In The Zone!

September 6-12

Zone Conference

From September 6-September 12^th, we hosted 4 zone conferences covering all the 10 zones of our mission. The schedule was as follows:

Sat. Sept. 6-Northwest Zone  (Tzaneen Chapel)

Wed. Sept. 10-Bedfordview, Benoni, Vaal (Bedfordview Chapel)

Thur. Sept. 11-Soweto, Northwest, Joburg (Fourways Chapel)

Fri. Sept. 12-Pretoria, Pretoria North, Centurion (Pretoria East Chapel)

The Northeast Zone-all 14 of them, located 5 hours outside of Joburg, in the beautiful Tzaneen area. It is hotter, but greener and more lush than most of our zones. These great Elders helped us launch this first zone conference for the Dunn's, with Elder Louw and Reed as the zone leaders.

The Bedfordview Zone hosted the second day at thier chapel in beautiful Bedfordview. It was our first time in this area and we had 3 zones gather, which made for almost 70 Elders participating. Thanks to Elder Luthy and Lucking for their leadership of this zone.

This great group represents our largest zone-Benoni! They bring a lot of energy and hard work to the mission. Thanks to Elder Koyle and Ranjato for their great leadership.

Here is the Centurion Zone led by Elders Matos and Kelebogile.  All of these are great Elders that came to learn and share. The conference was also hosted at the Pretoria East Building. This was a great conference and group on our last day.

Pretoria Zone gathers around the front of their building. 4 of these Elders had to travel almost 4 hours to be at the conference.  Great group led by Elder Neuenschwander and Wadsworth as zone leaders.

The Pretoria North Zone is led by Elder Ndikumana and Elder Pedersen.  They were our last group to leave on this lovely, warm day in Pretoria on the last day of our conference. Thanks everyone for helping out so much to make the conferences such a success.

The Vaal Zone is geographically spread out and led by Menendez and Wilkinson. More of these Elders had to travel longer distances to get to the conference.  This zone is also supported by two great Senior Couples, the Pier's* and Dummer's*. *Sister's not pictured unfortunately, but they were present and add a great deal.

On day 3 of the conference, we did not get pictures taken before everyone departed. Shame! We will feature them next time for sure. Sorry to the Soweto, Joburg and NorthWest Zones and leaders!

We started at 8:30 am each day with a full schedule, starting the morning with Leadership Meetings for the district and zone leaders, while others listened to a great talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland on the Godhead, followed by an Opening Keynote Address by President Dunn on Conversion using the Book Of Mormon. After, we split into groups by zones and rotated through three workshops, "Use of Time" taught by Elder Davies and Stephens, our Assistants, "FIT for the Kingdom"by Sister Dunn (that’s me) and Working with Members by President Dunn.

Keynote and Workshops:

Off to workshops

The Assistants reminded the Elders that using time wisely is vital. If you add up all the time on your mission, you are actually only teaching and preaching the gospel for 6.5 months, when you add in everything else you do.  Made everyone appreciate how precious time is and how to not waste it.

The FIT for the Kingdom workshop focused on how to add a little bit "more" to how you are preparing yourself physically, mentally and spiritually for the kingdom. The workshop started off with a rope problem to solve between companions. It brought home the point of working together and thinking of innovative ways to improve your FITness. It was fun to see companionship tied up for a bit as they tried to solve the problem with an innovative solution!

The afternoon was filled with a wonderful lunch brought to us by the senior couples, a Q and A session with the zone leaders and a reflection of the entire day.  Hearing from Elders about what they learned was one of my favorite part.  As a fun ending, we played 30 minutes of Preach My Gospel Volleyball Battleship. The Elders lined up on opposite sides and had to answer questions correctly taken from Preach My Gospel. If they were correct, they were able to lob a ball over the net and try to hit a target (person or chair) and attempt to sink a battleship.

Delicious lunches were brought in each day with plenty of food for hungry elders.  They had feasted on good words all day, and now it was time to have a healthy lunch and feast a bit.

See Elder and Sister Hansen taking a rest after they have everything ready to go! They helped out so much with the food for all 3 days.

Senior couples in Tzaneen made the lunch for zone conference. It was delicious. Thanks so much for all your love and support!

"Preach My Gospel" PMG  Battleship Volleyball.

Last Activity of the Day.  Team with the most knowledge of PMG wins! Fun final 30 minutes!

Good spectators of PMG Volleyball!

All in all, these zone conferences will be something we will really look forward to. Our next one is December 8-15, with Elder Cook, our beloved Area President presiding. We are so excited for the training we will all receive.  Since Zone Conferences are every other transfer or once every three months, we will cherish this time and look forward to each of them. We only have 11 of them left before our turn is up, so we want to make the most of each and every one.