Bilbao and Vitoria Zones participated in Specialized Training on Monday February 15th. My topic was "Dignified Behavior and Dress:Hallmark of a Disciple of Jesus Christ".  President sang an original composition to introduce his message--"Invite, Commit, Testify: Keys to a baptizing Missionary." We did "practicas"--simulations of actual encounters with investigators. He also spoke in the afternoon on "Building Zion: Retention and Activation". Our wonderful assistants, Elder Dunn and Elder Kimball, taught on the 8 Fundamentals and Elder Gonzales taught a Spanish lesson. We enjoyed a beautiful musical number and ended the conference with a very special testimony meeting.

We celebrated President's birthday in Valencia with the entire zone. Sister Fenn and Sister Plant purchased a very delicious cake and ice cream....it is a day we will always remember. On Monday evening we arrived to the airport for our 8pm flight from Bilbao...taxied on the run way then were notified there was something wrong with the plane, our flight was cancelled and there were no other flights to Valencia. We decided to fly to Madrid for the night, arriving around midnight.  The assistants and I sang "Happy Birthday" to President as we checked in to the hotel.  We were up at 4:45 to catch a 6:45am train to Valencia getting us there just in time for the training.  We flew to Palma that evening--so, President celebrated his birthday in Madrid (not in mission boundaries--we called and received permission), Valencia and Palma.

Baleares Zone Specialized Training on Wednesday February 17th.

President Dayton and I are obviously working our Assistants too hard!

Hermana Lofgran does a beautiful drawing for us as we travel from Palma to Barcelona.

A surprise birthday party for President as we return from our first three Specialized Conferences. We present him with a book with birthday messages from each of the missionaries.