Kurt Frank here with leading saints, and I'm excited to jump on here onto your feed and let you know of an exciting live event that we have coming up, specifically for those in who can make it to the Lehigh Utah area, Robert Farrell. If you'll remember back. I mean, so many people I interact with, in the real world as as I hear that they enjoy the leading saints content podcast.
They often say, oh, the episode, I love the most is, and sometimes you don't always remember his name, but you see, you know that stake president with the Ys steak president. I say, Robert Farrell and they're like, yeah, That 1. Well, Robert Farrell has bet spent the last 3 years as the mission president of the Lima proof central mission and he's back, and, obviously, there's so much that it's to be
gained at in these leadership services. And so I wanted to create an event a time where we actually gather in person and I'll do a... I'll record a live interview with Robert Farrell. And obviously, publish it to the podcast to Youtube, but all those all those streams to to get the content out there. So no matter where you are in the world, you'll be able to hear this interview.
However, there's gonna be some additional content benefit for being there in person, some Q and A sessions, some time to really connect with with Robert and ask him your question, not just my question. So we invite you to join us on 07/19/2024 at Thanksgiving point in, Utah And I'll put the link to register to be a part of that that we still have some some seats left if you wanna join us, but, this is going to, be very popular
And so grab your seat now. And in preparation of this, I wanna just record a quick interview, I did just as quick Zoom call I had with Robert Farrell, fresh off his mission to discuss maybe some of the general concepts that we're gonna cover on July nineteenth, and we're gonna really dig down in into these things. And, you know, I'm not gonna cut this off at an at
an hour on July 19. If we need to go 90 minutes to hour winter, like, obviously, you can leave whenever you want, but we are going to get into it, and I wanna squeeze every ounce of of knowledge and experience that Robert's had over the last 3 years from his mission in Lima Peru. So here's a quick preview to that event that we're gonna have on July nineteenth. Alright, everyone. It is true. Robert Farrell is back. How are you? Wonderful. You've been wandering the land of Peru for
3 years. Is that right? Yeah. This is true. That's great. And so, I mean, you've been a mission president. It was the was it the Lima central mission? Yeah. That's right. Yep. And I mean, what's the... What going through your mind now is you have a few days reflecting, you know, on that experience? Is it just like any mission it just feels like a dream? Yeah. It I think just about the exact same way I felt when I came off from my my first mission. Doesn't seem real.
It seems like it was 6 months ago that we were in Lima. But life is so busy as a mission leader, it's just kinda weird not to have so much going on and Mh. Yeah. If my phone's not ringing off the hook and text and all that kind of stuff. So it's kinda nice to take a break a little bit. But I missed the busy of it all. I bet Bet. So I mean, we say busy of mission Life. I mean, is there just always a meeting to go to? Is there always a fire to put out. I mean, how would you describe that?
Yeah. We were a little bit of a unique mission in the fact that we were very small geographically. We about 10 by 10 miles. So it's pretty small music machine. I think it's about probably probably the 1 of the smallest missions in the church. And so the advantage of that is you could get to the missionaries really fast. And so we had a very good connection with our missionaries. So it was... A lot of personal time working with missionaries.
Of course, you have your your formal interviews, but, our missionaries had access to us, and that was a good thing. So a lot of time teaching, a lot of time mentoring, interviews took a huge chunk of our time. And then, yeah, you're constantly preparing for a talk or a meeting or something like that. So... Yeah. Yeah. So how how do you feel like your Spanish improved or got back to to to your baseline you had on on your on your first mission? Or No. My Spanish is still so bad it's not 5.
Thanks And for my wife. She is fluent and she spoke. She speaks like Aladdin. So she saved me time and time again. That's awesome. Yeah. I had survival Spanish. I could I could connect in Spanish, and that's what mattered. So... Yeah. But I wasn't I wasn't super... Fluent. Yeah. So what's like the 1 piece of advice if you could go back 3 years and talk to yourself on day 1. Like,
I'm sure. You know, you walk into these these roles and calling with certain expectations and excitement and maybe some some things you're gonna try, but maybe you're humbled pretty quick by at all. But what what... What's 1 piece of advice you'd give yourself on day 1. Yeah. I I think we gotta stop looking at the rising generation as problems and start looking at them as the solutions.
I I quickly realized that if I'm gonna be a good mission president, these missionaries, I gotta teach me how to be a good mission president. And so instead of me going and thinking I've gotta, you know, deliver all this stuff to them. It's really... I learned quickly. I wish I would learn faster. How to learn from them. I had a an area 70 tell me before I left. He said, he was in my office actually, like, a week before I left.
And I had all my patients telling me what a great mission present I was gonna be, and and how much these missionary is gonna be so blessed to have me and blah blah blah. I walk into the consult room. And he's and they're waiting for me and he looked at me and he said, I hope you're not listening to all that. He said, you said you might be an okay mission president. But he said, let me tell you. These missionaries are gonna change your life more than you'll change theirs.
And I think that's probably very true. I learned to trust them and listen to them and then be able to respond to to what their needs were. Instead of kind of forcing an agenda or I don't know my wisdom or my experience or my agenda. Yeah. I think that's probably the greatest thing I learned. Yeah. That's awesome. And, tell me more or this far as your
reflection on the rising generation. Like, as that's, you know, the the first interview we did on leading saying, that what, you, know, you sort of reflected on your time as a, far Ys stake President, and it became very popular the most downloaded episode in the history of leading saints. It still is, you still said on that, Robert, Oh But, I mean, what what what new insight would you share with us as far as just that rising generation and how we could better
understand them and lead them? Yeah. I'm gonna be speaking education week at By here in August and I'm gonna talk about this in great detail because, I find... You know, in that podcast, I'm sure we talked about contention and that certainly is something that I have learned.
To hone in on and not just talk about it, but really help pull out the contention and help people really deal with shame and manipulation and false doctrine and really try try to overcome that, I have seen a lot in the culture and the traditions of things that we have got to change. I'm I was blown away with how many missionaries came, totally unprepared. Mh. And not being prepared like, knowing preach my gospel.
Not knowing how to repent, not having spiritual experiences, not connecting with the savior, performance driven instead of growth driven, perfection type of attitudes. And and then probably just the challenge that we have with, connecting with this generation as far as, And these are some of the things we're gonna talk about, hopefully on on the the nineteenth where as leaders, how do we spend the proper time
how do we create the right team? How do we get the right training to really help overcome some of these cultural, traditional problems and contention because I just found... We weren't we're not doing that as well as probably we could be doing that. And helping them come ready for a great spiritual experience for the mission. Yeah. Instead of so many of them feeling that, it's a right of passage in the church. So you kinda have to do this or the pressure to have to do it, or
I don't know. It's not for most of them, it's not what they expected it to be. And so it totally... It's not just the culture shock. The mission is not what they were expecting it to be. And I think sometimes maybe we... Maybe we're not preparing that as well as we should. And then I think finally, it's just How do we really help them to be delivered by Jesus Christ? How do we really have them have a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ. We talk about that, but I don't know if we do a very good job of really helping people do that. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, this isn't so much a preparation of how well do they know the scriptures or, you know, did they graduate seminary. It's more of, like, just the day to day grind of it all and and being prepared to rely on a divine relationship to to keep going. Absolutely. And that's what they're lacking. Exactly that.
Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything comes of mind like? I mean, what would you say to bishop or state presidents or youth leaders that are helping prepare these future missionaries? I mean, any any specific focus they could have or adjustment they can make to help these individuals be more prepared to serve. Yeah. I wanna talk about this in detail in the nineteenth because... Cool. That's not a short answer, because Right. I I think... And and and I... And I'm guilty of
this too. I'm not trying to act like, I know everything. I... I... Only thing that I've got different than maybe someone else is just... I've been in the chair. Right? I've got the experience. So I've seen what's worked and what hasn't worked. And and that's the problem. Instead of trial and error of trying to figure it out. We don't have mentoring and coaching to help leaders to truly become
effective very early in the process. Mh. And so over time you get more effective, but what's happened during the time that I am learning to get trained. Right? And and that is, I think 1 of the biggest challenges that I see is that we're not really helping these these bishop and take presence, really learn what works and what doesn't work.
And I don't know why it's says this great secret, but it seems like we don't get a lot of I don't at least maybe maybe that's maybe is going on it haven't been around for 3 years, but we're not getting a lot of, hey, this works. This doesn't work. Hey. This is how you connect to this generation. This is how you help someone and repent. This is how you focus on doctrine. This is how you connect The miracles of Christ to
their personal lives. This is how so of just the understanding of repentance is was just surprising to me that they're so... It seems like as leaders we tend to have been more focused on consequences, and and not really helping them deal with what the real issue is. Right? The real issue isn't in pornography. The real issue needs things whatever the sin is, but we're just so hyper focused on that and
the consequences of that. Like, I I can't tell you how many missionaries that I talked to that had this total misunderstanding that when they send, there should be a punishment. So so they mess up, and and let's say they they slip with some self mastery issues. Right? And then they repent of that. And then that that next day, their baptism falls through. And 3 people aren't home, and they've got a problem with their companion. What do they conclude? Yeah. Must be that what I did.
Right? Exactly. And that was the most common thing I saw with the missionaries in that... God's punishing me for the fact I did something. I shouldn't have and not understanding. That's not how god works. Yeah. And god's not... That's the whole atonement. Right? Christ paid for the punishment. And so I just... I think that whole idea of just a real relationship with Jesus Christ through the atonement. And there's so much to dig into that.
We gave... We had a we had a special seminar for our elders, where we talked about pornography and masturbation. So we had mission seminar, I didn't tell what it was gonna be about. I had a therapist that zoomed in from the states. I had a phenomenal therapist in peru. And then I talked. And the 3 of us talked for 3, 4 hour conference. And when I open the conference up and told them we're were gonna talk about
pornography and masturbation. You know, everyone's eyes are, like, this blue they're like, oh, no. I don't wanna talk about this. But we talked about it in a way that I think was so different than what they accustomed to hearing. And that's what's that's just what just broke my heart is that majority of the missionaries would come up to me and say, nobody is talking. Nobody has ever talked to me like this before. And it wasn't me... These therapists I had
were just phenomenal. They were talking about shame and and manipulation and and contention and all that. But that's the problem. I think we're not. We don't have the time to develop these kinds of relationships and you've been around for 3 years. I'm guessing, look what the brother and have done. Have they not tried to shift everything away from the bishop, so that the ship can have all of his time to the youth is... Wasn't that what happened several years ago? Yeah.
Yeah. That was the intent. Right? Is that happening? Well, you know, I mean, mixed results makes Yeah. For sure. Because that's what has to happen. They have to focus their time on the youth. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, this... As you mentioned, we are going to gather on the nineteenth of July 20 24, obviously. And it just at Thanksgiving 0.7 o'clock. Anybody in the local area or wants to be in the local area, We would love to have you join us. I'm gonna link to all this in the show notes, so
people can join us. And, I mean, this... I mean, you've you've done various forms of content for leading saints. And so I think it's it'd be fun just to, have sit down with you and explore sort of this experience you've had over the last 3 years, what you've learned, and And I think it be really helpful for many church leaders. So we're... We wanna pack the house and invite all to attend again, July nineteenth that Thanksgiving point in, Utah, and it's it's gonna be
awesome. So you you... You're... Are you ready to unload all of this that's been building up over the 3 point It's just my experience. I'm nothing special. It's just... I've been in the driver's seat, and I've seen some amazing things. That I think hopefully, I can share with some others that help us more than anything, realize who this generation is and what they're gonna do. And we gotta learn more from them.
Alright. There you have it guys. Join us on July nineteenth again, the link to register and see all the details is in is in the show notes or in the description to this content and click that link, register or grab a seat. There is a little bit of a cost to to attend just so people actually show up. I... We find that people show up more likely if if they pay. But if you can't pay their scholarship opportunities as well, we have available. So go
to the link. Join us on July nineteenth as we explore more about the rising generation of what Robert Farrell has learned from his time. As a mission present.