A Zone Conference 2025

EUROPE CENTRAL AREA PRESIDENCY

16 January 2025

Senior Missionaries Europe Central Area Office

Senior Missionary Zone Leadership

We are so impressed with the caliber of the senior missionaries serving in the Europe Central Area Office. You offer essential support to the Area workforce and bring a level of consecration to the work that makes everyone perform better. Thanks for the visible and behind-the-scenes work you do across the departments of the Area Office. Your influence is infectious.

As Elder John and Sister Ann Lewis prepare to depart for home next month, we wish to thank them for their steady service as zone leaders. They have filled this role while continuing to function in their primary mission assignment as Communication Specialists. As an Area Presidency, we have witnessed their love and support for each of you and throughout our Area Office. We extend to them a grateful release as zone leaders.

We are delighted that Elder Perry and Sister Karen Dixon have accepted the invitation to serve as the new zone leaders and look forward to the gifts and talents they bring. Elder Brent and Sister Leslie Hadley and Elder Neil and Sister Cheryl McDermid will continue to serve as assistant zone leaders. Any future changes in zone assignments will be announced by Elder and Sister Dixon.

We know you will give your full support to these new leaders and collectively continue your excellent work on behalf of the Europe Central Area. You are a gifted and powerful group of missionaries, and we are grateful to serve beside you as we help gather Israel. We love you and give thanks for your faith and devotion.

The Europe Central Area Presidency

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This Zone Conference was our last duty aside from training the Dixons to take our places.  We had a wonderful meeting.  It was my turn to conduct.

The Nelsons and Bromans both did a great job talking about the work in their departments–WSR and FS with some numbers and facts and figures and stories. It was interesting and uplifting to hear what’s happening here.

Then Sis McConkie told us about the experiences they had with the wife of the Leon France Mission Leader who died last month (friends of the McConkies). They traveled that day to Leon to be with her and to help her gather their missionaries to tell them the news. All very touching. Then she talked about our baptismal covenants and how yes, we covenant with God, but just as importantly, we covenant to stand with those in need. She encouraged us to think about that when we do a kindness–to remember that what we do for others is a part of our covenant keeping.

Elder McConkie spoke last. First he thanked us for our ZL service. Then he gave a presentation about the church in Czechia/Slovakia and how the Church got started there–he was in the middle of it all in the 1990s. The Church needed 20,000 signatures with name, a number like our Social Security #, and signatures, in order for the Church to be recognized there. They hired a professional team to collect signatures. In 3 weeks they got something like 185 names. Elder McConkie (a former Mission Leader there) was brought in to take 80 Czech missionaries into Slovakia to gather signatures. (They didn’t speak Slav so well.)

The first day they got 5000. The 2nd day they got 5000. Same the third day, same the 4th day. It was a miracle. The light in their eyes and the Spirit moved people to give their information. The 5th day the Catholic church got wind of it and went on the air and told people NOT to sign any petitions. It was too late. They got the permissions they needed to send missionaries back into the country.

After the meeting we took a group photo, then had a delicious catered lunch. Pork loins in a mushroom sauce, rice, chicken and Spaetzle, broccoli and green salad. Also soup. We had volunteers bring desserts.