Utah Salt Lake City Mission - President and Sister Condie

 In honor of Thanksgiving ... These are some of the things for which I am most grateful: My family; A loving Heavenly Father; A merciful and compassionate Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ; The restoration of the church, gospel and priesthood of Jesus Christ on the earth once more; The Book of Mormon; Modern-day prophets and apostles; Covenants that bind us to God; The blessing of serving as a mission president with over 190 wonderful young and senior missionaries; Personal revelation; So many supportive friends; and Health. It was a busy two weeks with transfers taking center stage. We gained 16 new missionaries and lost 18 (12 finishing their missions, 4 receiving their visas and transferring to their permanent assignments elsewhere in the world, 1 going home early for health reasons, and 1 going home temporarily to work through something before returning to the field). It is such a blessing to work with and serve such exceptional young men and women! Thanksgiving dinner was had ...

  We enjoyed a couple weeks full of conferences. It started with stake conference in Green River, Wyoming November 5th and 6th. They kept us busy. We were asked to speak in the Leadership meeting on Saturday afternoon, the youth devotional Sunday morning and the general session also Sunday morning.  Just a couple days later, we started our first mission tour with Elder Hugo E. Martinez and his wife on Tuesday, November 8th. Elder Martinez is a General Authority Seventy and member of the Utah Area Presidency. Elder and Sister Martinez were so gracious, helpful, inspiring. We started our tour with a Zone Conference up in Evanston, Wyoming for our newly created Summit/Wyoming Zone. Following the conference, we were able to enjoy dinner with the Martinezes back in Salt Lake City. That was followed by Zone Conferences in Salt Lake City over the next two days and finished with a Missionary Leadership Council meeting that Friday to conclude the mission tour. The next day, Saturday, N...

  Okay, so “it has been a busy two weeks” is getting redundant. Here are the highlights from the past two weeks: ·        Held our Mission Leadership Council for this transfer cycle ·        Was able to go to dinner one night with my siblings and their spouses ·        Held and attended the monthly Missionary Health Council ·        Attended the monthly Member Leader Service senior missionary meeting ·        Attended the Rose Park zone multi-district council for this transfer cycle ·        Held our final Open House up in Evanston, Wyoming for the Wyoming and Coalville, Utah stake presidents and their wives ·        Attended and spoke at the adult session of the Bridger Valley Stake Conference with Elder Evan A. Schmutz (General Authority Seventy) and his wife ...

Fall is in the air. What a crazy and busy two weeks these last two have been. It is 10:35 p.m. as I write this and I know that if I don’t write now, I’ll miss another week before posting again. But because it is late and so much has happened, I will have to resort to just a bullet point record of the past two weeks: ·         Attended the temple with one of our Zones (all of the missionaries were able to attend a session at the temple last week. ·        Met with Elder Kevin Pearson to renew my temple recommend. ·        Worked to find the will of the Lord regarding this cycle’s transfers. ·        Held temple recommend interviews for missionaries whose recommends had expired and for missionaries who would be returning home on transfer day. ·        Held final interviews for missionaries returning home. ·      ...

  In reviewing my personal journal from this past week, it easily has been the hardest week emotionally for me thus far on our mission. From disobedience on the part of some missionaries, to a bike wreck putting a missionary in the hospital, to an easily avoidable car accident - seemingly all hitting on the same day - I had to apologize to my wife for my bad attitude. Fortunately, the car accident was minor, the missionary in the bike wreck will likely be fully healed in a couple months' time, and I have to remember that the disobedience is coming from 19- to 20-year old young men and young women who have not fully matured mentally and emotionally and, more importantly, the Savior atoned for sin and transgression (disobedience), from the trivial to the most consequential. As hard as those few days were, the week culminated in being able to attend the morning session of General Conference today (Sunday) with many of our missionaries as well as with our daughter Rebecca. What a wonde...

  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...