July 26, 2010

Dear Home,

 

There are only a few exciting things that happened this week, but those things that happened are exciting enough to blow you away.

 

The first exciting thing is that we talked with a potential investigator who is starting to investigate the church! He's the trucker who said that he'd like to have a Book of Mormon on tape. I know I told you about him, but I can't remember what I said his name was. Anyway, we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, and he promised to read a chapter of it and pray to know that it's true. ^^ I'm very excited to meet with him again and help him grow his testimony. =)

 

We also met someone else who was very nice to us and willing to listen. We tracted into him and said that we could talk with him for a few minutes, so we did. We all sat on his porch and talked about how God loves all of His children, and that even though mankind makes a lot of problems for itself, God can and wants to help us correct everything that's wrong in the world, including sin, famines, suffering, and war. He was very open with us, sharing his views on his trust in God and his (healthy) lack of trust in man to speak for God. Hopefully, we'll be able to help him understand that while prophets are human, and therefore capable of making mistakes, they're also chosen and empowered by God, so that they can learn God's word by revelation and speak of His behalf.

 

Another exciting thing that happened was Zone Conference, which was really a lot of exciting things rolled into one. First, the mission introduced to everyone a set of Tracting Planners that were first invented by Elder Jons, my last companion. These new tracting books aren't as good as Elder Jons's books (in my opinion), but it's good that the mission now has a unified way of keeping track of everything.

 

Zone Conference also brought us a few surprises, like a new MTC curriculum. I'm not sure I totally understand the new system, but I think it means that, from now on, missionaries will be focussing on specific parts of Preach My Gospel more than others. For example, we'll be focussing more on 'How do I Recognise the Promptings of the Spirit?' more than 'How do I Study Effectively?'. The new system will be starting with the missionaries that are already in the field and, in about a year, when all the missionaries are used to the new way of doing things, the new missionaries coming into the MTC will be taught according to the new system, too.

 

I think the new system will be more of an improvement on what we already have than a change to something completely new. All of what the new system entails is already in Preach My Gospel (or so I'm told), so we'll just be using Preach My Gosel in a more effective way, according to new guidlines. It's exciting, for sure, but it's not as much of a shock to me now as it was when I first heard about it.

 

But something that's still a big suprise to me is that they are going to be reducing the number of missionaries in this mission. There are currently 92 full-time missionaries in the Canada Winnipeg Mission, but by this time next year, there will only be 56 of them. That's almost a 50% cut! The reasoning behind this is that the missionaries in Utah, and other places where the member-to-non-member ratio is very high have too much work than they can handle. Members are frequently giving them more referrals than they can visit, and they cover more wards than they can care for. So, as missionaries leave this mission, fewer missionaries will be coming in to replace them, and the missionaries that would've been sent here will instead be sent to places where there is more work for them to do.

 

What does that mean for us? Besides the fact that the odds of my brother coming to the same mission as me are now cut in half, not much. I, and all of the other missionaries in this mission will stay in this mission until they go home, so there's no fear of me changing my Mission Office address anytime soon. And the missionary work here will go on much as it has this whole time, only now that each missionary will covering larger areas, there'll be twice as much work for them to do. No fear of getting bored, eh? xD But, practically, this is what's best for the mission. There are a lot of areas around here where ther isn't much happening, so now there'll be more work for each missionary to do, so they won't feel like they aren't getting anything done.

 

I hope I did a good job of explaining that. I don't think I did. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that even though it sounds like there will be only half as much missionary work going on around here, what will actually be happening is that each missionary here will now be getting twice as much done.

 

The reassuring thing is that our leaders are inspiried by God, who knows what's best for the good of all of His children. All we have to do is trust Him and do what He asks of us, and everything else will get taken care of. I'm glad that God knows what's going on a lot better than I do!

 

But, now I have to get going. Elder Sheffield has been waiting (patiently) for me to get off the computer for long enough.

 

Love, your faithul missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts