Training Completed. One Day to Wrap Up!

Visit to Temple Square
Visit to Temple Square
Today we finished up all of the training activities. The schedule called for the training to continue into tomorrow (Wednesday) through noon. However, most of our group are couples going to Nauvoo, Illinois to the Church’s historical site. They needed to be in Nauvoo by Friday afternoon, so today was a longer day to give those folks an extra half-day to make that trip. So, we’ve essentially got a completely free day tomorrow! That means I can sleep in perhaps all the way to 7 am…. It hasn’t worked sleeping all the way to 6 am since we got here, so I’ve little confidence in “sleeping in” tomorrow, either.

On Monday we went as a group to Temple Square and spent a couple of hours with young sister missionaries as they showed us what they do with their days working in the Temple Square Visitor’s Center. It became clear very quickly that there is plenty to do … and there are a number of new capabilities that have been put in place taking advantage of technology.

I’ll get a little religious….

The LDS Church’s visitor’s centers (and there are a couple dozen of them around the world) have been set up for a couple of key purposes. First, of course, is to help members of the Mormon Church to learn more about their heritage, history, and doctrine and anyone else to become acquainted with the Church’s doctrine and history. Secondly, many are at locations with significant historical significance and these centers have the further responsibility to preserve, protect, and teach about this heritage.

At the historical sites, such as Nauvoo, Illinois and Independence, Missouri about half of the visitors are members of the LDS Church. At the other centers, most of which are located near a Mormon Temple, about 65% are not members and are curious about the Mormons. As we greet and spend time with these visitors, some will want to know more about what we believe. Others have questions about specific doctrines and teachings (and mis-information) about the Church. In the past, these folks could fill out a request for information which would be sent in the mail to Salt Lake City where it would get sorted out by the area where the person lived, forwarded to the LDS Mission in that area, and finally given to a couple of young missionaries so they could visit the person and fulfill the request.

This process would usually take anywhere from four to six weeks before the missionaries made the visit. By that time the interest had often waned or the question forgotten. Now, the person can give us their email address and we can carry on an electronic conversation with them in the meantime until the local missionaries can take up the process. Further, Salt Lake is no longer the clearing house. The referral goes directly (and electronically) to the local missionaries, significantly reducing the lag time.

While we were at Temple Square I had the chance to observe a couple of young sister missionaries on the computer talking (in Chinese … I actually understood a bit of the conversation!) using Skype with a person they had met on Temple Square a couple of weeks before. They were having a fun conversation! On the computer screen were all kinds of resources available to the missionaries … short video clips, quotations, pictures, Bible and other scripture references, and such that they could easily “find, click, and send” as the conversation proceeded. Being a bit of a geek, I was really impressed with this capability! All of the missionaries at the visitor’s centers have time scheduled for them to be able to follow up with people they’ve met and talked with previously. Both Nina and I are quite comfortable with this technology and I’m really looking forward to being trained and starting to incorporate this technology into our missionary work.

Also, some folks reading this may be familiar with mormon.org. This is a website that has lots of information about the LDS Church, including hundreds of “I Am a Mormon” profiles put up by members of the Church. One capability is that people can search for members that meet certain criteria (such as a single mother raising young children who is a member of the Church), read their stories and, if interested, make email contact with them.

On the main page, on the top right, is a “chat” icon. Clicking on that icon will start up a chat session with a missionary (young, or possibly a senior missionary like us) at one of these Temple Visitor’s Centers. There, through the chat capability, questions can be asked, concerns shared, and serious discussions held. This will also be part of our missionary experience at the Laie Hawaii Temple Visitor’s Center. I’m thinking this could be really interesting and a lot of fun! You don’t even have to go to a visitor’s center to be able to “chat” with someone at the center. This is pretty cool stuff.

So, Thursday morning at 7:30 am we leave the Missionary Training Center for the Salt Lake Airport. We fly out at noon on a direct Delta flight to Honolulu arriving about 3 pm Honolulu time (Hawaii is currently four hours earlier than in Salt Lake City … so 3 pm in Honolulu is 7 pm in Salt Lake City). Elder Johansen, a senior missionary in the Honolulu Hawaii Mission, will pick us up and drive us the hour and a half north to Laie, Hawaii to our apartment. Friday morning we’ll start the next phase of this Grand Adventure … and start learning about our assignment and the associated technology.

We’re ready to be on our way! Life is grand!!

2 thoughts on “Training Completed. One Day to Wrap Up!

  1. That was a fascinating read about visitor center duties and what you can do with technology. This is an ideal missionary posting for the two of you :))

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