Hello again, everyone! As many of you may know, new mission presidents and their wives begin serving in their new assignment on or around July 1 of every year. So generally, the Church holds a seminar for the newly called couples during the last week of June. This year was no different, as the 2018 Seminar kicked off yesterday with a Sacrament Meeting that featured an opening address from Church President Russell M. Nelson.
There is one significant change this year to the seminar that may have been long overdue. Whereas this event has previously been known as the "Seminar for New Mission Presidents", the Church will now refer to it as the "New Mission Leadership Seminar". This is a very appropriate change, as it acknowledges that the role of the mission presidents' wives are just as important, if not more so, than the role of the mission presidents themselves.
President Nelson highlighted the importance of the Book of Mormon in the conversion process, and the blessings that can come to missionaries worldwide as they continue to study it. He also spoke of the role that priesthood blessings have in the mission field, and mentioned that focusing missionary efforts on highlighting the doctrine of Christ yields the greatest results. You can read more about his specific remarks in this article from the Church News.
I will continue to monitor coverage of this seminar over the next week or so and will bring those and all other Church and temple developments to you all ASAP after I receive word of them. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.
Monday, June 25, 2018
President Nelson Gives Address Opening the New Mission Leadership Seminar
I have had a lifelong love for Church history, which has extended to ongoing reports of the ministry of our apostles and prophets, General Conference, and all temple developments. This blog enables me to share that love with all who read my thoughts on these developments, which are sometimes reported multiple times per day as needed.
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I have noticed that the Church News never announced who the new Mission President for the Singapore Mission is. Have you any info as to who it may be? Also I know the President for the discontinued Washington Federal Way Mission is the new Seattle Mission President, but that hasn't been publicly announced. I wonder how many other discontinued missions had their presidents stay on in other missions.
ReplyDeleteHello, Scott! Thanks for commenting. I looked into your excellent questions, and here's what I found: When the Church announced the new mission presidents for this year, those new leaders were listed by the geographical area of the Church under which those missions fall, then in alphabetical order within those areas. According to the link below, in the listing for the Asia Area, we see that the Singapore Mission President and his wife are a Greg P. and Sheila Mackay. The link to that information is below:
Deletehttps://www.lds.org/church/news/church-announces-new-mission-presidents-for-2018?lang=eng&_r=1
But I looked into this further with a Google search of their names, which led me to a news release on the Malaysia Mormon Newsroom website. That release identifies additional changes in mission assignments for the Asia Area of the Church, by which we learn that Paul S. and Robin Rowley, the president and matron of the Indonesia Jakarta Mission, were given a special assignment to oversee leadership development until July 1 of this year, at which time the Rowleys will official assume oversight of that mission. Joshua and Steffi Subandriyo (you may recognize his name, as he is a former area seventy) have been serving as interim mission leaders in the Indonesia Jakarta Mission between February 20 and July 1 of this year, and the MacKays were reassigned to take over for the Subandriyos as of July 1. More details can be found in the news release below:
https://www.mormonnewsroom.my/article/first-presidency-announces-changes-to-singapore-mission
I will address your other questions in a new comment momentarily, but for now, hope that helps answer your first inquiry. Thanks, Scott!
I am back again. I took a look at the second half of your question. Of the 19 missions that have been merged with neighboring missions, here's what I found out:
DeleteThe presidents of the following missions did not serve a full three-year term but were apparently released:
Mexico Ciudad Obregon, Mexico Reynosa, Russia Samara & Washington Federal Way Missions (presidents served from 2016-2018); Romaina/Moldova (president served from 2017-2018)
The Church specifically noted that the presidents of the following missions would be succeeding presidents of what had been two other missions:
New York New York City Mission (succeeding the presidents of the New York New York North and South Missions).
Hope this information is helpful to you. And it is all a matter of record. Let me know if you need any further clarification on any of this. Thanks again, Scott!
I owe you an apology, Scott: In the second half of my reply above, I completely overlooked the fact that you had already mentioned that the Washington Federal Way Mission President would be assuming oversight of the Washington Seattle Mission. So that information essentially invalidated what I noted in my comment above about the Washington Federal Way Mission President. Again, my profound apologies for goofing up in that regard. Thanks, as always, for your continued insightful comments. I suppose it is also possible that the presidents of the other missions I mentioned to have been reassigned rather than sent home.
DeleteWhat will be interesting to see is whether the new president of the Seattle Mission serves for just one more year, or longer than that. One more year would bring his total time as mission president to 3 years, but I am aware of a few cases where missions have been merged and that has resulted in mission presidents serving for longer than the standard 3 years. It will be interesting to find out what happens there. Again, thanks, Scott, for allowing me the opportunity to address your questions. I always appreciate your feedback.