Are you kidding me?! Temple Square has to be the most phenomenal mission in the entire world... I'm so serious right now. President Holmes is the most inspired man I have ever known or ever even heard of.. seriously. So I flew into Salt Lake on Wednesday morning and was greeted by two of my favorite sisters. They handed me a slip with my new assignment and I found out I was companions with Sister Doggett and that we are zone leaders together. So fun! I love Sister Doggett and I was roommates with her in the past. So the first few days were pretty much a blur. It was exciting to see all 26 sisters return from their own outbound assignments and to hear of their experiences during our outbound testimony meeting. Afterwards we promised not to talk about it anymore so that we would not distract other missionaries. No prob.
So the mission is completely different! There are around 52 new sisters that I don't even know yet.. craziness. There are now 8 zones when before there were only 5. Each zone is teaching which means that we can teach people who we find on Temple Square, Chat, or in the RC. The mission now has 60 motors (computer+phone unit) when before I left there were only around 30. So our time on the square has been cut in half. So we switch off days where one day we will be on motors from 10-3 and square from 3-9 and then the next day our schedules switch. This way there are always sisters finding on the square but also we are utilizing the motor stations. I am praising President and the assistants for this idea. We were trying so hard to come up with a way to make the best use of our time on and off of the square. We are happy also because now there are never too many sisters on the square which was a huge problem that we had last winter.
During our "motor time" we have chat time, rc time, and teaching time.
CHAT- I love chatting!! So on Mormon.org there is a link that says "chat with a missionary" and it comes either to the MTC or to our mission. We will be chatting with about 3-5 people pretty consistently during that time. We answer their questions the best we can, quickly bridge to the restoration, and invite them to have missionaries teach them more. Many many many many people try to waste our time, we call them "trollers" probably about 70% of those on chat are trollers.... lame people. But what is cool is that many times we soften their hearts and have a legit conversation with them. Yesterday a guy in Cape Town South Africa got online. We chatted with him for a while and we will be calling him on Friday to teach him a little bit more! He was so sincere and is really searching for truth. Amazing.
RC- Now when we call non-members on the phone in the referral center when they refer to meet missionaries we offer to call them back and to continue teaching them until missionaries come in contact with them in their local area. We call this an IRC (investigator referral confirmation). Our goal is to have these IRC's and help these people to get baptized!!! I cannot even describe how much this has changed the attitude and perspective of the mission. The sisters are so excited because now we find but we can also teach them! We have area book and everything to keep track of our progressing investigators. Just in a few days we have already found wonderful people to teach on the phone.
Temple Square- Teaching on the square has also changed quite a bit for the mission. Before we could only find people on certain parts of the square depending upon which zone you were in. Now we can find anywhere and take our guests anywhere. Huge change! We can also call and teach them on the phone after they refer at Temple Square. We met Chad a few days ago and took him on a tour. He was so amazing, recently moved here from Georgia just to get a new life and ended up moving one block away from BYU. So we taught him again yesterday on the phone!
I am sorry that this is all technical stuff but you can probably tell how excited I am. We had zone leader council yesterday morning and I was once again humbled by our mission President. He explained that this is the most important transfer in Temple Square history. He mentioned that this is one of President Monsons' top three interests right now, with over one hundred sisters teaching over the phone. He testified to us that this is exactly what the Lord has been preparing the work for, electronic missionary work. He talked to each one of the sisters in leadership and explained how we had each been prepared our whole missions for this defining transfer. I am very humbled and I hope I can carry out the work as Heavenly Father would have me do!
I love the Gospel. I know that it is true. The spirit is so strong here at Temple Square and I am happy to be back once again to testify on such holy ground.
Love- Sister Carly Jo Porter
p.s. The christmas lights are beautiful also! We have thousands of members every night and we love talking with them. If you come to the square make note that I am only on the square Mon,Wed,Fri, and Sun nights. The other nights I will be on the motors.
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