District and Zone Conferences

President & Sister Dowdle, Elder & Sister Stevenson, and E/S Wright

On March 5 - 6, 2011 we held our District Conference.  Our Mission President, President Dowdle and his wife, along with the  Asia North Area President, Elder Gary Stevenson and his wife were the presiding authorities.  Elder Stevenson is a member of the 1st Quorum of Seventy.  Meetings were held throughout the day on Saturday and an adult session in the evening.  We had a good attendance at these meetings.  On Sunday we held two different sessions.  Many local members spoke on a variety of doctrinal subjects.  It was very uplifting.    Elder Stevenson talked about us being the lower lights and Christ is the lighthouse.  He gave a great presentation of what it means to be one of the lower lights and how Christ needs our help to guide people to him.  President Dowdle talked about the exceeding great and precious promises in 2 Peter 1:2 So that we can be partakers of the divine nature.  He told of three things that we need to do to partake of the divine nature.  First, we need to remain humble, next we need to be obedient and keep the commandments so that we can be more godlike, and 3^rd we need to give our heart to God, by doing so we need to change our heart.  Both of their wives also talked and we learned about service and feasting upon the words of Christ.  This was a great spiritual time for everyone present.

Some of the Young Women from our Chorus

 Our District President, President Jonathan asked me, Sister Wright, to help get a special musical number ready for this conference.  He wanted the young women to sing.  Then he proceeded to tell me that he wanted to bring tears to the eyes of those visiting authorities who would be there.  That was a little bit of pressure as I am not proficient in that area, but I said that sure I can help do that.  We chose the song "If the Savior Stood Beside Me."  There were a total of about 15 who sang including the girls and their leaders.  What beautiful voices they had so it was not hard to do this song.  I think we accomplished our purpose as it was very touching and added much to the meeting.

Our Young Elders Andrew, Lapeyrouse, Sturm and Madsen

On Monday we had our Zone Conference with both Elder Stevenson and President Dowdle.  I had never attended a zone conference and it has been many years (abt. 45) since Elder Wright had been to one when he was a young missionary.  What a great meeting we had with one session held in the morning and another one held in the afternoon.  If was very obvious why these two men had been called to the positions that they held.  We learned so much.  A lot of time was given to help us thoroughly understand Jacob 5 on the scattering and gathering of Israel.  President Dowdle taught about the principle of obedience and diligence.  The Elders in this zone are the best.  Each of them presented a lesson and thoughts from Preach My Gospel.   They are all pretty young and you would have thought that they'd had more experience in this area from the things that they taught.  As the senior sister in this zone I had the privilege of serving lunch to this group.  Everything turned out good and we all had an enjoyable time visiting together during our lunch break.