The church news announced this past week the creation of eight new missions around the world. Two of them will be right here in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake City West and Central Missions will take affect July 1st. The central mission is coming entirely out of the Salt Lake City South Mission, so we are not affected by that. The west mission is being created from our mission. West Valley and Magna will be it's own mission, a staggering 16 stakes! They will have eight missionaries in each stake: two sets of english missionaries, one set of spanish missionaries, and one senior couple. Missionaries in our mission will be re-assigned to the West mission, about sixty of them. Our mission will take in around thirty stakes from the Ogden Mission, including fourty missionaries from that mission. Now our mission will go up through Bountiful, Utah, which includes the temple there as well.
Since I go home before all this goes down, I'm not thinking about it much. My group is the last to go home before the change happens :)
Many missionaries are upset though, the thought of being in a new mission with a new mission president is not a fun one. The first presidency and quorum of the twelve apostles feel that this is the direction that missionary work will go. More missionaries in smaller areas where they will work more closely with the ward councils, stake presidents, and members to do missionary work. Pretty much my entire mission will be part of this new west mission. The Granger area, where I spent a year, and the Magna young single adult stake.
Our baptism Saturday went teriffic! Sister Portillo was beaming, and felt an overwhelming feeling from the Holy Ghost, she is truly converted! That family is almost complete now, only one has not yet decided on baptism. Wonderful family, one that I will be staying in touch with over the years.
Church yesturday was interesting, to say the least. We attended a sacrament meeting in the town of Hoytsville. Saturday was the high school junior prom, and so at the church many young men were in their tuxedos, and the young women in their dresses. One of the girls just became a Laurel. The bishop had her come up and he announced it to the ward and congratulated her. Her dress was a very nice one. The dress had no sleeves on it, but thick straps. Her legs were covered all the way, as it was a big poofy dress. Definitely not one to make one think, "wow that's pretty immodest". So the meeting goes on, and the sharing of testimonies begin. A few into it, a woman gets up to the pulpit. She is visiting for the day, her young nephew in the ward was baptized on Saturday. After she introduces herself, she begins to single out this poor girl and her dress, saying it was "very innapropriate, and that she could not feel the spirit at the beginning of the meeting when she went up to the front". She continued to say how she would never let her two sons view anything where girls were dressed like that, and that this young girl's parents and young women leaders need to talk to her and let her know that it is not alright to wear something like that. She was sorry if she offended anyone, but she reiterated that this young woman was out of line with the dress she was wearing. The bishop stood up RIGHT after she ended her comments and said, "Please remember to keep our comments focused on Christ, and not be judgemental towards others". Oh baby, the spirit was GONE the moment that woman began her attack. Members got up and tried to lighten the mood, with funny stories and good testimonies, but the spirit never came back. The very last man to share his testimony was the superintendant of the school district, who knew the girl and her family very well, and defended them boldly. He stated that he wasn't speaking by the spirit, and you could tell, he wanted to correct this woman and let her know that what she did was not alright. He did a very good job of it, I was impressed. Turns out, this girl is adopted from Romania. Her mother is battling breast cancer and almost died. The entire ward has worked with the family and loves them dearly. Even before I learned this after the meeting, I was livid. I was going to get up and share my thoughts when bishop jumped up and said his comment. Members, after the closing prayer was offered, marched right up to this woman and in a loving way told her what she did was completely out of line, and told her what this girl's family is going through. Still, the woman wouldn't budge, and defended her comments. I have never felt more awkward in my life than I did in this meeting. It's members like this that give the church a bad rep here in Utah. Self righteous ones that have the "holier than thou" attitude. Many girls we saw that day had dresses with straps. None of them were ridiculous, I thought all of them looked beautiful.
That's my week, man was it an eventful one. I hope everyone else had a chill week, free of crazy ladies who think they've already had their calling and election made sure :)
Until another week!
Love,
Elder Scotty
