North Carolina Charlotte Mission

Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are your brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee. -Alma 31:35

Monday, July 1, 2013

6/24/13 "I do love knitting patterns"

Wasn't that missionary broadcast the bomb? For those of you who missed out, Elders Holland, Perry, Nelson, and Packer spoke, and President Monson concluded. It was all about missionary work, particularly member missionary work, and they showed a lot of videos to help demonstrate things.

The gist of it was this:
1) We live in a new world where door-to-door missionary work is no longer very effective. Thus, missionary work must change. As part of this, there will be time given to missionaries in the morning to use the Internet for missionary work -- like using Facebook to keep in touch with investigators.
2) Missionaries will be given iPads to help them in their work. (My mission, the Charlotte North Carolina Mission, has been selected as one of the first missions to phase these in!)
3) The meetinghouses will be opened at certain hours during the day, allowing for guided tours should people want them.
4) Members must work harder at being missionaries.

I could write more, but for time purposes I'll leave you to look it up. My mission knew all of this ever since our Mission Tour with Elder Evans, but it turns out that Elder Perry was the Secret Keeper for the whole Church, so we couldn't say anything until he announced it at the conference.

Anyway, I'm not sure what I think yet of all these changes. For better or for worse, they're happening, and they'll probably be more effective. The sad fact is, if missionaries were left to themselves they would knock every single door in the world and get absolutely nothing done, so I really like this increased push for member work. I guess I'm just afraid of missionaries getting lazy.

Not very much exciting happened this week, besides us doing a ton of service.

Oh, yes. And while I was on exchanges this week with Elder Neiner in my district, we were assisting one family with their yardwork. Their elderly nonmember neighbor came over to help them. She ended up getting attacked by a dog while we were there. She had some pretty disgusting bites on her, but I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that she was run off to the emergency room, but is okay now.

The ironic thing is, Elder Neiner completely panicked when he heard the lady scream. Apparently when he had been set apart, the stake president had said in the prayer that he'd get bitten by a dog at some point during his mission, so when he saw the lady and the dog, he thought, "Oh crud. This is it!" Thankfully, the prophecy did not come true. Yet.

I ended up getting between the lady and the dog and driving it away from her. The weird thing was, the dog is actually very nice and gentle with everyone else...

Well, I'm a bit short on time at the moment, so I guess I'll just cut it short there. I am very happy to be here in Shelby with Elder Collinwood. I love it here, and I love my mission. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher


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