My Stake Conference Thoughts

All of Northern California had stake conference yesterday.  It was also conference for 68 stakes throughout Northern California.  Both the adult session Saturday, as well as the session seen by 68 Northern California Stakes on Sunday, dealt with the new announcement with regards to the age of missionaries.
We have all heard about the excitement with regards to this announcement, and the great movement among our youth.  The number of missionaries in the field is going up at least 50 percent, maybe more.  You might think this is a temporary increase due to the overlap of the next year or so.  I don’t think so.  I think the new age will encourage young people to go on missions.  Sometimes when you put something off it doesn’t happen.  Less and less people will be putting off their missions.
On the stake level they talked about the great excitement among our youth.  The missionary preparation class has almost doubles in size.  There are at least 25 people who are working on getting their papers in.  This is in comparison to the normal of four or five.  Of course some of them will have to wait until the finish high school.  But the bottom line, our young people are preparing to go on missions.  And not only are they preparing, many of them are going to be better able to carry out their missionary tasks.
L. Tom Perry also talked about this excitement.  Where normally two apostles doing the missionary assignments is normally enough, he said it is quite common now to require six apostles to work on this project.  He watched people’s faces in the conference center when the age shift was announced.  He read this announcement as part of his talk.
However, this change causes a concern on my part.  Caleb is one of those who was excited by the change.  He is attending the missionary preparation class and is excited about serving after finishing high school.  But what if we as members, do not catch this same excitement?  Then we will have more missionaries, without more work to share among them.  Missionaries want to be busy.  If there is not an increase in the amount of work to do, how will they keep busy? 
This was the idea I came away from conference.  It falls on us as members to also catch this spirit of excitement.  That excitement needs to be carried forward to inviting people to hear the missionaries.  In Caleb’s case, I don’t think it is too early to start praying that the members, in what ever area he may be assigned, will catch this missionary spirit, and begin planting seeds that he can harvest.
At the Saturday session it was mentioned members should be doing the finding, missionaries the teaching.  However Elder Perry said missionaries have two jobs, to find and to teach.  However the more time they can spend teaching, the more success they will have.  Members can help with the finding.  I think of Paul saying, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  (Romans 1: 16)  I want to stand firm like Paul, and give my voice by inviting people to come unto Christ by listening to the missionaries.