ZONE CONFERENCE
Mission transfers are on a 6 week schedule here. During the 6 weeks, the missionaries will have an interview with the president and have one zone conference. We just completed the zone conference for this transfer period. We have 44 Elders/Sisters in our Zone, the North Zone, and there are 4 zones in our mission. We prepared a lunch for all the missionaries in attendance, working with 2 senior sister missionaries in Hartlepool, Sisters Archibald and Frost. We served Hawaiian Haystacks and cooked way too much rice! It was a very exciting day for the missionaries to see each other and we were even able to join in on some of the training from the Zone Leaders (Elders Shurtliff and Winters), the Assistants (Elders Lindfors and Tuttle), the Sister Trainer Leaders (Sisters Kingston, Nielson and Flake) and President and Sister Clare. These young Elders and Sisters are truly amazing in their faith and preparation for their missions. They are seeing miracles every day and often testify of this in our mission communications.
We are focusing on our belief and faith, seeking revelation for the outcomes we want and the goals we set; it is a process. Here is a diagram the President and Sister Clare shared with us, that outlines this process.
COSTCO
When the missionaries discovered we had a COSTCO card and that the closest COSTCO was only 20 minutes away, they couldn't wait to go with us. So we made a district trip out of it on their preparation day and stormed COSTCO with all 8 of us full-time missionaries. It was Sister Giannini's (from Italy) first time ever being in a COSTCO. She is at the far right in the pictures below.
DEVIL's CAUSEWAY HIKE in LONGFRAMLINGTON
We attended an Alnwick branch (northern most church unit in England) hike on Saturday and witnessed some beautiful views as we hiked along an old Roman road called the Devil's Causeway, but we are not sure what the devil had to do with it?! The first picture below shows President James Perry, the Branch President, with his youngest, a son, in the foreground. He works for the church and has been writing and editing "The Saints" church history series. He is an amazing young father and church leader working remotely for the church and lives in a small village where his wife grew up. (The Kays, his wife's parents, also are in the branch). Brother Kay is the Elders Quorum President and is from Cheltenham near Gloucester where the Betteridge family is from. We will compare family history notes with him on another day. We are scheduled to speak in the Alnwick Branch on March 19th.
PIANO MIRACLE
Most everyone knows that Sister Betteridge loves to play the piano and organ. This is one of the first times in our married life that we have been without a keyboard in the home. This just wasn't going to work for us, so we looked on Facebook Marketplace, and were pleased to find a touch-sensitive, inexpensive, good quality YAMAHA keyboard for sale just 30 minutes aways and it even fit into our small mission car. Sister Betteridge is overjoyed and will often play hymns, classical music, and children's songs several times during the week. It was a breakthrough for our goal to have HARMONY in the home.
INSTITUTE
The lesson this last week in institute class was "Ministering Like the Savior". We loved the simplicity of this lesson. President Russell M. Nelson taught that “ministering means following your feelings to help someone else feel the love of the Savior in his or her life." Another one of our favorite quotes:
We shared with the class a little bit about our dear mother Leona, who passed this last week, and how she was such a wonderful example of someone who ministered to others in quiet, simple and meaningful ways. She was so excited about our mission to England and often spoke of wanting to be here with us. So, we brought her over and shared her with the class. She posed for a picture with some of the institute students!
KISSING GATE and BEAUTIFUL COUNTRYSIDE
As we were on our hike with the Alnwick branch we came across a "Kissing Gate", pictured below. The gate is shaped like a "V" and only lets one person pass through the gate at a time and prevents sheep from passing through the gate. In the process of one person following the other through the gate, you can get very close to each other, close enough to grab a kiss. It is a delightful find in these wide open fields; no wonder many youth groups here want to take hikes through the sheep fields.
FOOD to ACHIEVE YOUR FULL POTENTIAL
We finally found some food that has helped Elder MONTY Betteridge measure up!
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