First there was one. Now there are two.

September 15, 2013

The members of the Rome Italy Stake were so excited  The prospect of having two stakes is breathtaking.  Knowing that an Apostle would be there was the icing on the cake.  There wasn't a church building large enough to hold the conference so it was held in a hotel.  They do that for all stake conferences.  It's hard to believe there are enough people for two stakes.  They aren't like the stakes in Utah.  When the Rome Stake was first created, it had 550 members.  With the division of the stake, each stake will have approximately 650 members.  The new stake includes the island of Sardegna.  That means the new stake president will have to do a lot of traveling between the mainland and the island.

As a mission, we flew all the missionaries serving in Sardegna to the conference.  Many of the members living there made a special trip to Rome to be in attendance in person.  Those who were unable to come watched via satellite.  (Modern technology is wonderful.)

There wasn't an empty seat in the entire room.  It was filled to capacity.  Those who were in attendance were greatly blessed by putting forth the effort to come.  Many of the missionaries had investigators who also made the trip to Rome for the conference.  After sustaining the new members of the two new stake presidencies, the remainder of the conference was spent talking about being member missionaries.

Elder Ballard said he had never heard of a missionary dying from over work and he wanted the members of the wards and branches to keep them so busy they didn't have any empty space in their planners.  He extended a challenge to spread the gospel and bring so many new members into the church that it won't be long before another stake if formed in Rome.

At the end of the meeting, Elder Ballard asked the two stake presidents to stand next to him and then had Elder De Feo stand between them.   Next he added Pres. Waddoups next to Elder De Feo.  He asked them to raise their right arms and commit to do all they can to spread the gospel.  At this point, he invited all the missionaries in attendance to come and stand in front of them.  He then had them raise their hands and commit to working with the brethren standing on the podium to further the work.  At this point, Elder Ballard asked all the bishops and branch presidents in the audience to stand and commit to the same thing.  It was an awesome sight and experience.

The last thing Elder Ballard did was to leave an Apostolic Blessing on the saints in Rome, Italy.  There's really no way to describe the feeling in the room at the time.  The spirit was so strong.  I feel privileged to be here and be part of this.

Mormon Minute has an entry from the Beekeeper in Italy.  We have been eager to meet him since our theme is "Bee the best you can bee!".  He is the brother of our Stake President and was at conference.