January 19, 2020

January 13-19 in Review

• Proof Positive that weather in St. Louis is schizophrenic:  In the last 7 days we have had 
• Rain, Snow, 60 degree clear sunny days, Freezing rain, and temperatures in the single digits
• MSLM young missionaries are very creative in their missionary efforts.  This week 2 elders decided to list a free book of mormon on Facebook Market place.  A man responded to the add.  When they deliver the book the man said he was looking forward to reading it.  Then the missionaries invited him to go to church with them on Sunday and he said "Sure!"  We're calling it the "Facebook Marketplace" approach
• This week we had two 'evenings out' with long time St. Louis members.  First on Wednesday night we were invited to join the Elder & Sister Erickson and Elder & Sister Lisonbee at Rock & Joy Erickson's (no relation) home.  We had a wonderful evening getting to know them and learning about their 2019 trip to Israel.  Rock is the Just Serve Coordinator for the region and Elder Hatfield and I are looking forward to strengthening the missionary's use and involvement in Just Serve projects.
• On Friday, despite the threat of road closures due to freezing rain, we were invited to dinner at Paul and Patti Hintze's home.  Though they both grew up in Provo, and are dear childhood friends of our friends Scott and Annette Bowen, they have lived in St. Louis for over 30 years.  Elder Hintze had the idea of calling the Bowens and the 6 of us had a lively phone/in person  conversation catching up and getting to know each other.  
• Through out the week we helped move furniture and household equipment into a new apartment in preparation the arrival of the other half of our full time Mission Office staff.  On Saturday, Elder & Sister Everton from Bountiful Utah arrived.  Sister Everton will assume the Mission Nurse responsibilities and Elder Everton will take of over managing the vehicle and bike cycle fleet.  We had them over for dinner tonight.  We are excited to be able to work with them for the next 22 months!

  

  A farewell party of sorts, as Rock and Joy say farewell to the Lisonbees and Ericksons

Our first P-Day! A Field Trip

Finally, after almost 6 weeks in the mission we had time to take a Saturday PDay!  We were invited to join the Lisonbees and Ericksons, the two other office couples on what was for them a farewell trip to one of their favorite places in the mission on Saturday, January 11^th.  

The town of Sikeston, MO is a 2.5 hour drive south and is home to a place called the Lambert Café.  It is legend in the mission among senior couples.  It would take paragraphs to try to try to describe it.  The place is legend for its country cook’n, comfort food, and casual atmosphere, a collection of nostalgic memorabilia, and not least, the “throw’d rolls.”  They come hot out of the oven and the servers start tossing them around the dining room to outstretched hands.  Then comes tubs of apple butter and sorghum syrup.  I ordered delectable fried chicken and RaDene had some beef roast that was as tender and succulent as it comes.  The most impressive dish was Sister Erickson’s ham steak that was served in a 12 inch skillet.  The steak covered the bottom and was at least an inch thick.  This is to say nothing of the endless “pass alongs” of black eyed peas, fried okra, fried potatoes, macaroni and tomatoes, and more.  I’ve never taken more home in to go boxes.  It’s a good thing that Sikeston has the Lambert Café.  Otherwise, it looks pretty forlorn and in need of some fresh industry.

Check out this YouTube Video of Lambert's... we even got to hear their famous honky tonk piano artist play!

On the return trip to St Louis we stopped in the old city of Cape Girardeau.  Called a cape because of the rocky bluff in its center that looks out over the Mississippi.  It has a fascinating French and pioneer history.  Perhaps it is most famous now for the “Wall.”  This is a 20 foot high and almost mile long concrete wall that keeps the river out of the lower portions of town that otherwise would surely flood almost every spring.  We saw the huge gate that swings closed to cut off access from the river dock to the city when the river rises.  It has a beautiful mural painted a good deal of its length portraying Missouri’s impressive list of leading American patriots, authors, athletes, and artists, too many to start listing.  Google it, and you’ll be impressed too.

The High Water Mark for Mississippi

Elder Erickson, R, H, Sister & Elder Lisonbee
"The Motley Crew" (Sister Erickson was taking the photo)

Elder & Sister Hatfield in Cape Girardeau

The MTC

Finally, after years of driving by the MTC and being there when others, including all 3 of my children, were dropped off at the MTC, I (RaDene) finally was able to go there myself!  It was the first time I had ever been on the campus for longer than the time it took to drop a missionary off.  Which for my older two was about an hour.  With Mitchell, who went after the drop off at the curb process was instigated, about 5 minutes!  

It was everything I thought it would be!  An inspirational ant hill of activity.  Devotionals, classes, a massive cafeteria, post office, copy center, books store. Though we were only there a short week there are several things that stood out:

• The simplicity of the new Missionary Standards for Disciples of Jesus Christ. Gone are the detailed instructions/rules/ always/never/do/do nots of the little white bible.  The Missionary Standards are clear and simply stated standards of behavior for called, set apart and ordained missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ.  
• Changes in Missionary training.  
• Elimination of 'labels': investigator, non-member, inactive, less active. Rather the focus is on people.  Brothers. Sisters.  Friends.  Neighbors.  People who want to learn about Jesus Christ.
• The elimination of "role playing" to learn how to teach the gospel.  Now the focus is learning how to follow the spirit in customizing a message and invitation to whoever is willing to hear a gospel message.
• The proliferation of gospel teaching tools, videos, manuals, scriptures, on smartphones and other devises.  
• The extensive training for how to use these tools to further the missionary purpose of bring people to Christ and inoculate a generation from becoming addicted to the mind numbing/soul damning media on line
• The fact that the sisters, both senior missionaries and young missionaries were able to wear pants most of the time.  They were encouraged to wear Sunday attire (dresses) to devotionals, but pants were perfectly acceptable everywhere else on the MTC campus.  (I predict we'll see a change to the white shirt and tie policy for Elders.  There was a great disparity in how professional/approachable the Elders and Sisters looked at the MTC.  White shirts and ties don't necessarily look 'professional' any more.   
• It was refreshing, if not a little startling to see missionaries through out the MTC dressed in PDay attire with earphones in their ears and talking to their families via video conferencing.  Thankfully gone are the days of twice a year phone calls home!

Elder Hatfield has written elsewhere on this blog of our most impactful teaching/training experience at the MTC with Elder & Sister Gardner.  Suffice it to say here that ours was a powerful poignant example of how training missionaries to teach individuals by the spirit is so much more effective than role playing or memorizing points of doctrine.