Utah Salt Lake City Mission - President and Sister Condie

  What a wonderful week! Wednesday through Saturday this past week was spent in a conference/seminar with all of the mission presidents and wives ( President Benson L and Sister Kerry L. Porter, Provo MTC; President Rick W. and Sister Angela Johnson, Utah Layton Mission; President Richard and Sister Betsey Holley, Utah Ogden Mission; President James E and Sister Jody Evanson, Utah Orem Mission; President Todd L. and Sister Rebecca Hendrickson, Utah Provo Mission; President Douglas D. and Sister Erin Holmes, Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission; President Kendal A. and Sister Lesley Kotter, Utah Salt Lake City South Mission; President Russell M. and Sister Kay Lynn Larsen, Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission; President Justin R and Sister Kristen Spencer, Utah Salt Lake City West Mission; and President Kevin D. and Sister Sonja Staples, Utah St. George Mission)  serving in the Utah Area as well as the Utah Area Presidency (Elder Kevin W. and Sister June Pearson, Area ...

Anne and I completed our second round of Zone conferences in Evanston, Wyoming on Friday the 16 th . At the beginning of each zone conference, we show a slideshow of pictures of outgoing and incoming missionaries for that six-week cycle (transfer cycle) as well as pictures of some of the persons who entered the waters of baptism that transfer cycle as well. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to include that here so I have simply included some of the pictures. Following the zone conference and interviews of the missionaries in that area, Anne and drove to Rock Springs, Wyoming to do more interviews and attend the Rock Springs' stake conference Saturday night and Sunday. Anne and I spoke in the Saturday night session, and we were able to have dinner with Elder José A. Teixeira and his wife beforehand. Elder Teixeira was assigned to fill in for Elder Kevin Pearson who was called away on another assignment. Elder Teixeira and his wife are lovely! The existing stake president was...

  This past week was filled with receiving and training new missionaries, and counseling and attending the temple with missionaries who completed their service and were returning home. This is easily the busiest week of our six-week cycle. It was wonderful being able to attend the temple with the outgoing missionaries. But the testimony meeting after the Wednesday night dinner with the departing missionaries is always the highlight of the cycle. One of the sister missionaries’ family came to pick her up and, again because it was such a small group (only three going home), we invited her family to join us for the testimony meeting. What a wonderful experience! Now it’s back to missionary interviews, Missionary Leadership Council and Zone Conferences. I came across the following in my personal studies this week: Chapter 32 of Alma in the Book of Mormon is a well-known chapter of scripture where the prophet Alma compares the word of God to a seed that brings forth precious fruit. He a...

The weeks keep flying by. I’m sure most of that is due to the busy schedule we are keeping. It is transfer week next week so this week was spent largely arranging the companionships and areas of our approximately 170 missionaries. Last transfer I was so anxious, yet it seemed to fall into place. This time, I was much less anxious and it seemed to be so much more difficult. Ultimately, I felt I had put together companionships and areas that I could take to the Lord for his confirmation and approval. Even then, however, I needed the Assistants’ help to move areas around to make sure the Districts were even and appropriate. I attended and participated in my first two Coordinating Council meetings (a meeting with approximately 10 stake presidents and an Area Seventy) to coordinate the work of the stakes in that council area. Both of them went well and in the Holladay Coordinating Council, I was able to see an old friend from the University of Utah who was now the stake president of the s...

  Anne and I completed our first round of zone conferences – two last week for the 7 Salt Lake Valley zones and one this week for the 2 Wyoming zones. I felt like they went well for the most part. The missionaries seemed to be re-energized to do the work and expressed many compliments. My talk at the beginning of conference was on obedience. I felt like it was one of the most inspired talks I have ever been involved in writing. It seemed to almost write itself and I could see it in my mind clearly as it was formed. It was based largely on Elder David A. Bednar’s talk to the young missionaries in the MTC titled, "The Blessed and Happy State". The rest of the week was spent mostly finishing up missionary interviews in Rock Springs, Evanston and Park City.  Anne and I did, however, also attend our first stake conference as mission leaders Saturday night in the Murray Young Single Adult stake and were asked to speak. Elder Daren R. Barney, an Area Seventy, presided and spoke on...

Yesterday was such a wonderful day for Anne and me. We were able to attend 4 baptismal services, for 7 persons, in four different languages including English. In the morning we attended the baptisms of a husband and wife and the husband's sister (all in their late 20's and 30's). They belong to one of the Spanish speaking wards in the Millcreek area so the service was in that language. I am finding that my understanding of Spanish is improving but I have not found the time to practice speaking. The second baptisms we were able to attend were of a 19- and 21-year old brother and sister attending one of the Samoan wards in the Rose Park area. That service was obviously in Samoan. I was only able to understand a few words (baptism, testimony, and Jesus Christ). What a beautiful language and people! That afternoon we attended the baptism of an 82-year old man in one of the Tongan wards in Salt Lake City proper. I was surprised how different the Tongan language is from Samoan. A...

  In some ways it feels as if we just started. And in other ways, it seems as if this is all we have ever done. It's hard to believe that we hit our one month mark earlier this week! In two more weeks, we will have finished a full "transfer cycle" (missions operate on a six-week cycle or rhythm).  Once we will have completed our Zone Conferences in 10 days, we will have participated in most of the types of things we will be doing on our mission for the next three years. I say "most" because we still haven't participated in our first Area Council meeting (once a month), Coordinating Council meetings (once a month for each of the 7 Coordinating Councils), and Stake Mission Correlation meetings (once a month for each of the 68 stakes in the mission). Despite our schedules getting busier each week, we seem to be getting into the rhythm and feeling more comfortable with our responsibilities. A couple highlights from the week were: (1) being able to attend the fin...