Elder Zachary Andrews: FROM PH: Shameless Flirting (It's a bad thing)

THE VISION OF THE SOUTH

"Make no small plans: This is the vision I have for the South. I believe that one day the South will baptize more people into the church than all other English speaking missions in the world together....We will see the time when we will baptize hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands...In your day you will see a million members of the church in the South. There will be temples plural in the Southern States. What a great call you have to serve with these marvelous people." President Spencer W. Kimball

Saturday, March 21, 2015

FROM PH: Shameless Flirting (It's a bad thing)

Elder-Sister Sister-Elder phone calls
Sent Date: Saturday, March 21, 2015
Author: President Hansen
Dear Elders and Sisters,

I am so proud of each of you. I know how hard it has been for you to have faith to find and to open your mouths to everyone. As I said in the transfer meeting the results of this effort have been breathtaking. We have tripled our baptisms and confirmations from just a couple of months back. Tripled our new investigators and quadrupled our contacts found since we started tracking those. That is spectacular. The thing I love most is reading the letters that proclaim the joy of tracting and finding.

I feel like we can still improve. If just a few more missionaries get on the finding crusade we could triple the number of baptisms again. That would make or mission very respectable in the Southeastern US Area. Three contacts a day per companionship and a half hour of tracting per day would work miracles.

One other thing I feel we need to change in the mission is the flirting that has become much more open and I hesitate to say, shameless. It is a real problem. As in all of these issues most missionaries are doing just fine, but there are so many cases that we need to deal with it for the whole mission. I feel like the missionaries who are here to serve the Lord should not be flirting with other missionaries. Let's stop this right now. We get the bills from Sprint every month and I see the number of calls from missionaries to other missionaries, frequently elders to sisters or vice versa. The bill also shows us the time of the calls and the length of the calls and I am frankly embarrassed for you. We are going to continue to monitor these calls and if the opposite gender calls don't stop, I will have to take other measures to curb the flirtations. (like no combined elder sister P-days????? or blocking calls, etc.) Elder to elder and sister to sister calls should be kept to a minimum as well, and should be only to deal with investigator and work issues, not for social calls and nothing after 10:30.

NO ELDER-SISTER CALLS. The only exceptions will be to ask for a blessing in times of need (to Zone Leaders only) and to report numbers( to District Leaders only). In both of these cases the calls will obviously need to be just a minute or two in duration. For other issues, sisters can call the Sister Training Leaders or the Assistants. Call me or Sister Hansen anytime day or night. I will never feel bad about you calling me.

Let's look for joy in our missions in doing the work of the Lord and not in things that detract from the work. I love you all. Please take this in the way it is meant, to move the work of God forward so that we love the experience of being the Lord's servants, so that we love being dedicated to the greatest cause ever.

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Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission

The first branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in New Orleans with 334 members in 1841. The prophet Joseph Smith sent the first missionary to New Orleans in March of that year. After reaching 169 members in 1849, the New Orleans branch disbanded because of the threat of serious disease in the area. The Southern States Mission, which included Louisiana opened in 1878, but the first missionaries were not sent to the state until nearly 20 years later. Missionary work spread throughout the state during the early twentieth century and by 1930, there were 1500 members. The first ward was established in Shreveport in 1953 and the first stake in New Orleans in 1955.In 1975, the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission was created and by 1980, there were over 12,500 members in the state of Louisiana. By 1989, Louisiana had 22,000 members in seven stakes. In 1998, the First Presidency announced the building of a temple in Baton Rouge. That temple was dedicated on 16 July, 2000.The Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission extends from Natchitoches South to the East and West borders through the state including the Gulf of New Orleans. The mission also includes the South West corner of Mississippi including Natchez, Liberty, and Macomb.