New assignment

I'll be starting my new assignment this week. Transfers were officially announced and that means everyone is officially confused as to what Elder Ray and I are doing. I'm leaving Nsambya and it's sad. I've been in this area the longest. Six months. It's probably my favorite area. But it's time to move on. And what I'm moving on to isn't anything very familiar.

I guess that's my lesson learned. Right now I realize how humble I need to be before the Lord for His inspiration because I feel like I'm walking in circles trying to prepare for my new assignment. It's just a bit outside of the regular things missionaries do. I think I'm probably very prepared for this, and I haven't yet realized it. But I think prayer and fasting will help me feel a bit more comfortable.

We watched general conference this weekend. After the session on Saturday we stayed in Kololo and went to visit with President Christensen about this whole "assignment." We sat down to dinner with his wife and the assistants and just talked. By the end of the night, the best I understood is that we need to develop better leaders so missionaries can go home and be effective members of their wards/branches. Another thing we'll be doing is making what is basically a "handbook of instructions" for the missionary leaders. I'm excited about that part. I like discussing the mechanics of leadership, but right now I'm struggling with words when it comes to the attributes. It's kind of a new playing field trying to train someone to be a spiritual leader. It just seems that things could become very opinionated very quick. But President Christensen managed to get a new class manual just released from BYU called "something Leadership." I think most of our one-on-one training will come out of that.

It'll be a very different style of missionary work. I won't be taking reports anymore, my proselyting time will almost dwindle, I'll be driving around giving the same training at least a dozen times each transfer…. It's just going to be a very weird transition. I remember feeling this way every time I had a new assignment in the past, i.e. Trainer, District Leader, Zone Leader. With those assignments I was able to at least watch others do it before I had to attempt it. Then when I started to get used to the responsibilities and really feel like I was effective, I was moved onto something new. The only difference this time is that I'm going to do something I've never seen anyone else do. President has told us our main objectives, but really hasn't explained at all how to do them. It's just very open ended. It's going to be a great experience.

Conference was great. I liked Dallin H. Oaks and always Jeffrey R. Holland. Even Christoffersen gave a great talk. And Dad wasn't joking about the Prophet getting some serious laughs. We had some of our investigators come, and just about all our recent converts. The Keny Armstrong family walked there. It's a good 5-10 miles. Conference usually separates the real members from the fake ones. Or maybe I should say the strong from the weak.

I got mail from Dal. I'm pretty jealous he got to meet Jeffrey R. Holland. I wish I could talk to him right now on the phone and ask him all about it. I guess he was having a pretty rough time with his companion and they emergency transferred him. Must have been pretty serious. At least in my mission, those are very rare! But he's cool about it. And he should be after what he heard from Holland.

I did check that site of that girl. Actually I checked that site about 8 months ago when I was still in Jinja. I think her picture of the rainbow got my attention. Definitely seems like a cool girl and a very cool mission. I'll date her...

Thanks for the pictures. They're very good! I'm sure Kelsi will love them as well. It is kind of crazy how much we have in common. That's basically what Dallan told me when he hooked us up. He was right. But she hasn't mentioned anything about reading the Book of Mormon.

When Ray gets back he'll be going to BYU. He already attended for a year before the mission. I'm pretty sure he's already got all his housing figured out and everything.

Have a great week. Thanks for everything. If the cousins are asking about me, tell them to look at the website. Pretty self explanatory from there.

Elder Zac Wright