October was full. We listened to a prophet and apostles at General Conference, made our transfer calls earlier than ever before, welcomed eighteen new missionaries and said goodbye to thirteen, flew to Vermont to learn from our area presidency and an apostle, and stood where the Prophet Joseph Smith was born. We came home and taught our missionaries about the Savior at two zone conferences and a stake conference. Through it all, our thoughts kept turning to Jesus Christ. Here is how the month unfolded.
General Conference and a New Kind of Transfer Call
We spent the first day of the month preparing for transfers, and on Friday, October 2, we interviewed many of the missionaries in Fort Wayne. That weekend we watched General Conference. It was fun to listen as mission leaders and feel the Spirit of the leaders of the Church. Every talk seemed to be about missionary work. Probably not, but it seemed that way to us. President Oaks gave a simple but powerful talk about the principles of the gospel, founded on the first article of faith.
Before and during conference weekend we used every spare moment to seek the Lord’s will for the upcoming transfer. Sister Flanagan and I made the initial and significant decisions, and our assistants helped with the information and clarifications we needed. It is a revelatory process. We finished on Sunday, and that evening we called every missionary with their transfer news. This was a change for us. We used to wait until the Wednesday of transfer week. That gave missionaries only a day to clean and prepare, but it also gave them less time to ponder and waste time on where they were going. This time they had a few extra days to get ready.
Transfer Week
On Wednesday, October 7, we held our Zoom trainings, first for our new trainers and then for our new leaders. That evening we picked up seventeen new elders and sisters at Fort Wayne International Airport. We took them to the church building in Columbia City, where we oriented them, interviewed each one, fed them, and checked them into a hotel. That night, after meeting them, we prayerfully considered each one and listened to the Spirit as we assigned the companions who would train them. Our work was done about 11:30 pm.
On Thursday we rose early and met our new missionaries once again at the Columbia City building. We prayed together and recited their missionary purpose and our mission scripture. Then we went to the gym and formed a huge circle with the trainers and their soon-to-be companions. We read off each pair, and the two missionaries met in the middle of the circle to form a new companionship and then returned to the circle together. At 11:30 we took companionship pictures and sent them on their way.
Just after noon our assistants took our thirteen returning missionaries to lunch while Sister Flanagan and I went home to prepare for their arrival. That afternoon they came to the mission home. We visited, and I held four of their thirteen exit interviews (the others I held during the transfer). Then we had dinner, a devotional, and a testimony meeting. About 11 pm our assistants took them to their hotel. Sister Flanagan and I cleaned the house until 2 am and called it quits.
At 3 am we were up again, and at 4:30 we were at the airport to see off the first five. We took our assistants to breakfast, then went back to the airport at 7:30 for the second group. After they departed, we went home for a couple of hours of sleep, then welcomed Elder Reeves’s family, who had come all the way from England to pick him up. His father, mother, two brothers, and sister were amazing and brought us English chocolate and other treats. At 4:30 pm we bid them farewell and went back to the airport to pick up our eighteenth new missionary, who arrived a couple of days after the others. We took her to the Columbia City building, oriented her, fed her, and introduced her to her trainer. We made it home by 9 pm and to bed by midnight.
On Saturday we drove to Warsaw for District Leadership Council (DLC). Many of these district leaders have been with us for only twelve weeks, and they are already leading missionaries and training new ones. They’re all amazing. With that, the week was over.
Through all of this I had a terrible cold or flu. I couldn’t have made it without help from the Lord and from Sister Flanagan. She held two online meetings without me and did great. She is a great mission leader.
On Sunday, October 11, we went to church in Logansport and attended a baptism there. Afterward a local member invited us to their home. This family has every missionary who visits sign their name on the steps to the attic and roof. They had saved a special place for mission leaders, and we were the first to sign.
On Tuesday, October 13, we held Mission Leadership Council (MLC) with our zone leaders and sister training leaders. These young leaders are the heart of our mission, and we counsel with them about nearly everything. It matters more that they learn we receive revelation through counsels than that we get things done quickly. When they are part of the solution, the mission runs more smoothly.
Mission Leader Seminar in Vermont
On Wednesday, October 14, we flew to Vermont for the Northeast Area Mission Leader Seminar at Stoweflake Mountain Resort in Stowe. At 2 pm the new mission leaders met with Elder Koch, Elder Hathaway, and Elder Phillips of our area presidency. We simply sat in a circle, had a great conversation, and asked the questions on our minds. Since only new mission leaders were there, we could ask all of our rookie questions. It was wonderful.
On Thursday all of the mission leaders joined in more meetings. We met Elder and Sister Hathaway and got to know them a bit. Elder Hathaway is a member of our area presidency.
On Friday, October 16, Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Sister Soares joined us. They and the other Brethren trained us until about noon. Then we grabbed a boxed lunch and boarded a bus for the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial in Sharon, Vermont, where the Prophet Joseph Smith was born in 1805. It was a joy to be in such a sacred place with the other mission leaders, our area presidency, and Elder and Sister Soares. The site’s leader gave us a wonderful history.
Sister Flanagan and I had a chance to talk with Elder Soares near the base of the monument. We also had a lovely conversation with Elder and Sister Koch, whom we came to love when they toured our mission in August. Elder Koch was preparing to speak at a BYU devotional, and I wished I could be there with him. That evening we returned to the resort for a lovely dinner and a discussion by David F. Holland of Harvard Divinity School. On Saturday we flew home.
My first impression at the seminar was that I was clueless compared to the other mission leaders, and for the first time I wondered whether I could do this for three years. I immediately recognized those thoughts as uninspired and set them aside. The seminar was filled with the Spirit and with testimony. I left with an impression to prepare and teach our missionaries each of the five principles of the doctrine of Christ. I want them to know the Savior and to have faith in Him and His Atonement.
The Living Christ
The next week we held two zone conferences: on Tuesday, October 20, in Valparaiso for the Lafayette, Valparaiso, and South Bend zones, and on Thursday, October 22, in Fort Wayne for the Fort Wayne and Muncie zones. I presented “The Living Christ: A Witness Through the Scriptures.” Many missionaries held a number, and when I called it, they stood and read a passage aloud, so the scriptures did the teaching. We began with Nephi: “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ.” From there we walked through Jehovah, the premortal Christ and Creator; His mortal ministry; His Atonement; His Resurrection and His visit to the Nephites; the living Christ today; and the doctrine of Christ. I introduced the missionaries to my best friend. He is my brother. He is my Savior. He is my God. His name is Jesus Christ. I shared Elder Soares’s counsel from the seminar to let Jesus Christ be first in our thoughts: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”
Sister Flanagan also taught the doctrine of Christ and created a slide for it. It shows faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end as a golden spiral. As we exercise these principles again and again over our lifetime, we get better at them, the spiral grows tighter, and we rise toward Christ.
On Sunday, October 25, I shared a ten-minute version of “The Living Christ” at the South Bend Indiana Stake conference.
Bear Creek Camp and the End of the Month
On Monday, October 26, we drove to Bear Creek Camp, a Church-owned camp within our mission that is staffed by senior missionaries. We went to say goodbye to the Smiths, who are returning to their home in South Carolina. We also met the Polsons, who were visiting that day and will begin serving at the camp on March 1, 2027.
That week we held interviews in Muncie, Fort Wayne, and Columbia City and spent time working with missionaries in several places. One evening in Muncie we had dinner with President and Sister Sorensen. He is the stake president in Muncie, and they were delightful to get to know a bit better.
On Saturday we had a delightful lunch with some of our sister missionaries, the sisters at the top of this post. We ended the week, and the month, by celebrating Halloween at home and handing out candy to everyone who stopped by.
Looking Back
October gave us a prophet’s voice at General Conference, an apostle’s counsel in Vermont, and a quiet hour at the birthplace of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It also gave us long days and short nights with missionaries arriving and departing, and young leaders learning to seek revelation together. What we carried home from Vermont, and what we tried to give our missionaries, is simple: let Jesus Christ be first in our thoughts. We testify that He lives, that He is the Son of God, and that He loves each of us. As we come unto Him again and again, He lifts us higher.