Mormon Times: "The Unique Temple Square Mission"

Mormon missionaries serve in missions located all across the United States and around the world. As of May 2011, there were 52,483 missionaries serving in 340 missions, with another 8,583 service and humanitarian aid missionaries serving in various locations. But there is one mission that, despite its less-than-exotic locale, is unique among them all. That is the Temple Square mission in the heart of Salt Lake City, where sister missionaries welcome visitors from around the world in their native languages. And there are no young men missionaries serving on Temple Square, only sister missionaries.

Mormon Times recently produced a segment that focused on the experience of sister missionaries serving in the Temple Square mission. I can't embed the video here on the blog, but here is a link. You can watch the entire Mormon Times episode, or just the segment on the sister missionaries by clicking on "The Unique Temple Square Mission" link to the right of the main video. It's an interesting perspective the experience of these wonderful sister missionaries. Enjoy the video.

Bald Eagle Nest Cameras from Oklahoma

Courtesy of the George Miksch Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville come some fascinating bald eagle nest cameras in Oklahoma. I can't embed the videos directly here in Elliot's blog, but here is the link. There are a total of four cameras, with two cameras focused on a nest at the Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge near Vian, Oklahoma, and two looking at a nest from Sooner Lake north of Stillwater, Oklahoma. The nest at the Sequoyah NWR includes two recently-hatched baby eagles, and you can frequently see them being fed by their parents. One of the cameras provides spectacular close-up shots of the nest and the babies, at least when they're not covered by mom. Or is that dad? Who can tell?

Mormon Messages: "He Lives: Testimonies of Jesus Christ"

This short Mormon Messages video features Thomas S. Monson, Henry B. Eyring, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, and Boyd K. Packer as they bear powerful testimony of Jesus Christ. President Monson declares:

He is our Savior. He is the Son of God. He is the Author of our Salvation. He beckons, “Follow me.” He instructs, “Go, and do thou likewise.” He pleads, “Keep my commandments.”

Enjoy the video.

Elliot goes mountain biking!

In today's email, Elliot described his mountain biking trip to Lake Stanley Draper. Knowing how much he loves biking, he must have really enjoyed that little adventure. Here's a couple of pictures of Elliot and Elder Karl and their bikes, followed by some information about where I believe they rode. Finally I found several videos on YouTube (courtesy of maxboost83) of the trails where they rode.

Here's a link to the Lake Stanley Draper, which is located on the southeast side of Oklahoma City. This map shows the various trails at the Lake Stanley Draper Mountain Bike Park, which is maintained by the Oklahoma Earthbike Foundation. Oklahoma City's website has additional information about the trails.

Here are the videos.

Red Trail



Orange Trail




Yellow Trail (Part 1)




Yellow Trail (Part 2)




Log Bridge

Elliot's January 23 email

Here's the latest email from Elliot.

Hola amada familia mia!

This past week was pretty awesome. Shaun, who was baptized here a little while back, got the priesthood a week ago and passed the Sacrament for the first time this past Sunday. It was so cool. He also said the opening prayer to Sacrament Mtg. We went over last night to visit him with our Elders Quorum President and it's incredible to see his faith strengthen and testimony grow. We taught him about the priesthood and what the blessings and responsibilities that come with it are. [See the video below.] He seems really excited to be able to serve others with this authority he now has. He's great. Seeing how strong he's becoming so quickly in the church is for sure a testimony strengthener for me.

This morning we went mountain biking with Bro. Elliott out by Lake Stanley Draper, east of our area. It was a lot of fun and I only crashed once. We went about 11 or so miles with jumps and tight corners and trees and stuff. It was great. I love getting chances to be outdoors having fun on p-days. It takes the monotony out of playing basketball, but I love basketball.

I'm not too sure what I want for my birthday! But if you send a package out, do you think you could send me out my hard drive? I want to be able to put my pictures somewhere so I don't have to worry about space or anything. I'd very much appreciate it!

I have to get running here pretty quick, but I love you! Thanks for all you do. I hope everything's going well and that you enjoy your new calling dad!

Con amor,

Elliot

Mormon Times: "Sacrifice and Mission Service"

A couple of months ago, we posted a story about Will Hopoate, an Australian rugby star who interrupted a promising - and lucrative - rugby career to serve a mission. Elder Hopoate is now serving a full-time mission in Australia and hopes to resume playing rugby when he completes his service in a couple of years.

Tonight, I found a video on Mormon Times, a feature of KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, that features Elder Hopoate. Much of it will be familiar from his "I'm a Mormon" video that we posted before. But there's also an interesting discussion with a former mission president who explains the mission experience and the transformative effect it has on the young men and women who choose to serve. Unfortunately, Mormon Times doesn't make it easy to embed its videos here on the blog, but here's a link to the December 4 episode. You can watch the whole episode, or skip straight to the six-minute segment on Elder Hopoate by clicking on "Sacrifice and Mission Service" immediately to the right of the video. Enjoy.

Elliot's January 17 email

Here's the latest email from Elliot, a day later than usual because of yesterday's holiday.

Hey!

I saw you said you haven't been getting my emails. I forwarded the last few to you so hopefully you get those. Let me know if you don't. I'm not sure why they're not going through.

I'm doing good here in Moore. Our whole zone had a great week. I don't know how, but our mission has had goal setting and planning backwards up until just recently. We would historically make plans for a given day and fill in number goals for things like lessons, new investigators, etc. based on those plans. That's the way everyone was trained and that's the way I trained too. So we had a Specialized Training Meeting this past week and we taught everyone to set goals and then make plans. That just makes sense right? You don't just go to school and take random classes and hope to make a career out of it. You begin with the end in mind. We saw such a dramatic improvement in all areas with just that simple, common sense change. So we're excited for the rise that'll happen here.

This week was definitely a good week. Elder Karl and I have had a goal to hand out a Book of Mormon before lunch which is usually a more slow time of the day. It's been pretty cool because we got 2 new investigators from it last week. We've been having quite a few members come out with us too which is awesome. One of our investigators, Tanner, is doing really well. His grandma is a member in our Moore 2nd ward and he moved into town recently looking for work. He has some history with the church with a lot of his family being members and really wants to know if what they believe is true. He's been coming to church the past month and a half and has told us that he's feeling really good about what he's been reading and learning. One chapter that meant a lot to him was Alma 40, which talks about the resurrection and the next life. On Sunday we taught him at his grandma's house and he smashed all of his cigarettes which was way cool. It was a big moment for him. He knew he didn't want smoking in his life and felt that if he quit he would get closer to God. It was a way awesome lesson. He's great.

I'm doing well out here! Say hi to everyone for me if you go up to K&K's baby shower. [Redacted stuff.]

Les quiero!

Elliot