Zone Conference et ectera

Hi family!

This week was pretty good. Elder Smith spent the first few days of it pretty sick, which was boring (such a selfish perspective, I know), but he's feeling dapper now and the work goes on.

The highlight of our week was probably Friday's zone conference - certainly the most stressful I've had so far, largely because I was responsible for a little more of it. Our zone meeting (before the conference, which actually includes both the Traverse City and Midland zones) went pretty well. We focused on having the faith to reach the "standard of excellence" President Jones has set for the mission and discussed how each of Elder Pearson's "Destructive D's" given in last April's General Conference influence us as missionaries.

This was also a musical week for me. I threw together a musical number for zone conference - I accompanied three elders who sang "If You Could Hie to Kolob" quite nicely. Also, it just so happens that Sister Julie Schindler of the Bay City Ward is from Salt Lake City and knows Miss Tate's sister very well. Anyway, they did some chatting and Sister Schindler's husband, the ward choir director, decided it would be a good idea for me to sing a solo for Sacrament meeting. So I sang a verse of "Home Can Be a Heav'n on Earth" when the choir performed it yesterday. It went pretty well, but I'm hoping not so well that they ask for any repeats.

We're looking forward to a baptism this Saturday, which should go really well. Hopefully we'll be able to get a few of the people we're teaching there. We've still been focusing on finding new people to teach and teaching 20 lessons a week. We talked with Bro. Savage, the high councilor assigned to the Bay City Ward, about his involvement in reaching those goals and I'm excited for the work he'll help us and the ward mission leader to do. We've been teaching lessons to a lot more active and less-active member families in order to follow Elder Perry's counsel. I feel, as President Jones has expressed, that Elder Perry's program will revolutionize the work done in the Michigan Lansing Mission.
All in all, things are going well.

I can't believe Jeff is home. I can't believe I've been out this long. I can't belive how little time I have left and how much I'd like to accomplish in that time. I thank God it's not on my shoulders alone. Philippians 4:13 all the way :). (I purposefully didn't type it out so you'll have to look it up if you don't know it. It'll be good for you.)

Love you all,
Elder Cloward