#sanDESTINation

Well this has been the freakin most awesome last 3 days of my life! It all started with a phone call on Sunday night at 8:57. Elder Jorgensen calls us. And he says "hey we've got a top-secret mission for you guys... do you accept." Top secret mission..... of course! What had happened was... the two Seventies came in on their flight Sunday evening however Elder Stanfill's luggage was delayed.... So by the time it got there, the Assistants, President and Sister Smith, and the Seventies had already headed over to Fort Walton for the half mission conference on the other half of the mission. So they couldn't get his luggage. So they needed us to go to the mission home and pick up some baggage claim tickets, go to the airport and pick up his bags, then take them to Destin (where he was staying) and hand-deliver his luggage to him..... ohhhhhhh yaaaaaaaaa. Destin is the most beautiful vacation spot in our mission.... white sand beaches and tons of hotels, and its about a 3-hour drive away. So Elder Moss and I hit the road! At about 1 in the morning we hand Elder Stanfill his luggage. We got to meet him, so that was pretty cool! President Smith told us to call him when we dropped off his bags, so we called him and he gave us some phone numbers of the missionaries who lived closest to where we were. So we called them. The first number was a set of sisters........ so that wouldn't work. The second was a set of elders but they didn't answer the phone. So after we had tried their phone for about 5 minutes we called President back and asked him if we could just drive home... and it's about 1:30 in the morning at this point. He told us that he'd rather put us up in a hotel than have us drive all the way back to Tally at this hour. So that's what he did!! He got us a room at the hotel where he was staying. It was so sick! 2 queen-sized beds...... so celestial... and what was the best part??? The words that came from President.. "Sleep as long as you want." OOOOOHHHHHHH YAAAAAAA!!!! But i have come to find out that when you have gotten up at 6:30 for almost 2 years straight your body just starts to wake up at that time on its own... so since we went back an hour with the time change i was up at 5:30 ready to run a marathon! I wasn't even tired... but i laid there for an hour trying to fall asleep cuz this is probably the only time i'll ever be allowed to sleep in on my mission.... and i fell asleep for 30 more minutes and got up at 7. Elder Moss didn't wake up for like another hour... so in the meantime i showered and "brooked" (that's right... bringing Africa back:)) my g's and dried them with an iron.... then Moss and i went downstairs to eat... breakfast was great and i was expecting a ton of people to be there but wait... no one vacations on a Monday:) so we started our p-day off with a great breakfast and since it was our p-day we stopped at the Destin beach for a little bit....... wow. So beautiful! That's near the top of the list of things to do on the mission re-visit. Elder Moss and i headed back to Tally after that. 
Monday night all the missionaries came into Tally for the half mission conference for the east half of the mission. So at the compound, we had 12 missionaries. 6 that live here and 6 who came for the night. Milne was one of them so we had a party! Then was the conference! Tuesday morning at 8 all the zone leaders and sister training leaders had a meeting with the seventies and we learned some cool principles of leadership and putting more action into our leadership. Then we had the zone conference from 9-3 and that was some more super awesome spiritual enlightenment! Then from 4-6 we had a Mission Leadership Council (the zone leaders and sister training leaders again) and we learned some of the most valuable leadership skills that i've learned as far as being an example and correcting disobedience. After the MLC we had another party! Browning and Milne were now staying in the pound with us.......... that was way too much fun for missionaries. Then this morning we woke up and played a huge dodgeball tournament from 6-7.... this has been the craziest, the sickest, the spiritualist,.... most awesome past 3 days of my mission. 
So what did i learn from the conference? What i learned came from the MLC. We were taught that "Your silence means yes." What that means is that your silence as a leader or as a member of the church means that you aren't against what is happening. For example: If elder moss and i are in a conversation where some missionaries from our zone are planning to do something disobedient and we don't say anything.... we have just told them that what they plan to do is okay. So the same goes in our lives as we are examples to everyone. If you don't speak up and say something then people will say "Well so and so was there and they didn't say anything about it so it must be okay." I hope this is all making sense! If you find yourself in one of those situations this week... "Be thou an example of the believers!" 
-Elder Rogers