march madness

About six weeks ago, I was inspired to do a workshop for the zone conferences making an analogy using the 24 second clock in basketball and asking questions. (We have been focusing as a mission on teaching by using questions.) Then, when I realized that this month is March Madness in the United States, it became even more fun to use that as a springboard.

The first video is an introduction to the workshop featuring the words (translated into Spanish) of Elliott Bullock, an LDS basketball player.


The next video is the PowerPoint presentation where we discussed the analogy referred to above.
It has been so exciting and interesting to listen to the missionaries describe their situations--what the distractions are in their lessons, the importance of unity in the companionship, doing real work and not just going through the motions and many, many other ideas. Every conference has been spiritually exciting.



The missionaries then worked as a companionship and went to the Bible. They looked at the questions that Christ asked in the four gospels, and they all got a little study project for later to help them in their work. (I was the beneficiary of President Heyman's work--Argentina Resistencia Mission--which I was given permission to share with our missionaries, as well.)

Even when I felt that the workshop was ready to go, I continued to think about it and refine it. The night before the conferences began, I prayed to know if there was anything else I needed to do or needed to know. Of course, what I really wanted was the answer that Yes! it was ready to go, however, that was not the answer that I received.

The answer that I received was that I need to go back to the shot clock clips and turn them into slow motion. I had never made a single video before the mission, so my experience is limited at best and I didn't have the slightest idea how to make slow motion. Nevertheless, when I decided that I would try and learn how to do it, I was blessed with success.

I know that our missionaries are participating in big miracles everyday that have eternal consequences. Even though this does not even begin to compare to the real work of the mission, for me, it was a little miracle.


We have many missionaries that love basketball,  and even the ones that didn't know a thing about basketball before, seemed to enjoy participating in this workshop. However, I was a little concerned about one missionary that is an extraordinary basketball player, as sometimes things can hit a little too close to the heart and home. Both Presidente and I talked with him afterwards and that's when we learned that he had personally committed to "not think about basketball this month" and during the final video, he just put his head down knowing that he might find it to be a temptation.

And can I just say, that is the kind of awesome missionaries that we have here in the Buenos Aires West Mission.