You may have already noticed, but the Mormon Missionary Beat is changing to a weekly format. All the missionary beat you love condensed into one column a week. This is our first new column.
Around the web this week for stories of interest to future missionaries, missionary moms, returned missionaries, member missionaries, and missionaries of every sort and variety.
- Amy Donaldson “For Olympian Kate Hansen, luge is more than just an athletic endeavor; it’s a Mormon missionary opportunity”– How is the experience of LDS Olympians different than their counterparts? Well this might be a start. “In his mid-20s, Timur Bakirov asked if he could speak with [Kate Hansen] even though she was obviously engrossed in a phone call. She thought he was with the press, and she tried to politely decline a conversation by telling him that she was on the phone with her mother. ‘He said, ‘I’m LDS,” said Kathie Hansen, Kate’s mother. ‘And Kate said, ‘Mom, I’ve got to go.” He was an engineer for the Russian luge team from St. Petersburg, and he told Hansen in a very thick accent that he was getting baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in two weeks. ‘He said, ‘I wanted to let you know that you were my first missionary,””
- LDS.org “Ghana MTC: Photo Gallery”– Enjoy these beautiful photos of the work and preparation taking place at the 13 year old Missionary Training Center in west Africa.
- Peggy Fletcher Stack “Mormon missionaries find work, meaning in community service“– What do Mormon missionaries do during the long daytime hours while investigators are at work, and tracting is fruitless? In Northern California they have come up with an innovative new answer. “In Northern California, the image of Mormon missionaries in dark suits and white shirts, knocking on doors at inconvenient times, is being replaced by the sight of these name-tag-wearing twosomes in blue jeans and T-shirts, hoeing gardens, scrubbing off graffiti, dishing out food in homeless shelters and reading with refugees.”
- LDS Newsroom “Missionaries Set Foot Again in Tacloban“ – Missionaries who left the worst hit areas of Typhoon Haiyan are now returning to the area to help in rebuilding efforts. “Tacloban Mission was temporarily closed after the devastation of Typhoon Yolanda. All of its 204 missionaries were sought and accounted for after the typhoon. Many of them were reassigned to missions in different parts of the Philippines. As lives and communities are slowly being rebuilt, missionaries will return.”
- “How to Efficiently Pack Your Missionary Carry On”– [Video] When leaving on a mission, getting two years worth of supplies into your luggage can be difficult, and in case you lose your checked luggage having enough supplies in your carry-on is crucial. The way this man gets thirty days of supplies into a carry-on will blow your mind.
- Grey Carter “There Must be Justice”– [Video] This article follows up on a story a few months old. There had been stories circulating that mentioned the assault of LDS missionaries in Kosovo, but no account of the event could be found until now. “Fox 13 News has learned two sister missionaries were beaten by Albanians, who are also tied to plotting a terrorist attack. The LDS Church said the two young women are out of harm’s way and doing OK.”
- Lindsay Whitehurst “Utah study will scan brains of returned Mormon missionaries”– Everyone knows it requires a special person to sacrifice two years to serve a mission. Researchers at the University of Utah are out to discover just how special through a series of brain scans on returned missionaries. “Researchers are looking at the effects of spirituality from a neuro-scientific angle.”
- Mark Albright “Missionary Moment: The Best is Yet to Come (Peru)“– When one man asked a coworker why she enjoyed serving so much, he never could have expected her answer. “I asked her to show me her church. She invited me to leave the office at the very same moment and drive to the Lima Peru Temple, located some 50 miles from our office. I immediately accepted her invitation.”
- Marianne Holman Prescott “Staying Strong after Faithful Missionary Service“ – These useful tips will help returned missionaries continue along in their spiritual journey without missing a beat. “Although missionaries know the gospel and have exhausted their days sharing it with others, sometimes their return home can be an adjustment, leaving a different view on life with the ‘new and improved’ version of them returning home to oftentimes the same situation that they left.”