An Alliance That Works!

Welcome to my newest attempt to improve the communication about missionary work in the St Pete Stake. At the very first high council meeting that I attended after receiving this calling, I heard President Emery describe a comment that was made at a meeting he had recently attended. The quote was, “The Eye of the Lord Is on Florida”

As you might imagine, my soul was touched to the core by this quote. I have reflected on it many times over the past few months. As I was going over my duties as the high councilman over missionary work in the stake in the Preach My Gospel manual (I highly recommend you review your duties in there regularly as well), I read a very interesting sentence on page 217.

Under the section “What Are the Responsibilities of Stake and Ward Leaders?”, the first sentence reads, “Local Church leaders and members are your best allies.” As a result of that sentence I would like to share with you my vision statement for 2010,

An Alliance That Works!
Full-time Missionaries (Patience to Prepare)
Ward Mission Leaders (Willingness to Work)
Local Members (Expectation of Excellence)

As we come to a unity of the work, it is a true alliance that we are attempting to achieve. This will be an alliance that will allow the Spirit and the eye of the Lord to perform a marvelous work through us. At our Stake Mission Conference in January, we compiled the goals for each unit and came up with a stake goal of 160 confirmations in 2010. The breakdown is as follows:

Seminole – 30
Hudson – 25
Spanish – 24
Clearwater – 24
St Pete – 20
Palm Harbor 16
Gulfport – 15
YSA – 6

As the full-time missionaries have the patience to prepare, and ward mission leaders have the willingness to work, I know we will see our expectation of excellence of the local members become a reality, not just a vision. I encourage you to stay tuned for weekly blogs and please share your thoughts or ideas with everyone as we strive to create...“An Alliance That Works!”