A Variety of Missionary Efforts

Many thanks to Kelly Ambrose for designing the beautiful logo banner for this blog post.  It is so nice to have wonderfully talented family members!

I had a very productive week, and yet I still feel that I'm behind.  How can this be?  Here are some of the things I did:

Prepared welcome booklets for four senior couples who will be arriving in the mission in the next couple of months; forwarded returning missionary travel itineraries to their stake presidents and bishops (I have to assume that their parents received copies of the itineraries at the same time I got them -- will have to verify that); sent out the letters that had to go to parents whose missionaries will be returning in six months; send emails requesting travel requests from parents whose missionaries will be returning in four months; ordered supplies and processed incoming supplies; forwarded mail; entered information regarding recent convert baptisms into the CDE (what that stands for I've no idea); spent several hours cleaning up the Contacts list on the phones used by the President and office staff; maintained the list of incoming and returning missionaries based on emails from Church headquarters; printed and distributed current organization lists to everyone needing to know the results of the recent transfers; spent considerable time figuring out how to get the information in IMOS (yet another alphabet soup name that just means the Church's database of missionaries in each mission) to merge seamlessly with correspondence templates in order to automate communication with parents and priesthood leaders more effectively ...

Are you breathing heavily after reading that list?

And here's a partial list of things I still need to do:  Send letters to all recently baptized members (two months' worth now and growing); send letters to parents and priesthood leaders of missionaries who received leadership calls (to AP, ZL, DL, STL, etc.) in the last transfer; get my desktop printer fixed (yes, it jammed and in trying to clear the jam I managed to tear the paper so it won't print now); get the next issue of the Tar Heel newsletter drafted and printed by Friday for distribution; process the orders from the Zone Leaders for supplies of pamphlets, Books of Mormon, pass-along cards and videos, all in various languages, and get the supplies in the zone buckets by Friday for MLC (Mission Leadership Council). 

Am trying to convince myself to take one task at a time, complete it, and move on to the next.  At least I will never be able to say that this assignment doesn't provide variety!  My MTC companion Sister Mathews, is doing the same assignment of office secretary but in Brisbane, Australia.  She writes that they have missionaries from 31 different countries, speaking about that number of languages.  Arranging travel in each direction for such a diverse group and communicated with all of their home contact people is quite a complicated task.  I see how blessed I am that I have mostly English-speaking missionaries to deal with, or I would be even busier!

As part of my assignment, I get to talk to family members who need various information communicated to their missionaries.  We had a call from a grandmother who was on a bus tour in the southeast and wanted to arrange to see her granddaughter who is serving here. She said she would have been present for the Mother's Day call if she hadn't been away from home. President James spoke with her and agreed to let the sister missionary call her grandmother while she was in the area.  I'm not sure the grandmother was completely satisfied, but anything other than that would have been a huge disruption in the missionary's work. 

Another mother wanted to know if it was okay to send her son a taser, as he felt the need for more security than he had.  The answer was, well, no.  By mission rules the missionaries are allowed to carry pepper spray, but nothing more than that.  It's a good thing the mother asked first.

There is a senior couple who just completed their training at the MTC and who are now driving from Utah to North Carolina to serve a Member Leader Support mission.  All four of their tires were brand new, but while driving through Arkansas they still got a flat.  While Elder N. was trying to get the spare tire out, a young man pulled up and helped them.  Sister N. talked with the young man's wife while the men did the manly things, and was able to explain that they were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and to tell her a little bit about what that entailed.  It turned out that the couple had a teenage son living in North Carolina.  Sister N. reported that she got their contact information and plans to follow up.  How amazing it is that the Lord's plan can be so detailed.

There are so many miracles surrounding those involved in missionary work.  You can see by the list of tasks above that a great deal of effort and Church resources go into the support of these young missionaries.  I really had no idea how huge this missionary program is.  How important it must be in the eyes of the Lord to warrant this amount of effort and expenditure.  He truly does love all of His children, and wants each one who is honestly seeking for the truth to have a chance to hear the good news of the gospel and make the changes in their lives that will bring them closer to Him.