We have frozen this blog as a historical, yet informational view at what life is like in the West Indies Mission for all those called to serve. This blog was designed for the families and friends of those missionaries serving in the West Indies Mission from July 2006 to July 2009. Every six weeks, photos taken at zone conference as well as a new slide show including every person baptized were posted on the blog. All of the slide shows are also available on our You Tube channel. The current West Indies Mission blog can be found here. Posts on our missionary experience can be found here and earlier. And finally, if you are a returned missionary who served in the West Indies, there is a current blog for you. Click here or visit westindiesrm@blogspot.com

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Rubber Duckies



On the day we were trained by President Dorenbosch (the previous mission president) he shared the perfect metaphor for managing a mission:

Being a mission president is like leaning over a bathtub and trying to keep 120 rubber duckies under water at the same time. Just when you get one area in control, a few duckies pop up across the way. You reach for them and that lets others pop up. You fix that situation and another group pops up

and so on and so on and so on....

He was exactly right. Now, when I see a certain look on my husband’s face after a phone call, I ask, “rubber ducky?” And he nods, yes.

Rubber duckies, have been anything from losing two missionaries for three days on a volcano, to angry immigration agents deporting missionaries, to missionaries breaking mission rules.

Last year I gave my husband a big box of little rubber duckies for Christmas. He now has displays of them at home and in the office - to remind him to stay watchful.

For some reason we have had a lot of “rubber duckies” lately.

All I can figure out is - the first stake in the West Indies must be coming soon.

We want every missionary to be exactly obedient and receive the blessings he deserves. My husband often tells the missionaries, “it is your job to baptize. My job is to see that a miracle takes place within you!” We are determined that those miracles will happen.

I added information about internet usage (source of a few rubber duckies recently) in “Parent’s Information” on the mission website. Please take a look so you can help your missionary stay ‘in the water.’

1 comment:

marie-jo.v said...

Merci Soeur Robison de nous rappeler les regles missionnnaires,
nous les rappelerons aussi à notre fils au prochain email. Je voulais aussi vous signaler qu'il n'est plus possible acceder aux successtories ni par votre blog , ni par votre site.