Around the web today for stories of interest to future missionaries, missionary moms, returned missionaries, member missionaries, and missionaries of every sort and variety.
- Converting on Cobblestone “Miracles Happen, No Big Deal”– The sheer joy when one missionary finds an investigator to teach in his East European mission will bring a smile to your face. ” The man on the phone said (more or less), ‘hey, I’m at your church; there’s nobody here.’ Well, umm, yeah, I suppose there wasn’t. We asked him if he could wait about twenty minutes for us to get there. He said he would.”
- Jimmy Smith “Preparing Emotionally for a Mission”– We spend a lot of time talking about how to prepare young men spiritually, physically, and financially for a mission, but this article takes an important look at how to make sure young men are prepared emotionally as well. “Some missionaries have difficulty coping with emotional challenges. Stress may contribute to many missionaries’ most common physical complaints, including headaches, back pain, insomnia, fatigue, and stomach problems. Because of these challenges, it is important that future missionaries do all they can to prepare emotionally for full-time missionary service.”
- Matt “LDS Church Growth”-Interesting and thorough work looking at the current state of the church in every Chinese city with a million or more individuals. Really phenomenal in depth work. Here’s an example: “Yantai, China. Population:1,570,000. Currently assigned to the Central China International District. The LDS Church appears to have a presence among People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizens in Yantai but does not appear to have a presence among foreigners. In recent years, the Chinese government has granted the Church greater freedom to operate among both foreigners and PRC citizens although considerable religious freedom restrictions remain in place. Yantai serves as an important economic center in Shangdong Province which may prompt PRC citizens baptized abroad to relocate to Yantai for employment purposes. The population is homogeneously Han Chinese.”
- LDS Mission Stories “Mormon Missionary in England Story“ – One missionary promised to contact one more person before leaving to the ward activity, but when she turned him down a nagging feeling remained. “‘But could I come a little bit later like at 7 or 7:30?”‘ And we said, ‘Of course.'”
- R. Scott Lloyd “Missionary Couples Told to Help Missionaries Grow Spiritually” – What is the role of senior couples as they work in the mission field? There may be one you wouldn’t have thought of. “[Elder W. Craig Zwick] displayed a graph with the horizontal axis representing the time [senior couples] spend with missionaries and the vertical axis representing the missionaries’ growth in spirituality.”