What a week! 24 new missionaries came to our mission. That is the largest group for as long as anyone here can remember. When we had our trainee/trainer meeting there were 50 plus people in the room. It quite nearly filled up our small chapel. These new missionaries are so much fun. As assistants we are with them the whole time, we run with them in the morning, we take them to all their trainings, we teach them, we eat with them, we contact with them. This group was a good group, there is a lot of fire and zeal to get out and do the work!
In president's welcome presentation, he has a slide show that his family put together for them. In part of his slideshow, there are pictures of him and quotes from letters he sent home. One of the quotes was, "I really groove on my mission." haha...
President Bishop did groove on his mission, and he still does. I do to: I really groove on my mission. (Someone will have to look that up on 60s 70s online slang dictionary and tell me the exact translation.)
When the new missionaries were about to arrive, we realized that we needed some more mission rule books. President Bishop told us that he had been pondering and praying about getting rid of the rule book for a while now, and mission presidents had been counseled to do so in a previous mission president's seminar. So in the end, this new missionary group does not have any mission rules. They only have a list of phone use guidelines that keep missionaries within our cell phone contract.
In a matter of two weeks, the mission has a whole new landscape. It is not the mission I knew growing up. But it's groovy, and I like it.
I guess when they re-did the mission handbook of instructions; they cut a lot out of it and emphasized principles. President Bishop wants us as missionaries to become a 'principled people' and be anxious to live the rules as we understand them.
The church is true. The mission is great. Love, Elder Spencer Harris
