OUR "NEW" ASSIGNMENT (Temporary)

We were notified late in May that the temple would be shutting down for an elongated period of time to replace the roof and repair the air conditioning. The temple will be closed from July 16th to September 18th if the work gets completed on time.  If not, the closing could go to the end of September or early October. So what to do with the temple missionaries.

There were two temple missionary couples who were scheduled to go home in August and September who instead will be ending their mission and returning home on July 16th.  The Birds, who have Delta "connections" will be returning home and coming back late September.  They were allowed to extend their mission by two months in 2013.

The remaining 5 temple missionary couples, were interviewed early June to determine what our backgrounds and interesst are in hopes of finding something for us to do during the shutdown.

Well, today July 28th we met again with the area office HR Director and were given our assignments.
Three couples will be working with local stakes in member activation. One couple is working with the IT Department in training. Jenee and I have been given two assignments.

One assignment will be working in the Area Office with the Employment Department. We will be working with the Bedfordview, the Soweto, the Johannesburg and the Centurion Stakes with members who have or are trying to be self-employed but are having difficulties or are failing.  It will be our responsibility to work closely with these members to determine the causes of their difficulties and to make recommendations and assist them in getting their businesses back on track or up and running successfully.

Our other assignment will be working with Elder Carl Cook, a counselor in the Area Presidency. Several weeks ago Elder Cook asked if I would forward to him some of my ideas concerning the lack of temple attendance and YSA temple marriages. In that information I suggested that the area hold a forum with the YSAs to address this matter and try to determine the reasons.  I received a letter yesterday from Elder Cook where he included a copy of a letter he sent out to the local Stakes, requesting a meeting with their Stake Councils to discuss the YSA problem throughout the area. We have 50,000 YSA ages 18 to 30, comprising 43 percent of all of the adults in the area who are not regularly attending the temple and are not pursuing marriage.  The Area Presidency wants to determine the reasons, causes and traditions that are contributing to this issue - hopefully to understand what the area is up against and then develop a program to address the issues at hand.  We will be traveling with Elder Cook to these Stake Council Meetings.

We start our new assignments on July 16th and are excited for this opportunity and new adventures to be out among the saints here in South Africa..