In an effort to help improve the teaching skills of our missionaries, Sister
Berrett and I decided to follow a recommendation from a member of the Area
Presidency and conduct a three day Fundamentals of
Preach My Gospel
"camp." We planned to teach and practice with the missionaries from
8:30 am to about 4:30 pm, and then send them out in the evening to do
missionary work using what we discussed.
We divided the missionaries into two groups (northern and southern). Our
first week (21-24 July) was in Hyderabad, where we worked with those
serving in Hyderabad, Rajahmundry, and Visakhapatnam. We had about 33 missionaries in the Hyderabad group.
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| Hyderabad Camp |
The second week (28-31
July) we were in Bangalore, with those serving in Bangalore, Chennai, and
Coimbatore.We had about 45 missionaries in
this group.
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| Bangalore Camp |
Before the first day of the Camp, we met with the zone
leaders to be sure they were prepared to lead the practice sessions.
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| Meeting with zone leaders in Hyderabad |
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| Two Zone Leaders get ready to teach |
On our first day, we discussed how to teach inspired lessons and how to be a
more effective teacher. On the second day we discussed the Doctrine of Christ
and the role of the Spirit in the conversion process. We also discussed how
prayer, Church attendance, and the Book of Mormon assist in conversion. Some of
this carried over to the third day. Our concluding session was on increasing faith
to be more effective in finding new people to teach.
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| Instruction |
Each of our segments was about 1.5 hours in length. The first part of the
segment was instruction from the scriptures and from
Preach My Gospel.
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| Studying the Doctrine of Christ |
The second half of each session was practicing what had been
learned.
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| Practicing with Companions |
At the end of each day, we gave the missionaries two or three specific
assignments and sent them out to work with less active Church members and
friends of Church members.
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| Companionship Study on the Fundamentals |
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| Reviewing the Scriptures on the importance of the Holy Ghost |
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| Two zone Leaders study with a companionship |
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| Getting ready to go out for the evening |
Overall the preliminary results are quite encouraging. The missionaries
seemed to enjoy the camp. Many of them have written that it was a great
learning experience. We will continue our follow up and working with them to
improve.
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| Table tennis during one of the breaks |
