Mission Newsletter

“Patience can Accomplish Marvelous Things”
President and Sister Packer

Ukraine Kyiv Mission
15 June 2015

Elders and Sisters,
This week’s letter will be shorter because of many appendices. I am including notes from the last two Leadership Councils so that you will all be kept in the loop. Today, nearly 20 years later, a portion of my setting apart blessing as a missionary was fulfilled. There were times after my mission when I wondered why it hadn’t been fulfilled while serving. Sometimes I even thought I had failed in some way or another. As time went by after my mission, it ceased to bother me and I decided for myself that it had been fulfilled in a way that was unknown to me. Today this part of the blessing was fulfilled exactly as it was pronounced upon my head 20 years ago. “Patience is the capacity to endure delay, trouble, opposition, or suffering without becoming angry, frustrated or anxious. It is the ability to do God’s will and accept His timing” (Preach My Gospel). When we have patience we can accomplish marvelous things. Patience requires diligence and consistency. Remember Alma the older who said, “But remember the iniquity of king Noah and his priests; and I myself was caught in a snare, and did many things which were abominable in the sight of the Lord, which caused me sore repentance; Nevertheless, after much tribulation, the Lord did hear my cries, and did answer my prayers, and has made me an instrument in his hands in bringing so many of you to a knowledge of his truth.” (Mosiah 23: 9-10). Alma worked with and watched over the saints. They had all had a change of heart and were righteous. “Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith.”(Mosiah 23:21) These people were captured by the Lamanites and put into bondage and forced to do hard labor and were not even allowed to pray. They prayed in their hearts for help from the Father and continued to be faithful. In return, the Lord promised to eventually free them from bondage; He also promised to make them stronger while they were still under bondage. The scriptures describe these people at this time, “And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage.” (Mosiah 24:16) The same promise applies to all who come unto the Savior with a struggle they are trying to overcome. It may be an addiction, it may be persecution by family or friends for investigating the church, it may be a lost job, or sorrow for a loved one lost. Whatever our struggle, let us have patience and faith that the Lord will deliver us. Let us plead for and believe that He will help us while we struggle and while we patiently and hopefully wait for deliverance. We love you! Press forward!
Love,
President and Sister Packer
Quote:

“Life is full of difficulties, some minor and others of a more serious nature. There seems to be an unending supply of challenges for one and all. Our problem is that we often expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges, forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required..”

(Preach My Gospel pg.120) 

Mission Leadership Council notes 5-15-15

Excerpt of a talk from President Hinckley

•   Be grateful for the ride, even though along the way we will get bumps and scratches and bruises
  
•   Missionary work can be good, and challenging
  Using the Book of Mormon better
  

• 1st lesson (about 20 min)
o Teach them the pamphlet, don’t give them a Book of Mormon yet
o Invite them to see mormon.org  2nd lesson
o Read last two paragraphs of the Introduction of the Book of Mormon
o Start reading with the investigator from the Introduction of the First Book of Nephi and into 1Nephi 1, stop
and show how it applies to them
o Model how they’ll receive revelation through the Book of Mormon when they read alone
 Later lessons
o Don’t simply ask if they read, ask what they learned and how it will effect them (see chart below) o Ex: What did you learn about being a better mom?
Asking better questions

Type of Question Recall
Compare Contrast
Cause and Effect Example to Idea Idea to Example Evaluate

Example
What happened when Nephi and his brothers went back the city?
How was Nephi’s experience similar to the brother of Jared’s experience with the stones? How is Nephi’s and the brother of Jared’s experience different?
What motivated Nephi to go back for the plates?
What can we learn from the brother of Jared’s experience with the stones?
Give an example when faith preceded a miracle
How can Nephi’s experience help us?
What can we learn about your situation from Nephi’s experience in getting the plates?

2 Nephi 9 is a good chapter to use to help people resolve their questions
We need to figure out how to use the Book of Mormon as the primary source for teaching during lessons, rather than using verses as ‘decoration’ during the lesson
 Activity for language or companionship study
o Goal: to understand the core meaning of a verse
o Can be done with 2 to 4 people
o 1st person: Asks a question about the verse
o 2nd person: Answers the question
o 3rd person: Clarifies something that could be difficult to understand in the verse (ex. The meaning of
certain words, or context)
o 4th person: Predicts what will be discussed, based on the verse (ex. The verse says , I bet we we’ll talk
about )
o 1st person: Summarizes verse

Mission Leadership Counsel notes 6-5-15

Qualities of leaders

• Examples from scriptures: King Benjamin, Moroni, D&C 4
  
• What kind of leaders are we? Need to ask ourselves often, and seek scriptures for examples to follow
  
• People don’t care how much we know, until they know how much we care
  
• The problems that we have with others are often the same thing we don’t like about ourselves
  
• We need to be careful with what we say, because it is easy to be misunderstood
  

o Leaders live in a glass house, have to try and always be at your best

• In our mission, we are going through growing pains because we are appropriately correcting each other, and
  Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders have more power to help their zones, i.e. they can set up exchanges
  for two different companionships to switch based on skills they see in the zone
  
• Leaders should be perceived as servants, washing other’s feet
  
• The most important calling in this mission is missionary
  Story from Sister Packer’s Dad
  

• One of his jobs was a Sheppard and he had thousands of sheep. For every winter, they had to move the sheep
  several miles to a different place. A part of this path they used was along a road by a river, and one year there was a huge hole in the road. They were driving the sheep from the back of the flock, so the first sheep in the front fell into the hole and many others following them fell in as well, and in the end many sheep died. If they were in front of the sheep, they could have lead them and saved them, rather than just pushing from the back
  Gossip
  
• Gossip was the biggest currency in the mission when the Packers arrived
  
• The problem has gotten better, but still exists
  
• Gossip is a problem that is hurting the Church at large
  
• Scriptures about gossip and rumors:
  

o Helaman 16:22-23
o 3 Nephi 1:22
• Example from Les Miserables
o Jean Valjean, main character, was imprisoned for many years for stealing a loaf of bread. After serving his term, he struggled with his identity and didn’t know if he was a convict or a good man. Society and gossip told him he was a convict, which is not what the Gospel teaches
• There are huge blessings when we learn confidentiality
District meetings

• Zone leaders may start attending district meetings more often
  
• District meeting is a time to allocate resources within the district to best help investigators
  

o Ex. If someone teaches the Plan of Salvation really well and your investigator has questions about it, then Zone Leaders may approve an exchange to have that missionary come and teach that lesson

• 70% of the time should be spent discussing investigators and their needs and roleplaying help.
  
• 30% of the time should be spent doctrine, improving language, etc...
  Mission Rule
  

• It is a rule that we are supposed to speak on ВЫ with members of the opposite sex. That is the only additional
rule to the white handbook.