Changes in Missionary Work Coming to a Mission Near You

Elder Harrison Riley Peper of the Oklahoma Oklahoma City Mission divulged some changes in mission procedures this week in his blog:

The First Presidency, over the course of the next year, is making a lot of changes to the missionary work. We will still be using “Preach My Gospel” but there will be another book with 8 lessons in it. These lessons aren’t for the investigators, but they are for us. They are changing a lot of our meetings, too. Zone Conferences, which are held every six weeks, will now be held quarterly. So, our next Zone Conference won’t be until August (can you believe I’ll be 20 next month?). There is a new meeting that is for Zone Leaders, District Leaders and Trainers that will be held every other month. The kicker is that this meeting will be four days long. That is insane. I’m curious to see how that will be.

I know that earlier in his post on the mission presidents' seminar President Richard Holzapfel alluded to these changes. President Richard Holzapfel, a former BYU religion professor and newly called mission president to the Alabama Birmingham Mission,  gave a brief  overview of what mission presidents could expect:

We entered the MTC on June 23, 2010 for the New Mission Presidents' Seminar (Photograph taken in front of the Wilford Woodruff Administration Building at 9:00 am on June 23). Some 114 new presidents and their wives gathered in Provo for the five day training. They came from across the world, including Europe, Pacific Islands and Pacific Rim, North, Central, and South America. The Missionary Department announced changes in dress for sister missionaries, interview and zone conference schedules, and a new simplified teaching/training plan. It has been a wonderful experience!

 Holzapel revealed in his Alabama Birmingham Mission blog that Preparation Day was changed uniformly to Mondays for all missions .