Clint Mission 99 #29 7/19/99
Dear Family,
Tell Mitch I know about the slow mail. I finally got a letter that had a picture of the new truck dated 4/1/99. Sometimes for some reason the mail just has problems.
I don’t have much time.
We have been busy this week on housing and also the carrying out of Zone Conference. This zone conference was the last one we will be able to have in the White House all together. When the 8 new missionaries come in August we will be too big.
Elder Hoare and I talked about the importance of teaching by the spirit and committed the mission to remember to identify the spirit in teaching situations.
President White gave a great talk. He took a 10 ft. ladder and pasted attributes and missionary skills to it. At the very top was Godliness. And the rest were spread out on the different steps. He talked about personal preparation. We all come to the mission or life on different steps or levels. The most important and our goal should be to decrease the distance between the top and the step that we started on. Remember the top is Godliness. Alma 12:24.
Alma 12:24
24 And we see that death comes upon mankind, yea, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek, which is the temporal death; nevertheless there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead.
Love you all --- got to go
Love Your Son, Brother and Missionary,
Elder Rogers
Journal entries:
A whole week has gone by since I was able to write in my journal.
The housing project is taking all of my time. This week we signed the contract on 2 more houses. We now have 3 houses on road 410, the couples big house, our little apartment and now another apartment. We have a little community going. We saw the sign, but didn’t think that we needed another house in this area. Then one day Elder Hoare said, “ We should look at that house”, and we both felt like it was right. Our real estate agent tries to help us, but it is always the spirit that directs us to the houses.
We were really frustrated this week as the pink house by the bridge did not work out. We worked on it along time, but the landlords were unwilling to make the changes that we needed. Looking back, we never quite felt good about it.
When I get back, I am not going to be a real estate agent!
There is a real difficult situation happening in our mission today.
Always before the Elders have been heavily involved in all aspects of the work here. The District has been weak and the branches depend too much on the Elders. The Lord is preparing the way for the District and branch leadership to become less dependent on the Elders. This is putting strain on things, or growing pains. We now have excellent helping hands of 4 couples:
Calls: Church Education Seminary and Institute
Seares: Mission Office
Blodgetts and Ripplingers: Resource Center English and computer training
And also our local leaders are getting better and better. Yet they are not doing things like financial, membership, reports, etc. They depend heavily on the Elders to do these things. They do excellent in running a sacrament meeting but need much more training.