Specialized Zone Leader Council--The Mission Brain Trust

On Wednesday our zone leaders arrived by 4:00 pm for an overnight zone leader council. We called it our Mission Brain Trust where our leaders put together their ideas to change some of our mission policies and direction.

They came prepared to speak about a quote from President Monson which says, "Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." When they arrived they were handed a list of top concerns for our mission. They were asked to select the top 4 and rank them in order of importance to them. From that we selected four topics. Then the zone leaders selected a plastic egg from a bowl. In it was their team assignments. We had four groups of four elders. Their team captains then drew out a card with their assignment. Each group was given 90 minutes to create a presentation expounding on their topic, they could use lds.org as a resource and ask for help with object lessons etc. Their presentation was to be interactive and at the end they should have an action plan in place that each zone could roll out in the near future.


After a delicious dinner of President's Chicken Cacciatore and a big green salad, the first two groups did their presentations. Wow! They totally blew us away. They were so insightful and well done! We were totally impressed.

Elder Anzal, Bangal, Lucernes and Brown tackled: Mission Culture. What is our mission culture? What can we do to improve it?

Elder Katoa, Nielsen, Riner and Pincock's topic was: How do we increase the number of prepared and worthy convert baptisms?

Group 2 may look like a bunch of slackers but they put together a very riveting presentation on "How can we raise the level of performance of our current trainers and prepare future trainers?

Dinner was enjoyed by all.

A little ping pong in our side yard.

The presentations were fantastic. Great goals were set and our mission leaders are raring to get things moving.

This group had Elder Brown serve as a visual aid. The group posted excuses that we sometimes use for not reaching our potential.

Where's the popcorn? During our free time, these elders enjoyed watching a Disney movie.

Have you ever seen so many people playing basketball in flip flops?



Elder Ellis, Cabanacan, Mabanta and Naylor pondered over their topic which was " What can we do to increase the number of lessons taught each week?" 

 Later that night they had an hour for leisure activities such as ping pong (Elder Cabanacan was the champ), basketball, or some opted to watch a Disney movie. (Resue Down Under). After that we served milkshakes and a variety of homemade cookies. Bedtime was at 10:30 and President and I are happy to report we never heard a peep out of any of them. THey were up by 6:30 and ready for breakfast by 7:30. We served breakfast rice and pancakes. Wow! They ate a lot of pancakes.
Next the other two groups did their presentations. Again, we were so impressed. During our time together we put together a zone leader choir number to sing at our next transfer meeting and a handfull of the elders gave their 3 minute talks on the assigned topic. We typed up a recap and checkoff list for each zone leader to take home. We felt it was a highly productive meeting.