Today was fast Sunday. I got up to do some work on ideas for the fireside tonight and we went to Church. I couldn’t find the Bishop after sacrament meeting and was worried about learning exactly what the audience was expected to be and what they were hoping we would speak on. Finally, by the end of the block, I cornered the Stake President. He had made a comment in priesthood meeting about seeing his name a program for the missionary fireside that night. When I got his attention, he shared a copy of the program with me. I learned that the format had changed to 4 workshops each lead by different groups from the ward and then a wrap up talk by me at the end. I learned that we expected investigators, new members and less actives along with active members of the ward. They told me that a 10 minute talk to wrap things up talking about what members need to do to help new converts would be great. Jan was relieved that she didn’t have to talk. The High Priest Group Leader asked me if I had any DVD clips on the Book of Mormon. He was responsible for one of the 4 workshops and he wanted his to be focused on the importance of the Book of Mormon in the conversion process. I told him we could meet at the mission office at 1:30 and I’d review with him what I had. I told him that I had missionary interviews at 2 so we would have to be efficient.
He seemed very grateful. We got home and I spent the next hour looking at a few DVD’s and brainstorming with Jan about what might be appropriate. I went over to the mission office about 15 minutes early and checked lds.org also. I came up with a really nice 2+ minute clip from Elder Holland on the Book of Mormon. We also used a 5 minute clip from our training videos. The clip was showing an actual investigator being taught by the missionaries and receiving a challenge to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Finally, I suggested that if he still had a few minutes he could show the introduction to “How Rare a Possession”. Although this video is very old (vintage 1987) it does have an interesting dramatization of Moroni finishing the writings and preparing the stone box where Joseph received the plates. Since the ward had no video equipment and this brother had none of his own, I also loaned him my assistants and our computer and projector.
At 2pm Elder Gollmann and Elder Mema’ofa came to the office. These were the only two missionaries in the mission that I did not meet during the mission tour. They have been living on Rotuma, a very remote island of Fiji. They had just come in on a 3 day boat trip! Elder Gollmann had never been on such a boat and got sea sick. Elder Mema’ofa thought it was pretty funny. We took them over to the mission home for their interviews. Jan spoke with one in the kitchen while I met with the other in the living room. The interviews went very nicely and I went over to the mission office to give Elder Gollmann a temple recommend as we finished. He will be going home on Thursday of this week. What a very good Elder he is and I’m sorry I won’t be able to get to know him better before he goes home. As I finished interviewing him, the assistants got the two of them on the internet to check their e-mail. Since Rotuma does not have the internet, neither of them had received any e-mail for 3 months! I slipped over to the house to have dinner and print off a couple of ideas for thoughts I would share at the fireside before we were off to the fireside.
The presentation went great. In fact, all four stations were excellent. We had over 100 people at the fireside! What a great effort for a single ward! Jan helped some missionaries sing a special musical number at the beginning by playing while they sang. That too was a nice part of the evening. The fireside started at 5pm and we finished around 6:50. We than stayed and talked as they provided some refreshments. It was a nice end to a very nice Fast Sunday!
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