Canada Calgary Mission 06-09

Thanks to all of you who have sent us Christmas greetings, we love hearing from you and how you are doing. A copy of this picture which we took at last years January Zone conference was given to each of the missionaries for Christmas. For those of you who were here last year you may have been there. Those of you who started a Christmas tradition - did you do it again? We are following up!!!

In the middle of November we had a great mission tour with Elder Paul Sybrowsky and his wife Lynne. They really helped us figure out how to double convert baptisms. We were able to have 50% more baptisms for the months of November and December. We are off to a great start this year and should be able to double each month this year. We are seeing miracles in the mission and the missionaries are excited. Keep us in your prayers.

We are starting the new year with new traditions. (We started in December, but they are here to stay - at least until we go home)

We are now holding Zone Leader Council during the first week of each month. It is a day meeting, starting at 9am and ending at 4pm. No more "sleep overs". Medicine Hat and BC zone leaders come in the night before and stay with the assistants and office elders. We aren't presenting "game plans", but focusing on who is being taught and if/why we lost some from last month, what we can do to help the missionaries with our progressing investigators.

We are also tracking baptisms monthly, instead of by the transfer and each zone is setting monthly goals. We are trying to double baptisms from the same month last year instead of the previous month.

We are also printing the newsletter monthly listing the convert baptisms. Finally we are getting focused!! While we have been busy, we are continuing to improve and plan to end strong.

We have sent this blog to all those we have an email address. Please let other returned missionaries from the mission know of the blog and also our email: presandsister@gmail.com Feel free to add your comments or email us your news and if you would like it posted. Marriages, births, etc. Time is somewhat limited and I am still learning how to do this so don't expect too much just yet. We did want a way for all of you to keep posted on the mission and each other.