Good evening everyone! I can't believe January is already coming to a close. With the close of another month we will be going into London again this coming Wednesday for a meeting all day. Also, this past week was Chinese New Year! It was a busy week but we have learned a lot.
On Thursday night, while I was on an exchange with one of the elders from Chelmsford, we got invited to a Chinese New Year thing with some of our friends at University of Essex. We got to make dumplings and the first few turned out pretty bad, but still tasted good. Our friends from China made lots of other really good food and it was so much fun just spending time with them and learning a little bit more about their culture. And the food was amazing! It was probably one of the best meals I have had on my mission so far. I will include pictures from that.
On Wednesday we had another worldwide broadcast for missionaries, very similar to the one last year. In this broadcast, the missionary department announced some pretty big changes for us. The biggest is a change to our daily schedule. So far it has been good! We have more flexibility now with our mornings and perhaps most importantly, when we go to bed. The extra sleep has been working miracles for me. The other big change was a change in a reporting tool called "key indicators". They are basically just numerical representations of the work that is going on in our area. We went from nine of these indicators that we report on to just four now. Our mission uses a big Google Sheets spreadsheet database to report and analyse these key indicators. Because of my programming background, I built the system we use for 2017, but now that we have these changes, I get to re-do it all. It is much like how the Book of Mormon starts off with Lehi and his family finally escaping Jerusalem, and then Nephi and his brothers have to go all the way back just to get the plates from Laban. But, just like them, I have been assigned to do this so I know there will be a way prepared for me to accomplish this task, even if it is a programming assignment.
So some very exciting changes are happening! I am grateful that I can be a part of all this change. First, over the summer with the emphasis on online missionary work, then the structure of our planning changed, then our "Area Book" (the record for our area) and our planners went obsolete as we transferred them to our iPads, and now the changes in the schedule and key indicators. I have noticed that all these changes are focused on giving us more choice and flexibility in the work. Things are being simplified as we all figure out what works and what doesn't.
Cheers!
-Elder Ammermon
