Obedience Brings Blessings

So on Friday, we had mission leadership council and President asked us to have interviews with all of the missionaries we are leaders for and talk to them about the missions goal to become consecrated. Because I don't know if I've told you this but President Morgan in the zone conference we had last transfer, asked us to start becoming more consecrated missionaries and that if we did that, we would have a blessing of a baptism in September. So Sister Wankier and I have been working really hard to be just a little bit better each day and it's awesome. We see so many awesome blessings every single day. But there are a lot of missionaries that are stressing out about this (as I previously was doing because consecration is huge and until I realized that I can take it step by step, all I thought was, there's no way I can do that.) So yesterday I drove around the entire upstate part of the mission doing interviews with the sisters that I am a sister training leader for. I basically had no idea what I was doing because normally just the district leader gives interviews but they went well. It's hard and sad though because so many missionaries are focusing on the September baptism and trying to figure out who they can baptize in September and they're not even thinking about becoming consecrated. So I'm glad that I had figured things out personally (after a month of not having any idea at all what I was going to do to become consecrated) because then I was able to share with them my own experiences and how the September baptism will come as a blessing of our efforts to become consecrated. Hopefully I helped them a little bit to catch on to what Presidents vision for the mission is. But basically being a leader is hard and I'm not sure what I'm doing most of the time but I'm just praying that something good will come out of my mouth that will help the other missionaries I'm talking to.

Also in Mission Leadership Council, President Morgan announced that our mission is officially a mission using online proselyting. He has received all the training for how the church is going to do online proselyting and the mission is approved to start using it. The zone leaders and sister training leaders will be the first missionaries to start using online proselyting and to get mini iPads and we will be giving all of the other missionaries training on that. So since I'm a sister training leader, that mean I will be one of the first missionaries to start using online proselyting. I haven't decided how I feel about it yet though. I know that it's inspired of God and it's going to be a huge blessing. But it's also going to be a huge responsibility. It's going to be one more thing that as leaders, we have to make sure others aren't abusing. We should be receiving the training this Friday from President Morgan and then we'll have the go to start using online proselyting. It's crazy! I didn't really think we would get to this point while I was still on my mission. But every missionary in the mission is expected to have a missionary Facebook page by December so this is going to be in full swing fast. I don't really know much more than that but I should be finding out more on Friday. It's cool though because I know this is another blessing that the mission is receiving because of our efforts to become consecrated. If the Lord didn't trust us, we wouldn't be one of the first missions to have this ability.

Danbury is still the greatest. I love it just as much as anywhere else that I've served. I really just want to stay here with Sister Wankier next transfer but I'm afraid that she'll go to a different area so that I have a companion who is also a sister training leader. We'll see what happens though.

I hope you are all doing well! The mission is the best and I'm so glad to be here!

Love,

Hermana Parkin

                                    Sister Wankier and Sister Parkin