Change, Resposibility, and Work

Yeah I'm too busy to E-mail on my mission I decided. I really do think they should have preperation day all day. 8 hours would seem like enough but we NEVER get everything accomplished. Especailly since the zone leaders are the hospital service missionaries. We get calls for people who need blessings at least once a day. And if it's monday that seems to take an hour or two. Last week we didn't get to E-mail because the 4th was observed on the 5th and we had zone leader council on tuesday then interviews with out new president wednesday, then exchanges thursday and saturday and weekly planning on friday so I never had a lunch break to E-mail the family. I've been trying to write letters but I honestly have no time. They are turning into 3 X 5 card letters.

So to start off this is the new change our mission president came out with. This is church wide, not in our mission alone. The church wants the mission president and the missionaries to spend more time prosolyting so they are changing some meetings. We used to have interviews, zone conference, and leadership training every transfer. Mission presidents were spending 50% of the month interviewing missionaries. That is changing. They are now rotating meetings every other transfer cycle. For example, Interviews was this transfer, so zone conference will be next transfer and leadership training will be quarterly but will be from 10-4 instead of 10-12. The church is also displeased with how missionaries are teaching and most missions are teaching too similar to the preach my gospel lessons. So we are being re-trained on how to teach by the spirit. "Teach people, not lessons."

So we are practicing different types of investigators and how to plan for them and also if they have questions to answer them instead of giving them a quick one that doesn't satisfy their needs and then continuing on with your lesson plan. They want us to be able and ready to throw our plan out the window if a question arises. The only meeting that increased is zone leader council which is monthly instead of each transfer. Our mission president isn't going to change anything until our next meeting which is August 2nd. So we are still on the regular schedule. 10-12 contacting/finding. 12-2 lessons with RCLA's potentials, formers, ect. 2-4 Break time or lunch/dinner. 4-5 lessons. 5-7 tracting/contacting time, 7-9 lessons. 9-9:30 planning. 9:30- 10:20 nightly calls. 10:30 bed time - which never happens. We ALWAYS get to bed at 11 or later and then on sundays have to get up earlier because of meetings. I sleep really well when I crawl into bed sunday night. So I assume the schedule will change in August because our mission president isn't the biggest fan, but as for now not too much has changed.

President Larkin so so awesome though! He is going to be all the zone leaders companions to drive around the zone to see what needs to be done different. We have him scheduled on Tuesday July 27th to go street contacting with us and then after the 10-12 street contacting we are driving him to each area from 12-2. He is the best. I will love him just as much as my old mission president.

As for the ward I'm serving in, the University 2nd ward, the summer is slow. Sacrament attendence is mostly visitors and it's harder to find investigators to teach because no as many students are on campus. You'd think "why not go contacting down by the space needle?" It's pointless. We are looking for 18-30 year olds in the university boundries. Not tourists or families. It's a very different area.

Thanks for the letters. I love them! If you ever feel like you want to help a missionary send me quarters for the laundry mat or poppyseed muffins from costco. haha those are soo good! alright I'll write next week.

Love,

Elder Bottema

*Note from Elaine: If you really want to send the Costco muffins, a half dozen package fits perfectly into a medium sized flat rate box at USPS.*