New Missionary Arrivals

We stayed overnight in Tampa to save us some driving time.  It saved us the hour drive back to Sarasota, but it don't believe it saved us any time today.  We drove to the two district meetings in the St. Petersburg Zone.  The first was in the St. Petersburg chapel, and the second in the Clearwater/Palm Harbor chapel (about 30 minutes apart).  Both district meetings followed the same format and had basically the same training.  The district leader leads a discussion about the progressing investigators and their needs followed by training by the zone leaders and sister training leaders on the topics assigned by President Cusick.  This week the training was to be on planning.

The ZLs, Elders Williams and Terry, conducted a discussion about why planning is important and the need to invite the Spirit into our planning.  The STLs, Sisters Benson and Dalley, then led a discussion on how to plan and establishing priorities.  They used the traditional object lesson of filling a jar with unimportant items and not having sufficient room for the important items.  However, they introduced a clever twist by using Easter eggs, jelly beans, and sugar.  They also conducted a discussion about prioritizing our use of time into the four quadrants based on urgency and importance.

I find it interesting how each district has its own personality.  For example, the first group of missionaries today were much more involved in the discussion than the second group.  This may be partially a result of the district leader but probably more based on personality of the missionaries in the district.

We then drove to the mission home to welcome the new group of missionaries, 3 sisters and 7 Elders.  They are really tired when they arrive since the depart very early from MTC to drive to the airport.  Although the training that first evening is basic safety and auto orientation, I wonder how much of it sticks with them.  We received one spanish speaking sister and two international Elders, one from Venezuela and one from Tahiti.  We also have two Elders waiting for their visas to go to Brazil.

Sisters Benson and Dalley (l-r) conducting their object lesson on planning