Dear Family and Loved Ones,
We had another great week and our Zone Conferences were definitely the highlight! Zone Conferences are held every other transfer and since we had a Christmas Conference last month I thought we wouldn’t have another Zone Conference until next transfer. I was pleasantly surprised to see our Zone Conferences on the schedule for January. We combined three zones at each conference and had three days of meetings in order to spend time with our nine zones. There were about 50 missionaries at each conference. It is always so great to spend time with our missionaries and especially to see how the newest Elders and Sisters are adjusting, learning and growing in their assignments. On Tuesday we welcomed a visa waiter who is waiting for a visa so he can travel to Taiwan, we saw him the very next day at his Zone Conference and he already looked like he was feeling at home!
Another reason it was so good to get the missionaries together is because it’s the first of the year and a great time for all of us to set new goals and determine how we can serve more effectively. Different principles from Preach My Gospel were taught by the various Zone Leaders. One of the topics that really stood out to me was the importance of asking inspired questions from the “Teach People, Not Lessons” curriculum. Our missionaries are learning that it’s not enough to do all the talking and to just tell people about the doctrine of the Church, they need to know what their investigators are understanding and feeling so they can meet their needs and help them learn the Gospel.
Here are a few of the inspired questions we heard in our conferences: Two of our Elders (one is brand new) “knocked into” a woman who was obviously sick, they felt inspired to ask, “Would you like a Priesthood blessing?” She answered yes so they provided her with a health blessing. She invited them to return for a teaching appointment. When they came back to teach her she was feeling much better, she recognized them as servants of God and was prepared to hear their message. Two of our sisters finally found a less active man at home after passing by his house many times. They felt inspired to ask this brother who had not attended Church in almost fifty years, “Do you still believe the Church is true?” When the brother responded that he did they followed up with the question, “Then don’t you think you should be attending?” This brother is now active in the Church and recently baptized his ninety year old mother! Our Senior missionary who supervises the care of our cars and apartments gave some training on taking care of the church vehicles and apartments. He had recently inspected some of the apartments where Elders were complaining about insects, pests, etc and found them to be very dirty. He was so disappointed (these apartments are now very clean). He asked, “Would you want to bring your investigators into your apartment right now for a lesson?” That inspired question really struck a chord with many of the missionaries – I have a feeling they will be more aware of the importance of keeping a clean and orderly apartment so the Spirit is always welcomed there. Finally one the assistants in his teaching reminded us of an inspired question that Elder Zwick asked when he came to Long Beach for a mission tour, he asked, “What are you willing to give up to make your mission a success?” That is an inspired question!
Asking inspired questions is just the first step in getting to know and understand those we teach and work with. Elder Holland said we need to listen with love and then we will know what to say.
Shelly arrived last night to the mission home. She will be living here with us in beautiful Southern California. She’s able to work from her computer and we can’t think of a better place for her to be than right here in Long Beach!
We have a very sad week coming up, we will be saying good-bye to 20 missionaries! They are outstanding leaders and examples and it will be very hard to let them go.
We love you all,
The Long Beach Buberts
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