Day 9, The Changing Face of the Church

While our training has been with other senior missionaries, it has been so fun and interesting to interact with some of the two thousand or so young missionaries here. We have been able to hear some of their stories and enjoy their cute personalities. Something that has really struck me as I compare the senior missionaries to young missionaries (beyond the obvious :) is that the face of the church has dramatically changed in a single lifetime. With the exception of a few, all of the senior missionaries are white. Not so with the younger missionaries. There is every skin tone represented from darkest dark to lightest light. They come here from many homelands speaking many languages and then learn still other languages. Today a new group of missionaries arrived from Micronesia Guam. The Sister accompanying them said that more missionaries are now coming from Micronesia than are going to the island. To me, these beautiful young people are visual evidence that the face of the church has changed from a North American church to a truly world wide church. We will be able to enjoy that phenomenon very soon as we fly 10,000 miles from Utah and become part of a church organized just as it is here with many stakes, wards and branches. We are anxious to both grow and to serve through the experience.

On day 8 part of our instruction was about getting to know our students so that we are aware of what they need and not act quickly on what we think they need. This funny video illustrated the point:
(although I can see this video on my computer, a friend said she can't, so below is the YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcybQY8dr1A