New Year, New Desk, New Roommate, New Friend to Teach With...

Elder Callahan and myself

After working with Elder Meza for several months, I've just been transferred to serve with Elder Zayne Callahan.  I'm excited to teach alongside him.  Since we volunteer within a particularly small mission, we already know each other fairly well.  Elder Callahan was an orphan in China, and has a rather unusual story, which you should check out on his blog.  Of course it's not good-bye for good to Elder Meza.  As an online missionary, I just switch room-mates and teaching companions, and move over to another desk as well.  I spent most of yesterday unpacking at my new desk and in my new room.  It's great to have a reminder like that to start off the new year right.

BCC Zeitcast 4.3: The Cyber Elders

Serving online, I've had the opportunity to meet a wild variety of many wonderful members of the church.  Many of them are engaged in their faith through the online community.  Following the suggestion of some of my missionary leadership (not breaking any mission rules),  I was searching members blogs for ideas for my own, and ways to reach out in the online community.  One of the blogs I stumbled on was By Common Consent.  The most recent post touched on a topic I had recently shared my perspective on here on How Beautiful are the Feet....  It created quite a stir when I commented on the topic, and made no attempt to hide my identity as a full-time missionary.  Mormon missionaries usually aren't on the internet except to email home.  After some mutual misunderstandings of what was going on, that were a result of the inconspicuous nature of our mission, Scott B, one of the authors of the blog did some more research into my background and online missionaries.  Scott conducted an interview with Elder Meza, my companion, and I on Skype and posted it on By Common Consent.  The interview is an hour long, and focuses more on Elder Meza's and my experiences as online missionaries, than the actual logistics of the mission, but word is spreading.
BCC Zeitcast 4.3: The Cyber Elders