Zone Conference!

So this weekend was my first zone conference. We had to travel to
Regina, and we almost got to go to the temple. The first counselor in
the mission presidency, President Fowler, lives in PA, and he stayed
with someone in the temple presidency in Regina. President Fowler was
our ride down, and he was meeting his host after a temple session. So
we almost got to go to the temple with him, but no dice. Oh well, it
was worth a try.

Zone Conference was incredible! I learned so much! Basically, we need
to be studying Preach my Gospel way more! haha, I even got chosen "at
random" to give a talk about personal and companion study. We had
gotten a text about how all missionaries were supposed to prepare a
3-5 minute talk. I had no clue what on earth the zone leaders were
talking about. After all it's my first zone conference! Fortunately, I
was the last of 3 missionaries to speak. The Elder's talk before me
was in a nutshell, "Well, Elder Ronald shared some great insights, and
I'm sure that Elder Lyons will have some great insights; so I don't
have much to add." Yeah, no pressure. No worries, I was only preparing
my talk on the way up to the pulpit. No big deal. President's just
gonna judge every single word that comes out of my mouth. No, I wasn't
nervous. It was only 3-5 minutes. I'm just always the lucky one that
gets chosen for things like that.

Interviews were great. President and Sister Paulson are amazing! My
interview with President was really short. Pretty much all he said
was, "I enjoyed your talk. Get ready to train." What?! I know! I'm not
even done BEING trained! I'm still green! But out of the about 56
missionaries that will be out in August over 20 of them will be in
training. Yeah, I bet President's pretty nervous right now. But it's
okay. He'll just hand off the green mission to a green mission
president. haha! The mission's basically getting purged or something!

You may have guessed, but PA is sort of an outlying area. I don't know
very many missionaries, so it was pretty great to meet all the
missionaries in the zone! Great weekend!

Well...we are going to have a baptism this weekend! The baptismal
interview is tomorrow. Hopefully it goes well! Shicona Thomas is 11.
Her Mom called the church one day and asked if her kids could get
baptized. Tayven is 7, but we've been teaching Shicona since I came to
PA. Sister Thomas is a member, but she's lived on reserves and has not
been able to go to church for most of her life. Brother Thomas is not
a member, but basically, he's a champ. He just retired from RCMP.
They're just a golden family! I just love to go to their home!
Hopefully, the baptism will happen. But it will be a crazy week of
planning and hammering out the dents! Pretty exciting!

I love you all! Good luck on your missions Dallin and Alex! Pretty
sure Alex is going to the same mission as Alan. I hope everyone has a
great week!

Love,
Elder Christopher Lyons