In-Person Zone Meeting in Springdale

We always do a combined Zone picture at 8:45 am before the meeting starts.  It is a bit of a production but there we are.  This includes the Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Ft. Smith Zones.  We are there on the front row on the far right of the picture.  They hold three meetings throughout the mission--in Springdale, then in Springfield, MO, and then in Joplin, MO--three days of meetings.  Our theme was "How do I know that you are true messengers of Jesus Christ?"  A good question to consider personally even if we are not a full-time missionary.

This is Elder Cebollero and Elder Shields who are serving as the assistants to the President.  Elder Shields was in our zone when we arrived in Ft. Smith and he is an outstanding young man with lots of love for everyone.  I don't know Elder Cebollero, but I am sure he is the same.

The assistants with the Collins--we needed a picture for a book that we are making so here it is!

This is President and Sister Beutler--he serves as a counselor in the mission presidency and is a wonderful friend and mentor to all of the missionaries.

We followed the crowd who was skipping the usual chicken places in the area for lunch and went to the Peking Place (or something like that) for lunch.  It was good.....

and the missionaries enjoyed the ice cream at the end.

We had a sweet experience while there.  Our server, as often is the case in Chinese places, was Asian.  Gary went over to her to revise the count of people and he heard her counting in Cantonese--that is very rare these days--to found people in the US who speak Cantonese.  When she returned to our table, we asked her if she spoke Cantonese, and she told us yes, she was from Canton and that she also spoke Mandarin and Japanese.  She has been in the US over 20 years but works to maintain all three of these languages.  She and Gary spoke in Cantonese and then we introduced her to Elder Condie who attended a Chinese immersion school in Utah county for all of his schooling.  He is serving a Marshallese speaking missionary so it took him a bit to switch his Chinese on, but she enjoyed speaking to him as well.  She told us as we were leaving that she has seen missionaries here many times, but didn't know they could speak other languages. She looked forward to seeing us again.  It was a little tiny interaction, but it made her happy...and us and Elder Condie...and little seeds are planted in moments like this.

Zone meetings are spiritual feasts and sometimes so is the meal afterwards!