The sister side of the mission is in an excited frenzy. The dress code has changed!
Most of the changes are minor, but the example images are much more updated, and a lot better. No more powder-pink suit jackets!
Major changes include:
1. Nylons are not required (although the mission president says we still must wear them to all meetings. this is in addition to his rule that sisters must wear suit jackets to meetings.)
2. Slightly shorter skirts are allowed - covering the knee when sitting, instead of mid-calf. (not that any of us were huge on this rule - not even Sister Doll.)
3. (And this is the big one) instead of repeatedly using the words "dark and conservative colors" they are using "bright" or "colorful." this includes shoes.
One of my favorite parts is that boots are no longer restricted. Not that there's much I can do about that at this point.
Everyone is thrilled. I even had a visiting stake-president comment to me on it. We've all had the thing happen where people think we're nuns of some kind, but with the new rules, that's just not going to happen.
I can think of a few items I would like, but there's no rush to get me them.
We had a spectacular Zone conference last week, showing us how to break down out numbers and use them to set long-term goals. Hermana and I want to triple the number of contacts we make each week, but we're having issues trying to just set aside time for contacting. We've been blessed with a large investigator pool (about 20 individuals) and most of them are trying for baptism.
Which brings us to another issue, I want some advice on. As you know, we've been working with the English program, which as a grand total of 2 investigators, one of which is the wife of one of a recent convert, who just started the lessons later than her husband, and is progressing a little more slowly. Now, we've not been doing a whole lot of time finding - we've been getting a long and steady stream of referrals from the Spanish program this past month - so we've not been able to expand the pool. knowing how little time we had to use the area, we decided to work the referrals first. We selected a several of the more prominent and diligent members of the English program and gave them a "Three-invite card," on which they were to record three names of people they were to invite to SOMETHING that week (dinner, FHE, church, mutual.) They were to then call us and report three things: 1) who was it, 2) did they accept, and 3) did they want us there. NO ONE DID IT. I was shocked. This is a ward, not a branch; they have a full complement of leaders, 60% visiting teaching, and all their meetings start on time. What did we miss?
We went to the Relief Society for the first time this past Sunday - We'd been all over the place the other weeks - and I was surprised to find that the sisters were just barely coolly polite to each other. I knew that wasn't the case among the Brethren - we'd seen them jovially shaking hands and we often heard laughs come from their priesthood meeting, even before I was in the English program.
How do we get the fire of love and charity into these people?
Way over time; love you all. Keep being awesome.
sis. Jones
