Zone Conference – Latter-Day Saints

Tim Frodsham. 2 March, 2025

Every six weeks, give or take, the Athens Zone of the Greece Bulgaria Mission gather for a conference. This comprises all of the young missionaries in Greece: Four young missionaries in Thessaloniki, six young missionaries in Athens and four young missionaries on the island of Crete. Also attending are senior couples and a duo of single sisters who run the office in Athens. The conference is small, but this thin leaven does incredible things. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Romans 1:16

President and Sister Nelson, Hornbarger and Christensen

We start out at Mars Hill to hear from missionaries who are arriving as well as departing.

The young elders and sisters provide most of the training, focusing on precepts from “Preach My gospel”.

Our mission president Nelson focused on building branches and eventually wards and stakes in a sustainable way. After decades of missionary work in Greece, there is one small branch in Thessaloniki, and another in Athens. Several decades ago, there were five branches in the country.

Recent converts have been migrants and asylum seekers, who have been led to receive the gospel where they could not in their own country, but most are transient and bring little long term strength to the latter-day church. What is needed is strong, permanent members who serve as branch presidents, bishops, relief society presidents and other leaders. Leaders who prepare the this country for a temple.

This is The Church of Jesus Christ. We are commissioned by our Savior to spread his gospel: “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”Mark 16:15

We attended our first Zone Conference during the week between Christmas and New Years. The Mission President gave an opening testimony and then had the Assistants to the President and the Zone Leaders present most of the material for the day. I was impressed at how well these young leaders taught and testified with faith and power. The Elders taught about testifying and extending invitations to those investigating the church. It is important to understand that as they embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His restored Church, trials and hardship will not be taken away. In fact, the adversary will exert even more effort to dissuade and disrupt our lives.

Break time at Zone Conference

They gave as an example the People of Alma and what they had to endure. The Lord did not lift their burdens, but he strengthened them so that they could not feel them (Mosiah 24:13,14). When we strive to follow Him, the adversary has no power over us (Helaman 5:12). Several years ago, I wrote an article about the People of Alma and Limhi and how the Lord interacts and helps His people based on their faith and obedience. The presentations of these stalwart missionaries reminded me again that the future of the Church is in good hands.

Sister missionaries at the Zone Conference

President Lepore concluded the conference with a testimony about the work in Europe. He cited President Nelson in a recent address to the Europe Area. “The Church has an unparalleled future in Europe!” The wars raging around Europe are bad, but the Lord is using these events for His own purpose. People are being displaced to areas where they can hear the gospel. There are twenty missionaries called to the people of Turkey. All of them reside in Germany and extend the invitations of gospel learning online. When someone from Turkey is converted, missionaries along with appropriate leadership as prescribed by law, fly to Turkey to perform the baptisms and then return to Germany.

Lyon from the river near our apartment

Pres. Nelson also said of the missionaries called to serve here, and I paraphrase: “You were born to do this. Europe has an unparalleled future because of you. You have access to the power-God’s power- that will literally change the future of Europe. As you keep your covenants with increasing precision, you are the hope of Europe, and you are the hope of Israel. You are the ‘children of the promised day’ “. Great things are happening in Europe. Among other indicators, baptisms are up 60 % in the mission as compared to last year. Our contribution to the conference was bowls of fruit and a large batch of cinnamon rolls.

At the Tete d’Or park

We spent New Years with several families. The faithful members here are generous to a fault and treated us to magnificent multi-course meals in their tiny apartments. At our New Year’s Eve dinner invitation, the wife got a call to go into work later that evening. She is a PA for a local hospital and was needed to assist in a multiple transplant surgery. Her married and engaged children were there, all intelligent and conversant in both French and English.

Prettiest thing in the park

On New Years Day, we took a long walk around the city. From our apartment, it is a comfortable walk to the river, to the Tete D’Or park, the mall and several shopping areas. We are still exploring the richness of the city around us.

The new year, we will start traveling in our assigned area to train stake leadership and self-reliance specialists in the church programs. Catherine has been bringing me up to speed on these wonderful programs and the power they can bring to wards and stakes in binding their people together and extending a hand of gospel fellowship to others.