Living two hours from the action in San Diego means trips to the city for mission functions require a lot more planning than the rest of the missionaries, who live within twenty minutes of whatever is happening. It means packing the “Valley Vans” with young missionaries who all carpool out and back. Today was zone conference, where all the missionaries gather for training. As is tradition, in the group chat we all traded photos of ourselves on the drive.
Zone conference is always good, and it means we have the opportunity to see so many of our friends who have “passed on” from our area to other areas in the mission. What a hoot.
There’s always good instruction and lessons, fun conversations catching up with friends, and of course a chance for meals out with senior friends.
This will be our final zone conference, so our mission leaders, President and Sister Merritt, invited us over to their home afterward. President Merritt is famous for making homemade ice cream and sharing it with “departing” missionaries the night before they leave for home. We joined our friends the Knudsens and Woolstons, who we’d met on our first day at the MTC.
The six of us are all serving one-year missions, so we came in together and will be leaving (approximately) together. We’re actually staying an additional two weeks so we can finish the seminary school year. The Merritts are also finishing their three-year assignment in about a month, so farewells like this are bittersweet for all of us. What an amazing group.