Today was an Historic Day in the Yakima Mission. We held our first Mission Leadership Council (MLC). We’ve been looking forward to and preparing for this meeting since our arrival. Our missionary leaders from all over the mission traveled here this morning (some coming from more than 2 hours away). We met from 10:00 until 5:30 this evening, discussing our Yakima Mission Vision and Identity, hearing reports from each area, and setting goals for the coming month. We talked about our Standards of Excellence, Mission Policies and Practices, and then President Lewis, the Assistants and I taught.
Our Yakima Mission is divided into 9 Zones, or areas. Each Zone has a Zone Leader companionship who leads the missionaries in their area. We also have 3 Sister Training Leader companionships (STLs). These Sisters work with all of the Sister missionaries in their areas, training, helping, teaching and cheering them on. These missionaries are the leadership of our Yakima Mission. It was thrilling to be with them, to hear their voices, their excitement about the work, and their vision for our new mission.
The spirit of camaraderie and love in the room was amazing. These are good, kind, obedient and consecrated missionaries. They are here for the right reasons and they love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and are happy and grateful to share what they know. Several times today I felt moved to tears as I listened to them share their feelings and commitment to serve and bless others. It really was a remarkable day.
I’d like you to meet these fine leaders:
Hermana Alcocer and Sister Larsen, Wenatchee
Hermana Cannon and Hermana Leyva, Royal City
Elder Haws and Elder Carter, Cascade Wenatchee, Spanish Zone
Elder Hull and Elder Jensen, Selah Zone
Elder Rosenkrantz and Elder Jensen, Wenatchee Zone
Elder Spackman and Elder Woodward, Yakima Valley Spanish Zone
Elder Archibald and Elder Smith, Assistants, Yakima
Elder Gleed and Elder Guthrie, Ephrata, Spanish Zone
Elder Brady and Elder Wilkey, Yakima Valley Zone
Elder LaFond and Elder Bonzo, The Dalles Zone
Hermana Cain and Hermana Johnson, Yakima
Elder Hudsen and Elder Turley, Othello Zone
Elder Krogue and Elder Oliver, Moses Lake Zone
Here we all are, at work, developing our Mission Statements and Vision for the future:
We also talked about a mission logo, scripture and song and the newsletter. It was really fun to get everyone’s input and ideas. I’m pretty excited about the good that will come into this area as these ideas and plans and goals go out from this meeting to all the rest of the missionaries throughout the entire mission. We are in a good place, with some of the finest missionaries in the world. There will be miracles here. You just wait and see!
We had a delicious lunch–Cafe Rio style pork, beans and rice with all the fix-in’s, and fresh apple cobbler for dessert. These missionaries loved it and ate plenty!
And here we are, all together!
We are grateful to be here with these excellent friends and fellow servants. Watch out, Yakima, here we come!
Our Washington Yakima Mission 