MLC Review

I think I defined this before but MLC Review is a Monday morning meeting once a month when the entire zone meets together and receives training and testimonies from the zone leaders(ZL) and the sister training leaders (STL).  MLC means mission leader council which is led once a month with the leadership from all 10 zones in the mission.  Then they come back and teach us.  These meetings are awesome, even if much of it is directed at the actual tasks the young missionaries need to do.  We benefit from the spirit that is there and from their testimonies.

It has become our tradition to bring donuts and drinks for this meeting since the whole zone is together.  This time we got them at a special place to surprise Elder Smythe who LOVES maple bacon bars.  Gary had googled it and found the only place nearby that served them.

This is NOT what I thought they would look like.  I was thinking bacon bits mixed into the maple glaze on the bar.  Elder Smythe was delighted.  (He said he has seem them both ways and likes them either way.)  They were popular with the other missionaries as well!  And these were definitely high quality donuts.  The plain maple bars were perfect!!

Elder Kutchinsky jumped up to lead the music while Sister Madden played.  Awesome to sing hymns with them especially Christmas hymns.  Great start to our meeting...

Tried to get a photo of the group but couldn't get both ends in the same photo while staying in my seat...so one with Sister Ohki and then one with Elder Simmons on the other end....this time we also had President and Sister Beutler at our zone meeting but I neglected to get a picture of them!  He serves as a counselor in the mission presidency.

This meeting we missed the middle part because it was also zoom interviews with the mission president.  Each transfer he has a 15 minute interview with each missionary which alternates between being on zoom and in person.  It is a huge commitment of time for the mission leaders with 200+ missionaries, but important and worth it for everyone.

About half way through our interview which also included Jena, she said, "When are we going to talk about me?"  We had gotten caught up in talking about our specific assignments and our zone that we hadn't let President talk to her.  I was actually proud of her that she spoke up.  She loves President and Sister Collins and understands that they have an important role here with her and all of the missionaries.  She is a smart one! :)

We then had lunch with the missionaries which is always fun.  We then took the Mena elders back to their car in Waldron which is about 60 miles south.  We were planning to do some grave sites, but Jena left her phone at the Church, my phone didn't get charged the night before due to "human error," and Gary forgot to make sure his phone was charged as well.  We took it as a sign and headed home and took care of some things there.  Productive day.