Request to Stake Council members to discover how to act when acted upon

 14 September 2020

Dear Presidents of the Stake Relief Society, YW, YM, Primary and Sunday school…

We look forward to meeting with you this Sunday at 7:30 am via Zoom for our quarterly Stake Council meeting. (Note: the High Council will meet at 7:00 am to conduct stake business.)

In a recent Coordinating Council Meeting with our Area 70, we learned about a survey the Church conducted of missions worldwide. Church leaders wanted to know why are some missions flourishing during the pandemic and others floundering? There must have been a lot of reasons, but the bottom line came down to:

• Those that were flourishing were discovering and developing new ways to do missionary work, including using social media and other technology.

• Those that were floundering were “waiting for spring.” They were stuck waiting to go back to “normal” missionary work when the pandemic finally ends…hopefully by spring.

Recently, Kevin Worthen, president of BYU, gave an excellent address to the faculty and staff in which he discussed the importance of “learning how to act when acted upon.” In other words, how do we fulfill our calling when we’re impacted by so many things out of our control (like a pandemic)? 

We encourage you to listen to the entire address, if you want, though it’s obviously focused on the school itself and how to approach the academic year in a different way. We ask you to at least listen to a 5-minute clip: from 9:20 and to 14:16.

We feel the principles are the same and apply to us as stake leaders.

ASSIGNMENT: Will you please visit with your presidency this week and come prepared to give a 2-3 minute report this Sunday in Stake Council on: “No, we don’t want to wait until spring…here are things we’re thinking of doing differently in the coming months to fulfill our callings.”

Feel free to forward this email to your counselors and secretary.

Thank you for beginning this discussion and coming prepared to report briefly this Sunday in Stake Council on what you decide.

Gratefully,

Stake Presidency

P.S. If we have time, we’d also like to hear from High Councilors with their ideas on how to fulfill their calling during a pandemic. Thank you!