November 28, 2016
Hi Everyone! This is Elder Echols' mother. Although Ryan didn't have enough time to send a group email today, he gave me permission to share a little excerpt from his personal letter to me regarding the wonderful conference he was able to attend last week! The area presidency did a mission tour and held a confernce with the missionaries serving in Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro. Here is what Elder Echols had to say about it:
"At the area presidency mission tour
conference we heard a lot about setting goals and then making specific plans
to help us achieve those goals. Also how to effectively extend a baptismal
invitation, and we were reminded about following mission rules. One of the best parts for me was
hearing from President Johnson, of the Europe Area presidency. He talked about
the differences in the prophetic calls of Jeremiah, Lehi, Daniel, and 1 other
prophet from that time that I forget. We started by reviewing their stories,
and imagined them "opening their calls" to be prophets and finding
out where they'd be going. Daniel gets one that sounds really nice; Lehi's is
pretty good, but then Jeremiah and the other guy sound like they have a really
hard one, and that people never listened to them. Then President Johnson asked,
"so which of these 4 was the best prophet?" And of course it's
obvious to us all how stupid of a question that is. Then he did the same thing
with Alma in different cities that he visited after he gave up the judgement
seat, some where the whole city was converted, and some where nobody listens.
President Johnson again asked, "in which city was Alma a better
missionary?" and it's again obviously a stupid question. And we're also
starting to get the idea of where President Johnson is going with this. His point was, of course, that our
call is different from someone who goes to Brazil or one of the other missions
where each missionary gets at least dozens of baptisms. For our mission the
average baptism per missionary per year is barely over 1. But that doesn't mean
that we're bad missionaries. Every mission is different but we are blessed for our service."
As Ryan's mother, I feel so blessed that he has wonderful leaders who help him be the best missionary he can. He gets to have so many special experiences while on a mission. I know Ryan loves the people he is meeting and is glad to help and serve them in any way he can. He loves his Savior, and knowing the happiness and peace that has brought into his own life, he wants to share it with others. His sincere desire is to do what's right and help others be happy.
--Sister Rachel Echols
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