On Wednesday, September 20th, we brought the new missionaries from this transfer and their trainers back into Knoxville for “New Missionary Follow Up”. We do this follow up in the middle of their first transfer to provide some additional training. With both new missionaries and trainers, this involved 48 missionaries.
In the past, this training has mostly focused on “Adjusting to Missionary Life”. But last transfer, Sister Barlow worked with Brother Taggart to start a new weekly meeting for new missionaries called “Missionary Resilience Class”. Once a week during their first transfer, the new missionaries now meet on Zoom with Brother Taggart for a class based on the info in both Adjusting to Missionary Life and the Self Reliance: Emotional Resilience class. This has been a great addition in supporting our new missionaries.
With the Missionary Resilience Class now in place, we decided to pivot “New Missionary Follow Up” to focus on foundational skills from Preach My Gospel. The entire morning was focused on “The Faith to Find”.
In Preach My Gospel, “The Faith to Find” is explained in this way:
“Faith is a principle of action and power . Have faith that the Lord is preparing people to receive the restored gospel. Have patient confidence that He will lead you to them, or them to you. Act on your faith by setting goals, making plans, and carrying out your plans to find people to teach (see chapter 8).” (Preach My Gospel, Chapter 9: “Find People to Teach”)
We believe that God is preparing people all around us to receive His gospel. As He prepares their hearts, He then leads them to us or us to them. “Faith is a principle of action and power.” Faith will always lead to action, and acting in faith allows us to receive power from God. With the faith to find, that action is the commitment to talk with everyone. As we strive to talk with everyone, we find those who God has prepared as they cross our path.
As you can imagine, the commitment to talk with everyone takes a lot of courage and is a big adjustment for new missionaries. It isn’t natural for them to walk up to people they don’t know and begin a conversation. To build these skills as missionaries takes a lot of practice. And the way we practice as missionaries is through role plays.
We teach these missionaries some important skills from Preach My Gospel, including things like how to introduce their purpose, asking questions to understand needs, how to introduce the Book of Mormon, and how to invite people to learn more. We then practice these skills in role plays. Focusing on these skills builds their confidence to talk with everyone.
So we spent the entire training focused on these foundational skills, and practicing them through role plays.
That Friday, we also had our Senior Missionary Lunch at the mission home. It’s always great to spend time with these couples. They are amazing and continue to make an incredible difference in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission. We are so grateful for them!
This is the last time we will be together with the Smiths and the Henningsons as they both are completing their missions and returning home. We love them and will miss them!
Another big milestone happened at our house! Samantha had her first date!
It seemed appropriate that her first date would be at the University of Tennessee football home opener at Neyland Stadium. We are so proud of Samantha and the way she has embraced the opportunity to be here in Tennessee. She has made many new friends and we are very grateful that we have so many people thinking about her.
Barlows in TKM 