Zone Conference week!

So much happens that it is really hard to remember everything and I don't have a lot of time so I will jump to some main events from these past 8 days. Last week was a pretty normal week up until Thursday. On Thursday 3 of our visa waiters got their visas much earlier than expected so we met with President and assisted him in figuring out the changes that would need to be made with three less missionaries, and who was going to be with their companions.

On Friday President wanted us to go to two ZTM's (zone training meetings) So for the regular 9am one we went to Corvallis and then we had a Salem Zone switch their ZTM to 2pm. It was great to go to Corvallis again! On this transfer a new area opened up in Corvallis the title of the area is "Corvallis Chinese." Elder Kwok got a new companion and the Elder who he was training (Elder Daniels) is now training. So Elder Daniels is training Elder Argyle teaching the College hill wards males and Elder Kwok and Elder Muoa are teaching all the Chinese in Corvallis (Muoa is Mong and speaks a tiny bit of Chinese.) The Chinese work is exploding there! It was great to in Corvallis again, I love that place.

I talked before about how in mission Lingo who you train is considered your son, and then who they train is considered your grandson and so on. So at the meeting we had 5 generations! Which is pretty rare, and something even more rare about it is we all have served in the College Hill ward, and all but me and McKenzie it’s been their only ward. So while we were there we got a posterity picture.

After the Corvallis ZTM we drove up to Salem and went to their ZTM. All the Zone Leaders did a really good job with the meeting, I learned a lot. After the meeting we went on exchanges in Salem. I went with Elder Webb and Elder Martin, Elder Webb was in my district last time I was in Eugene a year ago. He is really quite kid but I really like him and it was cool to be on exchanges there. Saturday we drove back and it ended up being a pretty normal

Saturday, we were able to get a good amount of work in our area done. Saturday night was the adult session of stake conference Elder Paul Christensen of the Seventy was there, he was great. He has lived such an extraordinary life in sharing the gospel and humanitarian work and everything else. While I was listening to his talk the thought came to me of why settle for being ordinary, we are all children of God and He has given us the potential to be extraordinary and do extraordinary things. It’s human nature to think that we are naturally born with a limit of how much we can progress in a certain area, we are fine to accept that others can progress far past that area, but we take the "it’s just the way I am" attitude and settle for so much less than the God given potential we have. We settle for less because it’s easier, it is very hard to overcome our natural weaknesses, but when we do we learn the power that comes from trusting in God and overcoming our weaknesses, and we have faith we can overcome any weakness. I have many weaknesses but I have also overcome many weaknesses on my mission as I have relayed on the power God. I know God did not create me to be mediocre nor did he create anyone to be mediocre he has given all the power to be extraordinary. We have weakness and because of those weaknesses we stay humble and as we can overcome those weaknesses as we rely on the grace of God, and when that is successfully at that are faith grows and we make steps in fulfilling our potential. I realize that none of this is new to anyone, it’s very common doctrine but it really hit me as I was listening to Elder Christensen speak, I could tell he was never one to use the "it’s just the way I am" excuse.

On Sunday Morning Elder Christensen invited Elder McKenzie and I to an aaronic priesthood meeting in the relief society room before stake conference. It was about being a missionary, he has us bare our testimonies at the start of what our missions meant to us, and about half way through the meeting he had us come up and two deacons come up. He talked about how amazing it was that in 6 years they would be us. The rest of stake conference was very good.

On Monday we met with President in the morning to talk about the plan for Zone Conferences and he also wanted to talk about some missionaries who needed to be ETed (emergency transferred) as few of the ET's ended up happening that day and we even drove one Elder up to Salem. It was a pretty common P-day for the past 7 weeks in the sense that it had no resemblance to a P day ha ha. We left the door by 6 30 to work on stuff in the office, had about a 20 min lunch and 10 minute dinner and worked on ETs and Zone conference until it was time to go to bed. I hope no one gets the sense that I am complaining about any of this, I really do enjoy the craziness of it all, and there is nothing like the feeling of being completely exhausted  because you have been doing all you can to do what the Lord would have you do.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was our first Zone Conference and it was out in Bend (Central Oregon.) President and sister Young picked us up from our apartment at 7 am and we were on our way (3 hr car ride.) The Zone Conference went well. Zone conferences are much more President and much less us than most other meetings. They are five and a half hours long and we teach about 45 minutes of it. Our portion is about using the Book of Mormon, and about how to explain it in a way to let people know what it is and why they need to read it. I wish I could explain more about it and how we taught it but I don't have time, but it went really well.

Today (Monday) we had Zone Conference in Eugene today with the 4 zones. It went great, again I wish I could describe more but I am out of time. I love you all! The church is true!

Elder Covey         

--Fearless Via Faith