What does missionary work look like now?

 Here is a little informational email about what missionary work looks like in the Salt Lake City South Mission.

Rules: 

NO

-going inside members houses

-Eating with members

-Eating food that members have made

-Having members drop off food

-Knocking on doors

-Starting conversations with people in person

-getting together with other districts

MUST

-wear masks while outside (except doing while sports)

-go outside for at least 30 minutes a day

1. No such thing as tracting by knocking doors! We find people various ways. We type in a random letter into the search bar of our online area book and then people who are in our records as "not interest" pop up. We then search for them on our messanger app or through whatsapp. So instead of the spirit guiding me to a certain street, I typed in a letter into Whatsapp and a name popped up that I had not seen before, so we called it and she was super nice and open to our message!

2. Rejection ain't nothing no more! Instead of getting a door slammed in our face, people simply hang up. Pretty anticlimactic. Or we see that they have read our text message but didn't respond. We especially love when members of our ward do this:)

3. We baptize people without meeting them in person before the service. You can teach in the chapel, but most teaching is done over the phone in my mission, so we don't meet them until that day! 

4. It counts as bringing someone to church if we share a spiritual message with them while a member is present over Zoom. Or a member can just text the person we are teaching a spiritual message and that counts too. We just found out that we can make a video of us and a member sharing a spiritual message and that counts too! 

5. Facebook is a BIG DEAL. We have two missionaries who have been called on a full time proslyting mission, but they are now solely in charge of facebook. They don't have a proslyting area! And we can spend lots of time editing and making videos for facebook. We are supposed to promote our facebook page everytime we talk to someone (sooo the page is Church of Jesus Christ in the Southern Salt Lake Valley  hehe). 

I know every mission runs a little differently. I would say the hardest thing about the way my mission runs is being inside a lot. I miss talking with people face to face. It is difficult to have motovation to do something if you are inside all day. There is no inertia to carry you through the day and that is really difficult some times, but there are plenty of good times, too.