Our First Zone Conference as Senior Missionaries

On Monday 7 February 2011 we experienced our first missionary zone conference It was here in Garden City, and missionaries came from up to 260 miles away.


President and Sister Pfile (pronounced File) of the Colorado Colorado Springs Mission. They are wonderful leaders who really love all us missionaries and the people in the mission area.

It was so good to have our mission president and his wife, President and Sister Pfile here to teach us important classes. Also the APs (Assistants to the President), Elder Holly and Elder Tonie, and our own Zone leaders Elder Lewis and Elder Murphy were here in Garden City helping to teach us important lessons. A counselor to the president, President Sparrow and his wife, Sister Sparrow, were also here to check all the mission cars and make sure they were being taken care of properly, but they did not need to check our car because it is not a mission vehicle.
This is a photo of our the Garden City Zone. Notice on the right side is President Pfile and on the left side is his wife Sister Pfile and Elder and Sister Howlett are in the middle. President and Sister Sparrow were kept busy taking the picture using all the missionaries' cameras, one after another.

These leaders were all excellent trainers and teachers. Role playing seems to be a great tool to prepare to teach effectively, and we need to do more of that. In the morning they presented three classes, and each of the districts rotated around so that everyone had their time in each one. After lunch we had a special all-zone meeting with Pres. Pfile speaking to us, and then we all got to bear our testimonies. We feel that we received a lot of great directions in being better missionaries. Now that we are teaching the discussions to the less-active members in our ward, we need all the training we can get.



At left is a photo of the set-up in the Cultural Hall for our Zone Conference

Perhaps one of the greatest things Sister Howlett learned is the direction to ask “inspired questions”. However, as we have begun to teach since the zone conference it is still hard to remember to ask inspired questions or even think of what questions would be most helpful. The APs taught the class on that subject and they said we need to ask questions beginning “what, where, how and why”. That is good, but we have to plan and prepare those questions before we get there, or at least try to think of appropriate questions to go with the subject matter. Being good missionaries is really challenging and we’ve got our work cut out for us, but we are learning a lot.

Following are some photos of the missionaries in our district. These elders are terrific servants and they work so hard to help the people here in Garden City. We feel privileged to serve with them.


Our Zone Leaders: At left is Elder Lewis from Fresno, California and he is Spanish and English speaking, in the middle is a new convert Kirk Wilson, and at right is Elder Murphy who is mostly English speaking. He is from Michigan.



Our District Leader Elder Nilsson from Georgia is on the left and his new trainee Elder Gomez from Mexico on the right. Both are Spanish speaking elders but they can teach in English too.



In the photo to the right is Elder Viehweg on the left, an investigator named Gill in the center, and Elder Lyman on the right. They are English speaking elders only. Both are from Utah.



At left is Elder Alonso from Mexico and on the right is Elder Payne from Springville, Utah. Both are Spanish speaking elders.



Here at right is a photo of Elder and Sister Howlett in their apartment. They have a picture of the Denver Colorado Temple on the wall behind them.

These are the missionaries that make up the Garden City District. All of us attend the Garden City Ward and there is a lot of missionary work going on in this ward. There were 10 baptisms in the ward in January 2011 and we are all working strong for the Lord.