This email was sent by Sister Welker on August 28th.  We received it on August 27th.  It is an account from 1 week ago (August 21st).

Week 54: 4 question survey, Zone Conference, and Road trip to Hamilton!!

We had Zone Conference last week, and Sister Mavea, Sister Jabeque, Sister Meas and I partied in the car as we followed the Zone Leaders to Hamilton!! That's definitely a plus to being in Taranaki--you get to go on road trips!! We turned the music up and we were dancing in the seats of our car, and snapping and clapping to our gospel jams haha.  We stopped at McDonald's for dinner and the other sisters who were following us admitted how they could see some of our dance moves, haha.

When we arrived in Hamilton, the other district had interviews that night with President and it was only 7 pm.  SO there wasn't much we could do, until the AP's told us to follow them.  They guided us to a mini theater and had us watch "Meet the Mormons" and "On the Lord's Errand."  It was super fun!!  A road trip and a movie night in the same day!! :D.

We then stayed the night with some visitor center sisters and went to Zone Conference the next day.

The training is always cool, but my favorites are always Sister Cummings!! She played us a small clip entitled "biggest failures" in the world and it was slides of amazing people.  People like Micheal Jordan, who was considered a failure when he didn't make a basketball team at a young age, and ended up being a basketball legend.  People like Walt Disney and Steve Jobs, who are some of the most successful people in the world.  They all had a "failure" in their life at one point, but used persistence to follow their dreams.  It was a really cool training and opened my eyes to the someone I can

become.

The day after Zone Conference we were just visiting the normal.  We pulled the car over as we passed a less-active sister's home, and just sat and stared at the world in front of us.  I leaned my chair back and just complained about the work.  We both shared our frustrations and just sat there wishing the work would progress.  After of a couple of minutes of pure disappointment, I got this random surge of energy.  We then collected crazy ideas on how we could find new people to teach.  One of those ideas included doing a 4 question survey.  Sister C is the one who I originally heard the idea from, and I had always wanted to try.  We then came up with 4 questions:

1) Where in the world is Sister Meas from?

2) If you had an interview with Christ, 5 minutes from now what would you ask him?

3) If we told you your family can be together forever, would you believe us?

4) Now that you've meet missionaries, would you like to meet with them again?

You'd be surprised how much more effective the survey has been.  Since we've done it, we've had 3 potential new investigators.  Even for those who don't want us to come back, some at least take the time (or 30 seconds) to answer our questions.

Thanks again for all your love and support.

Sister Mandy Welker

I can finally attach pictures now!! :D

Sister Welker and her companion, Sister Meas