Baptism and Mission Leadership Conference (MLC)

Sunday, July 30, was a great day.  Chukwido (early post referred to as Chuck) was baptized.  It was a very spiritual meeting.  He bore a very strong testimony after his baptism.  The ward members of the Brampton Ward were there to support him.  There were over fifty people attending his baptism.  They had refreshments afterwards - it was dinner - chili, sandwiches, chips and salsa plus a huge Costco cake all decorated up for him and lots of other desserts.

This past Wednesday, August 2nd was MLC.  Mission Leadership Conference is the first Wednesday of each month.  This is for the Assistants to the President (APs), Zone Leaders and Sister Leaders.  The morning starts early with the office senior couples preparing breakfast for 7:30 am - waffles, fruit and yogurt.  The missionaries then have their morning training by President and Sister Shields.  Just before lunch, they had a service project.  Elder Swendsen and I planned a cleaning of the Credit View Chapel where the mission Office is and where their MLC was happening.  There is only one ward in the building and they have a hard time finding people to clean it.  I handed out assignments to teams of missionaries and sent them to the Member Custodial closet where Elder Swendsen handed them supplies.  Then we stood back and got out of their way.  40 minutes and they were done.  There was a lot of laughter and singing.  They had a ball and it was a good experience for all.  They even cleaned things that weren't on their lists.  Every angel that resides in that building had it's halo dusted and polished.  We just said WOW!!!!

Transfer Week, NYO, Senior Zone Conference

Well the last three weeks have been super busy.  You know you are busy when you have to schedule time to do your laundry.

Three weeks ago was transfer week.  July saw 23 fabulous missionaries go home and 22 enthusiastic missionaries arrive.  We had a lot of zone leaders, district leaders and sister leaders go home.  Over half of the mission has new leadership.  It is so exciting to watch the young missionaries step up to the plate, learn new responsibilities and carry on with enthusiasm and vigor.  In August we will have about the same numbers as July coming and going.  The big challenge is the ones leaving as they leave on four different days.  We are having many go home a couple of weeks early to go to school.  There will be seven trips to the airport next month with the comings and goings.  President and Sister Shields car will probably go there on auto-pilot. LOL

Last Tuesday we went into Toronto with Elder and Sister Wolfley and attended a concert by the National Youth Orchestra and Choir.  It was amazing.  They were as good as any Philharmonic Orchestra.  They were ages 16 to 28 and from all across Canada.  The concert was held at the Royal Conservatory of Music at the University of Toronto.  It is a beautiful old building with a modern addition.

Friday and Saturday of last week (July 28 & 29), we had a Zone Conference for all of the senior missionaries.  Friday afternoon, we went to the Toronto Temple to attend a session.  It was just senior couples in the session.  The two temple workers who were running the session were Temple Missionaries.  It was a very sacred and special time.  There were a lot of very tender feelings while we were there.  After the temple, we went to the Mission Home for a pot luck dinner and some training by President and Sister Shields.  Saturday morning, we met at the Mission Home for some more training.  After a pot luck lunch, we had a field trip.  We went to the Credit View Cemetery where a placque had been erected a month ago honoring the early Mormons in the area.  We had Brother Everett Palin speak to us about the early Church History in that area.  We then went to a park in the Black Creek area, where early baptisms were held in the 1830's and 1840"s.  Brother Palin spoke to us about the history in that area.  Brother Palin is a fount of information about early church history in Upper Canada.  He was a counsellor to President Monson when he was the mission president here.