A Combo Day

Today was an interesting combination of activities.  We started with a zone training meeting held at the Mission Office.  We were told this was a special meeting because of the missionaries in the mission were attending.

It was interesting to see all of the missionaries with their cars lined up in the parking lot before the meeting started.  At the zone conferences, all of the cars are inspected.  One of the sisters asked me to help her find the transmission fluid dipstick.  Unfortunately, I wasn't much help.

President Cusick announced at the beginning of the meeting that the mission boundaries have been changed.  The southernmost part of the mission is now part of the Florida Ft. Lauderdale Mission.  That included the 30 missionaries serving in that area.  So now the mission includes about 130 missionaries, with the expectation that the number of missionaries will slowing increase.

One of the other changes announced was that each companionship was to turn in one of their iPad minis.  As part of the Church's "experiment," the Florida Tampa Mission was one of 30 selected to use iPad minis.  Each missionary was issued one.  Unfortunately, some of the missionaries have not used them effectively.  So now the experiment will consist of having one iPad for each companionship.  I see how the iPads could be useful in studying and teaching, but there is obviously great potential for abuse as well.  It will be interesting to see how the change works.

President Cusick also announced that Sister Larson, one of the sisters we met earlier in the week, had been hit by a car while riding her bicycle.  He said that she wouldn't be able to attend the training, but then later in the meeting she arrived.  She is really banged up, she is expected to recover.

Following the conclusion of the zone training, we did some furniture "looking."  We will need some furniture whenever we find an apartment, so we checked out IKEA and other home furnishing stores.  The only IKEA in this area is in Tampa, so we took advantage of being in Tampa for the training meeting.  Renee also went to the mission's excess furniture storage facility to see what might be available, but she didn't find much.