Elder Perry, Shaved Ice, and Goals

Elders Eldredge & Olson helped this family move some cement so they treated all to shaved ice, and then treated the Elders' families to a picture of the event.

5/28/2014

So this week President Brinkerhoff called all the leadership in the mission together for a meeting. We didn’t see it coming. He called off all of the District meetings and told us that we were going to be getting our zones together for a training the day after our meeting. We show up with much anticipation for what President was going to share with us. 

The past weekend was a regional conference. All the stakes, 78 of them, tuned into  BYU-Idaho and listens to Elder Perry, a member of the quorum of the 12 Apostles, speak to Eastern Idaho. The message was great. President Brinkerhoff and his wife got to say the opening and closing prayers and then spent the afternoon with Elder Perry. At the end of the day, Elder Perry looked President Brinkerhoff in the eyes and said, “10 baptisms per missionary.” This was the information President stayed up nights thinking about and the reason for calling this meeting. We have 250 missionaries and our original goal was "Every companionship baptizes every month" but that would leave a missionary with 6 baptisms at the end of the year. Which at the end of the year would be 1500 baptisms. But Elder Perry has lifted our vision. With each missionary having 10 baptisms, which would mean each companionship would need to baptize 20 a year. Making our goal 2500. 

Now, we are not about numbers, we are about people; children of God who are waiting to partake of this saving covenant to return back to our Heavenly Father’s presence. We had an Apostle of the Lord tell us what we can achieve. This is a promise made to us. Now we must do it. But we cannot do this alone. We NEED member help. We need to be more united in this great cause. We are much like Nephi was. The Lord told him to build a ship. This was a huge task! He had to build a vessel that would take him, his family and all of his extended family, animals, food and supplies across the ocean. And he had never built a boat before! How did he do it? He did it the Lord’s way. He was continualy praying for guidance and direction. We must do the same. We NEED your prayers.       

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Elder Eldredge