Interview Time

We started our next round of interviews. We spent a couple of days in Tutuila this week. While President Tolman interviewed, Elder Moe, Elder Hodges and I trained the waiting missionaries. We learned about area books and daily planners. We searched Preach My Gospel together. It brought back an earlier gratitude I had developed for Preach My Gospel and the tools provided to missionaries. President Tolman has said on more than one occasion that it is the greatest book written since the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. There really aren't any other tools necessary for success in the mission field. We don't need to reinvent anything; it is all in Preach My Gospel. President Boyd K. Packer said Preach My Gospel was "designed beyond the veil and put together here." Elder Holland's perspective helps us see the profoundly remarkable gift that this book is. He said, "This was created to convert the missionary before we tried to convert the investigator." Speaking to missionaries, he said, "Preach My Gospel is supposed to get in your bones, it is supposed to be down in the marrow of your soul. The most important contact and conversion, investigator and baptism you will ever have is yourself. In a way we could say that your mission will be a success if you don't convert anybody but yourself. It will still be worth it and it will still be right and it will still have its impact." This book can be studied for a lifetime and still find direction and guidance. It is a testament to the living nature of our Church and leaders.

These pictures are the missionaries in Tutuila. Savai'i and Upolu to come in the next few weeks.