Kuopio District Conference 13 Aug 2005

Today we traveled 135 kilometers to Kuopio for district conference. One set of young missionaries came a 6 hour train trip. Another set of elders traveled over two hours by car. Two of the elders recently opened a new city and the mission president's instructions to them were to do absolutely no tracting. They were pretty happy. They are trying every way they know how to come into contact with non-members and members in service settings. And president called some of the leaders in the branch to ask them to be examples to the other members of the branch in working with the missionaries. Hopefully, this approach will bear fruit. The level of maturity of these young men is amazing. Today one of the elders said we weren't called to be missionary robots in Finland. Each of us has gifts that can be used here. Use them however you can. Pretty insightful. They all had tried new ways of doing missionary work over the past two weeks and reported on their outcomes. Two are coaching American football. They're doing some basketball and volleyball playing. One was asked to join a touring frisbee golf team. Others are walking door to door with shovels and rakes offering to help people. They are wearing work clothes more often than they wear proselyting clothes but always have tags.Interesting approaches.