I in the midst of you” (D&C 6:32). You can sense at feel this as missionaries gather for zone conference.
We begin each zone conference by role playing one of the lessons. This week we role played “The Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. I play the role of a friend and call on missionaries to stand and teach each principle in two minutes. They don’t know who will be called on, which helps everyone to be engaged and think about what’s next. We heard some powerful teaching, especially as missionaries testified of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
As a mission, we feel very fortunate to be serving in the best mission on earth, at the best time to be serving here. We have the great opportunity to be serving while a temple is being built in Knoxville, Tennessee. Thus, we have the privilege of helping to prepare a place and people for the House of the Lord. And it is making progress!
In the first hour, we reviewed four principles we could apply to be more effective missionaries. The first was to act in faith. Moroni 10:7 says, “Deny not the power of God; for he worth by power according to the faith of the children of men.” We often review that “Faith is a principle of action and power…Faith in Jesus Christ…is more than belief, since true faith always moves its possessor to some kind of physical and mental action” (Bible Dictionary). We then broke into districts, and discussed how we can apply this direction from President Russell M. Nelson:
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The second principle was to have a “Proactive Mindset”. Being proactive is how we use our agency in powerful ways. This mindset leads us to “act and not to be acted upon” (2 Nephi 2:24-27).
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Third, was to control the things that we can control. As we use our agency, it is important to recognize what is in our control and what is not. We reviewed the great scripture pattern given in D&C 123:17.
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Lastly, we discussed how we can be more consecrated as missionaries. We reviewed the importance of the morning schedule, and the power that can come as we strive to be obedient to the standards we’ve been given.
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Sister Barlow then delivered the highlights of the zone conference. She began by reminding our missionaries about her plans for her gravestone:
She testified of the great blessings that have come to her life as she has consistently chosen to follow the prophet. She then let us know we were going to do three things over the next four weeks to celebrate the 100th Birthday of President Russell M. Nelson.
First, we were going to learn two new verses to “Follow the Prophet” written by our own Elder Jentzsch about President Nelson.
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She then said we were going to do something in the mission that might seem hard, but she was 100% confident we could do it. We were going to claim a very important blessing promised by President Nelson. In fact, she had us watch a video of President Nelson extending the invitation himself:
Sister Barlow then announced that we were going to be memorizing the Restoration Proclamation by President Nelson’s birthday on September 9th. The Restoration Proclamation was issued by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at the April 2020 General Conference. Its full title is “The Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: A Bicentennial Proclamation to the World.” This proclamation commemorates the 200th anniversary of The First Vision received by the Prophet Joseph Smith that initiated the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and ushered in “the dispensation of the fullness of times” (Ephesians 1:10).
Similar to when we memorized “The Living Christ”, Sister Barlow created flip cards that would help us memorize the Restoration Proclamation. She also noted that we will record a video of missionaries reciting “The Restoration Proclamation” just like we did with “The Living Christ.”
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Lastly, she announced that leading up to President Nelson’s birthday, each week all missionaries in the TKM will spread the love of Jesus Christ by reaching out to one person in need. Then on September 9th, missionaries will gather together with their friends to celebrate President Nelson’s 100th Birthday. There will be balloons, cake, ice cream, and lots of fun.
We closed out the conference by reviewing the story of the rich, young ruler in Mark 10:17-22 and Matthew 19:16-22. Whenever we feel that we are being asked to do something hard, we can think of the Savior beholding us, and loving us. Beholding us as in seeing our true potential, knowing where we are at, and where He wants to help us to be. And then because He loves us, and with that love, He will ask us to do more. We can always ask the question, “What lack I yet?”, and the Savior will help us to see the next steps He wants us to take.
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We love these missionaries and look forward to this next month as we work on these invitations.
Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Cookeville Zones
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Cumberland and Knoxville Zones
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Asheville and Kingsport Zones
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Barlows in TKM 