This was a pretty good week. Mission Conference was exciting, with all the "oh man what's gonna change" talk going around. When I saw President Perry up on the stand my first thought was that he was very short. And he is. But it's okay. Sister Perry got up first and had little presents for all the missionaries with July birthdays. It was different from what we were used to but it was good. Then President Perry got up and started talking about all the changes that were coming. Apparently we're going to be part of a "pilot program" where we will be taking Preach My Gospel to the "next level". He said the First Presidency has been working towards this for a while, and that the pilot program had already started in the MTC a little bit. The missionaries that just came out had a different study program, where they weren't taught the 5 lessons at all in class. Instead they were taught from the Finding People and Recognizing the Spirit chapters, trying to get them to become more like spiritual vessels and less like information pods. They could still study the lessons on their own but the focus was on teaching by the spirit, so I'm guessing those changes will be along those lines. President said we would have a 3 day conference sometime in August or something where we would be taught 8 lessons that would show us how to, again, take it to the next level. It was all very vague and cryptic but it's exciting that we're part of something new. I don't know how many other missions are doing it. It could be a lot for all I know. He also said this program and the other changes he was making were going to be about simplifying what we're doing, which always sounds great but simplification could mean different things to different people. We'll have to see. We do have a Zone Meeting this Friday and interviews Saturday so we'll probably get lots more information there. The new program stuff won't start until the end of the month so we have some time to get ready for it. Oh, and interviews will only be held quarterly instead of monthly, which is very different from what they've always done there. I'm not sure how I like that one. Also, P-days are moving to Mondays so you'll all have to start getting those e-mails in Sunday night or Monday morning or whatever. I don't like that change either. Wednesdays were good for breaking up the week. Oh well.
Anyways, sorry about the long paragraph. President also briefly talked about his conversion story. He was raised Catholic and when he joined the church his family threw tons of anti at him. But now 4 or 5 of his siblings are members so that's cool. It's good that he's familiar with anti though, since that's one of the hardest things about serving here. So many people stop talking to us after the first lesson cause they go online and look up crap or their buddies start telling them crap or crap like that. President Perry did mention something the church was gonna do to help that though. I guess they're putting out a new Mormon.org where they'll have a lot of conversion stories readily available. They're trying to make it so that when people Google "mormon" they don't get all the bad stuff. Not sure how that'll work but it sounds good to me.
That was really the highlight of the week though. It has been hot here (got to 99 yesterday) but it's not as bad here in the mountains as it is in Richmond. We've also been having a lot more appointments so we're able to be inside houses more instead of out walking around. We've been having more success getting lessons which was a big problem for a while, so hopefully things will build off of that.
Our 4th of July was uneventful, if you were at all curious. It doesn't get dark here until 9:00 so all the good stuff happened after we were in, and we can't see anything out our windows because of the trees and buildings. So we didn't really do anything except plan and go to bed. Oh well. We did hear lots of fireworks though, and maybe some gunshots. Couldn't tell the difference.
I feel like I'm forgetting stuff again, but that's all I got. Luckily I'll be e-mailing again soon so I can get it all out then. Don't be strangers by letters, either. I'm gonna try to write back everyone that writes me, including family (Andrea's on the list). So, you know, just a little incentive.
- Elder Ryan Michael Parker
Pictures:
1. I didn't take any new pictures this week so here's a picturesque picture from last week.
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