Letter from Europe Area Presidency

THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

Europe Area Presidency

Porthstrasse 57, Postfach 500162, D-6000 Frankfurt am Main 90

6 June 1989

Elder and Sister

Robert E. Gibson

Urbanizaçao Mato do Corgo

Edifício Costa 1°, Dto, Apt. 389

Outeiro - Arrifana

3700 São João da Madeira

Dear Elder and Sister Gibson:

We are delighted to welcome you to the Europe Area and specifically to Portugal! As a missionary couple with a church education assignment you will find the challenge to be interesting and rewarding. We cannot over-emphasize the importance of you mission and teh urgent need we have in Portugal to provide effective seminary and institute programs that youth and young adults will want to attend. The purpose of this letter is to share our thoughts with you regarding your assignment.

We know you will enjoy working under the general direction of President Dan Copeland. He will look after your needs, counsel with you and involve you as part of his missionary family. However, your assigned responsibilities extend to all of Portugal except for the islands in the Azores and Madeiras. First and foremost you will want to be missionaries and share the gospel with the wonderful people of Portugal as time and circumstances permit. The most compelling use of your time however must go to the following:

1. Training and motivation of priesthood leaders: Perhaps a letter to each stake and district president introducing yourselves and seeking an opportunity to meet with them in one of their presidency meetings would be a good first step. This would be a critical meeting in which the seminary/institute programs could be highlighted, your vision of the program development could be outlined and the support and encouragement of the leaders obtained. Contact with each presidency should continue on a periodic basis to keep the leaders focused on the programs of CES and sharing with them seminary/institute progress within their units.
2. Improving the quality of seminary/institute instruction and activity: Improving the quality of each seminary and institute class will come first through improving the quality of instruction and activity. You have been specially trained to do this. This will be an urgent need in Portugal. You should discuss with the priesthood leaders the need for highly qualified teachers and strive to bring a higher level of stability to these callings. This will greatly enhance the quality within the classroom.
3. Establishing seminary/institute programs in every stake and unit as appropriate: We desire to see these vital programs established in every unit and available to every one of our LDS youth and young adults. It is going quite well in some; not so well in others. If we can properly motivate the priesthood leaders, showing them clearly the blessings of seminary and institute in the lives of their young people, they will lend their support and we can accomplish our goals.
4. Increasing enrollment in seminary/implement institute programs: If the stake and district presidents would sponsor you to visit each ward and branch on a scheduled basis and speak in each unit you could reach most of the families who attend. Another way would have to be found for those less-active. We are sending under separate cover a video entitled "A Message to Parents". This excellent message by Elder Boyd K. Packer on the importance of seminary could be a useful tool during your visits. Increasing enrollment will be a major but very important challenge. The people will respond once they are aware. where institute programs are most urgently needed (mainly the densely populated areas and centers of strength) we would encourage immediate movement to establish institute programs.
5. Utilizing seminary/institute as a proselyting/retention function: Working closely with the mission president and the full-time missionaries we desire to see the CES programs fully utilized as missionary tools. Perhaps with the invitation of the full-time mission president you could assist in training the full-time missionaries to invite investigators of seminary or institute age to visit a class and enroll as an active student. We realize what this can do to assist in conversion, hold the new convert in the Church and provide a more rapid familiarization with the doctrines and practices of the Church.
6. Preparing our youth for missionary service: The church education system offers a significant opportunity to prepare youth for missionary service. We need to work in Portugal to prepare an effective "Missionary Preparation Course" for seminary age students between the ages of 16 and 18 years. As part of you calling it would be wonderful if you could devise such a course to begin at age 16 or 17 blending classroom instruction, scripture study, an interview system by appropriate leaders and practical mini-mission experience with the full-time missionaries. Generally such a preparation course would center on five areas of personal preparation to serve missions; spiritual development, mental, physical, intellectual and financial preparation. If we do this well we can develop an ever-increasing number of very effective missionaries coming from Portugal, and we can get a high percentage of our youth on missions.

Obviously from this outline you can see we have great hopes for a major upgrade of our seminary program in Portugal and the initiation of institute programs where needed to hold our youth and young adults in the Church and prepare them for missionary service.

If you have questions regarding these six suggested areas of focus for your labors in Portugal please direct them to our office in Frankfurt. We wish you success and great happiness in this special calling. May the Lord bless you along the way.

Sincerely,

Europe Area Presidency

cc: Elder Christian Euvrard President Viktor Martins

President Faustino Lopez President Octavio Melo

President Dan Copeland President Aleino da Silva

President Dean McCock President Alexandre Bendido