TRANSFER OF MANTLE

As of 30 June 2011, there is no longer a GA Macon Mission.  It was divided up to become part of three other missions.  We are now in the FL Jacksonville Mission (JAX) under President Barry.  It turns out that Sister Barry is the daughter of our dear neighbors Vaughn and Connie Thomas!  Also, Randy and Dianna Graham’s son is a Zone Leader in our mission.  We met a young (as distinguished from old, like us) Sister Gneighting whose uncle was one of Sister Baum’s nursing students (he’s now a Nurse Practitioner with his own clinic).  Her grandfather was in the Southwest Indian Mission with Elder Baum who later worked with him at BYU!  It was like old home week.

Our Zone Conference was so uplifting, we were exhausted when it was over.  President Barry renewed our appreciation for the Atonement, which is the whole reason we are serving a mission.  Christ makes being good worth it.  Admittedly, there are many intrinsic benefits to living the Gospel, but we would still be enslaved by Satan, no matter how good we were, if it weren’t for the Savior.  We could never repay Him.  Not only that, He wants us to be saved as families, so we're also on a mission for our children and grandchildren.  Simone turns 4 years old today.  This is a picture of her in her spaceship.  Wouldn't you WORK to have that baby for eternity???  

  

We had an interesting experience with some of the changes in our mission.  We’ve been trying to keep up with the regimen of the young elders but haven’t quite mastered companion planning and study.   We were also struggling to develop our own goals within the vision of our Mission President.  Our new Mission President gave us a notebook with explicit vision, plan, and procedures (particularly those having to do with companion study), which was a direct answer to prayer!  

We learned to focus on bringing people to Christ through ordinances from President Bowman and now we’ll be learning to work with the Bishop more closely to retain the converts under President Barry.  As President Barry put it, “We stand on the shoulders of President Bowman (phenomenal baptism rate) to reach for something even higher “(phenomenal retention)—parentheses added. 

President Barry admonished us to “follow the keys.”  The Mission President holds keys for non-members within his mission.  The Bishops hold keys for members and non-members in their respective Ward boundaries.   The difference is, missionaries are primarily to teach investigators and ward members are supposed to find them.  Additionally, no one is to be baptized without the Bishop’s authorization.

 

A couple months ago, I was looking for something else and happened to run across “Leading a Great Ward Mission” Guidebook developed in the New England area (missionaryleaders.org, if you’re interested).  As an aside, Elder Baum noticed that our daughter Britta, who lives in VT, contributed photos for the publication, which of course, made it even more special.    Anyway, we shared it with our Bishop who responded very positively.  Of course, it was a complete coincidence that it was an unusually successful plan that embodied everything we learned at Zone Conference and will answer even more of our concern for a vision, plan, and procedure.