If you are interested or have been moved by the spirit and are ignoring it, please email President Packer at packergl@ldschurch.org.
After communicating with President Packer, your mission papers need to be submitted A.S.A.P.!!
Now, that stated, we just returned from a 5 day Christmas Couples Conference in Lubumbashi. It was really a blessing. Here is the Christmas photo of President and Sister Packer.
We also met with all of the couples in this geographically large mission. We loved them all! They serve with all of their hearts.......and have great senses of humor, too!!
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| This is the "casual day" photo! |
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| This is the "formal" photo taken in the mission home. Just remember, the Lord watches over and protects His missionaries! We have seen it time and time again. Also, you will not be living as Africans. You will be living like Americans in Africa. "As President Boyd K. Packer taught this morning, Satan cannot directly take a life. That is one of many things he cannot do. But apparently his (Satan's) effort to stop the work will be reasonably well served if he can just bind the tongue of the faithful. Brethren, if that is the case, I am looking tonight for men young and old who care enough about this battle between good and evil to sign on and speak up. We are at war, and for these next few minutes, I want to be a one-man recruiting station. So I am looking tonight for missionaries who will not voluntarily bind their tongues but will, with the Spirit of the Lord and the power of their priesthood, open their mouths and speak miracles. Such speech, the early brethren taught, would be the means by which faith’s “mightiest works have been, and will be, performed". "We need thousands of more couples serving in the missions of the Church. Every mission president pleads for them. Everywhere they serve, our couples bring a maturity to the work that no number of 19-year-olds, however good they are, can provide.
To encourage more couples to serve, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have made one of the boldest and most generous moves seen in missionary work in the last 50 years. In May of this year, priesthood leaders in the field received a notice that housing costs for couples (and we speak only of housing costs) would be supplemented by Church missionary funds if the cost exceeds a predetermined amount per month. What a blessing! This is heaven-sent assistance toward the single largest expense our couples face on their missions.
In another wonderful gesture, permission is given for couples, at their own expense, to return home briefly for critical family events. And stop worrying that you are going to have to knock on doors or keep the same schedule as the 19-year-olds! We don’t ask you to do that, but we have a host of other things you can do, with a great deal of latitude in how you do them."
Oct 2011 Conference address by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
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