Interviews are Invigorating!

Yesterday, August 13, we finished our first round of interviews. We have been here just about 6 weeks and started interviews the very first week. It has taken us until now to arrange interviews for over 180 missionaries and invite 11 zones to the mission home and conduct them.

This posting is all about the routine we have adopted for this quarterly experience. The plan is to interview each Elder individually 4 times a year or every other transfer.  This is a nice time for President Dunn to sit down individually with each and every missionary and get to know them and find out how they are  progressing. 

They come in districts of 4-6 Elders at a time and are in the mission home for up to 2 hours at a time.  Some have traveled up to 2 hours to be here.

 So during the precious time we have with them,  we are trying to take full advantage of the time to get to know them better, share some practical ideas and skills they can use.

This posting is all about the routine we have adopted for this quarterly experience. The plan is to interview each Elder individually 4 times a year or every other transfer.  This is a nice time for President Dunn to sit down privately with each and every missionary and get to know them and find out how they are doing and how they are progressing. 

Welcome! Door open and ready for Elders

Front hall

The missionaries start coming at 8 am on Interview day! Many drive over an hour to get to the mission home.

This first set of interviews was fun. Everyone came in and relaxed a bit in the comfortable living room, playing a little music, chess, putting together an inspirational puzzle or just relaxing and reading or writing.

Then I brought each district in and took new missionary pictures of each one for our new transfer board coming in September.

Every missionary had a new picture taken on our green backdrop.

This is a sneak preview of how the pictures will be laid out and identify our Elders, their names, home country, current assignments, etc.

We then moved into the kitchen and I asked each Elder to participate in a survey on exercise. I asked them 10 questions about their time on their mission, number of companions, areas etc.  I asked to them to share their level of commitment to the daily exercise program. On a scale of 1-5, do they never (1) participate in a morning routine 3) sometimes or 5) always. The ranked themselves from 1-5 and then identified what type of exercise they are doing, what they find to be the barriers and what would help to increase their commitment and enjoyment of morning exercise. We ended with what they see are the benefits to following this guideline and making morning exercise an enjoyable part and great start to their day.

I asked every missionary to share and discuss their experience. After engaging in discussion with every Elder and district, I now have a very good idea of how everyone is doing and what we might be able to implement that would help everyone to improve their personal programs and develop even better physical habits. All of this focus, relates to spiritual fitness and we hope to align them even more for the missionaries.

We hope to be more “Fit For The Kingdom” and improve missionary success while developing lifelong habits.

Many missionaries have great habits, programs, recipes, practices and I plan to spotlight good ideas and have them share them with their fellow missionaries.

Below is the interview room. I have remodeled this room and brought furniture from everywhere to make this room a new space to conduct interviews. I even put a blanket of our family on the couch and it looks like they are all sitting there. It is fun to pass by the room and get the feeling they are all here with us!

This blanket makes me laugh.  President Dunn gave it to me one Christmas and I thought it was so funny to have our faces on a blanket. When packing for our mission, I took everything I had to surround me with family. Who would guess I could use it to re-upholster the couch..sort of...and have my family sitting around each Elder when they are interviewed! :) Funny!!

A lovely part of the room is the great view outside the window. I love this aspect of the room!

Finally, we finished with a game focused on “First Aid Know-How”

The medicines in their first aid kits were assembled in the middle of the table and I would call out ailments that are common to a missionary and the first one to identify the best remedy got a point. The person with the most points actually won a little prize. The point was to make them all more familiar with the local packaging and medicines that may not look familiar to them, but will help them function better when they get common illnesses that can be remedied on their own. Afterall, we are trying hard to help them be self reliant.