No one gave me an inkling of the myriad of non-stop spiritual highs, crises, heart-aches, dizzying logistics and sheer ecstasy that come with this calling. A sampling from our first five weeks in Liberia:
Michelle and I did five two-hour “Meet the President” zone meetings, held a pair of four-hour Mission Leadership Councils with our zone leaders and sister training leaders, conducted our first round of four-hour zone conferences, I did 15-minute interviews with each of our 90 missionaries while Michelle sat with their companions quizzing them about insights they have gained from their latest scripture study and feeding them cookies.
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| Saying farewell to five great missionaries, including a pair of stellar Nigerians and our three honorary Kente-clad "Blues Brothers" |
This morning I gave final interviews and counsel to five departing elders, then we raced to the airport to send them off with Michelle driving while I juggled phone calls between an anguished new branch president and the Area Presidency over a tragic murder discovered last night of a faithful member in one of our mission branches. In the next four weeks, we have another 13 missionary departures and 14 new ones arriving.
Each Sunday night, I send a group letter to all the missionaries and the following day I get to read each of their individual responses and determine which need a personal response to admire or acknowledge their faithful efforts, experiences and insights, grant permission or offer counsel, encouragement or gentle correction. These young men and women are incredibly diligent, insightful servants of the Lord and reading each week of their love for the people here and the work they are doing and their experiences in seeing the hand of the Lord in their lives is the highlight of each week.
Our missionaries average about 100 baptisms each month. Of that total, I am tasked each week with about five “special” baptismal interviews with people who have situations that need to be resolved with the mission president. These are some of the sweetest experiences imaginable, people who have humbled themselves and want nothing more than the chance to be clean before the Lord. My first one came less than a week after my arrival with a wonderful woman. Her story started out semi-intelligibly, then suddenly shifted into rapid-fire but beautifully lyrical sing-song “colloquia” monologue (the local dialect with heavy Caribbean overtones) and I realized that I had zero comprehension of any of it. I said a quick silent prayer, “Lord, I have no idea what this sweet woman is saying, but I need to be able to understand her to fulfill my calling.” Almost immediately, I could follow her perfectly and we had a fabulous interview that left us both in tears.
In addition to caring for our own missionaries, I am the de facto stake president for almost 6,000 members in 20 congregations. In that role, last month, I set apart four missionaries leaving to serve elsewhere in Africa, interviewed several others preparing to go and released three missionaries returning to Liberia after completing their missions elsewhere. And did a bunch of first time temple recommend interviews.
In six Sundays, I have attended seven of our branches, and been the featured speaker in each. I have yet to be introduced as the mission president. In Liberia, they all refer to me as “our beloved mission president.” It is very sweet, but seriously sobering.
I have reorganized two branch presidencies, have another needing immediate attention, several elder’s quorum presidencies, am working on a new counselor in a district presidency, andhelped a district president plan a conference with a visiting authority.
I managed to get several sisters in one branch upset at me when I advised their leaders that using tables from the building as stalls for selling fish on the church parking lot during the week was not an appropriate use of the grounds or furniture.
I met with a former pastor of another faith living two hours from our nearest congregation who gave me the names and contact information on for about 60 of his flock that he has been studying the Book of Mormon with several times a week and who would like to be taught and baptized as soon as we can get missionaries out to their town.
We shipped 75 surplus chairs to another group of members living about 20 hours away on very nasty roads that are only passable during the dry season. We have authorized them to meet weekly for a simple sacrament service, but we need a better means to reach them on a regular basis before we can consider a branch in that city or sent out missionaries.
I told the Area Presidency that if they are serious about us moving to the next gear with missionary work expansion, they need to clear my plate and push the leadership of Liberia public affairs to one of the local stake presidents. It was reassigned within the hour.
In that same vein, I created and submitted a proposal to group sixteen branches in our member districts to create two new stakes. We are hoping this will be approved and implemented by a visiting General Authority in the next couple of months to form the third and fourth stakes in Liberia, all created in the past twelve months.
Within the mission, Michelle has shouldered the task of ensuring the safety and health for about 100 teenagers embedded in the least developed country in the world. Try that one out sometime. We average a weekly emergency medical hospital run, including a nasty malaria case, a nearly-severed finger, a massive infection from unsanitary food and water (go figure!), a broken retainer, along with an endless stream (pun semi-intended) of runny-tummy, rashes, constipation and assorted female issues. And she learned the importance of over-communicating after one of our native elders swallowed his suppository pill.
She is also our chief navigator and learned to expertly transit the unlabeled patchwork system of “roads” across the area, satisfied the voracious appetite of 16 members of our Mission Leadership Council from several nations, and put together and hosted two missionary farewell dinners at the mission home.
We had our first missionary transfer this week, with 32 of our 44 companionships impacted. To execute the transfer, we used seven of our eight mission vehicles (6 4WD trucks and our SUV) on a byzantine round-robin transit that took most of the day. The only vehicle we didn’t use was the 12-passenger van because it has low clearance and can’t make it in to most of the missionary apartments. Public transportation is not an option because it really doesn’t exist here. So, it’s all hands on deck for our senior missionaries.
Prior to the transfer, I received input from several of them on where they should or shouldn't go or whom they should or shouldn't serve with. I did warn them that they are entitled to revelation on who should be their companion exactly once in their lives and that does not occur on their mission. Even then, it needs to be a reciprocal revelation...
Most of them told me to just “put me wherever the Lord needs me, President,” but I did get three calls after the announcement from distraught missionaries convinced that I had just horribly ruined their lives. The assistants told me that number is a bit low. Still, I was gratified but not terribly surprised when each of the three wrote me two days later to say that they were already seeing the hand of the Lord in these changes and they are excited for the privilege to have this new opportunity.
For the most part, I understand that this pattern of activities repeats every six weeks...
