First Zone Conference - July 21, 2005

We had to wake up at 5:20am this morning to head out to my first zone conference.  This is a meeting every six weeks with about 50 missionaries and the mission president and his wife.  The conference was held in Kinston, North Carolina.  Kinston is located about 70 miles from Rocky Mount.  We arrived at 8:30ish and started the day off.  One of the speakers was President Walker, the 2nd counsellor in the mission presidency.  He spoke about the importance of prayer.  After this talk and remarks from President Mabey, we sang "We'll Bring the World His Truth" after which I had the opportunity of giving the blessing on the food for lunch.  I was actually a little nervous and shaking a little, but... I think I gave a pretty good prayer.  For some reason giving a prayer in front of seasoned missionaries made me feel semi self conscious.  I have now passed off the 2nd lesson and am 40% of the way to get the pin.  When we got back, I realized that it is hard for me to not lead.  I know I am fresh out in the field and that I am literally nothing at the moment, but sometimes I feel like we should be doing different things.  I have no problem with knocking doors and actually kind of like meeting new people, but I think we should focus more on people we know and getting referrals of people to see.  Tonight we went on a full exchange, which was awesome.  I went with Brother Allen and Mike from the priest's quorum.  We taught the plan of salvation lesson to the Battle's.  Brother Battle is so cool!  This experience is humbling, but I am really enjoying it.  Blessings on blessings to come!