Weird Situation I’m in

What an interesting situation.

You said:

I found out from the second person that the first friend of mine also said “it would help SD” if they listened to the missionaries.

What are your thoughts on this?

Before anything, I would want to know from my friend, why do I need “help”? There maybe a misunderstanding.

Am I wasting the missionaries’ time?

I believe that anytime the Missionaries can give a lesson, even to those who will probably never be receptive, is a good thing.

They can always use the practice & they are exposed to people of other religions.

What should I do if they ask me to bear testimony?

I probably wouldn’t be available when the Missionaries gave the lessons.

Or, talk to the missionaries ahead of time & make it clear that you would prefer not to participate.

Do your friends think you get a commission for every referral? (That’s a bad joke.)

Keep us informed. I’m interested in how it goes.

Do your friends think you get a commission for every referral? (That’s a bad joke.)

I literally thought the same thing. After all, to an outsider (and sometimes to me as an insider) the Church looks like a big MLM scheme. They might actually think this either literally ($100 off your tithing for every referral!) or figuratively (you get some kind of “good Mormon” cred in the community, which essentially you do).

Don’t know if you can waste the missionaries’ time. What else have they got going on, tracting?

Fantastic point!

Did you mean that giving missionaries a referral might help a little with social capital at church?

I guess so, but that wasn’t what I said — I just said, it shows I’m helping the missionaries. I guess that means social capital, but what do I need social capital for? I already spent it all when I withdrew from my call as HPGL many moons ago.

Most of you seem to think it’s a good opportunity for the missionaries to teach something to others. The first friend said that he would listen more than he would talk, so that is good.

If I can throw my own attitude as a former missionary on the situation — I believed strongly in miracles as a missionary. I even met with someone who was an anti-Mormon — joined the church at the behest of a few anti-Mormons and was told to join their ex-Mormon group afterward. I went into the discussion with this person full of faith and tried to exercise humility to let God take over the discussion. Great things happened in the discussion and this hard core anti-Mormon’s heart was softened. I heard that he and his less active girlfriend eventually got married in the temple.

So, miracles are possible if people are willing to listen. That was my idealism as a missionary and it was born out a couple times.

One thing I like about this situation is that both friends are motivated to “help me” even though the value they are creating is actually not something I’m a-hankerin’ for. It speaks of a good relationship and friendship.

E.g. missionaries like to ask questions like, “How important is it to your family to know that the church is true?” These days I’d answer it a little differently than I did 5 years ago, but it helps to be mentally prepared for leading questions.

This reminded me of an incident that I found extremely humorous at the time, but I’m sure most members didn’t. A few years ago we had a visiting area authority at stake conference. He was in the mode of making the adult session very interactive and calling people up to say something, bear testimony, whatever. For example, it was right after Come Follow Me began and he had several “volunteers” come up to say how wonderful it was for their families. Later on the discussion turned to missionary work and he wanted to hear from some recent converts. There was a very well known guy who had converted in the few months prior after hanging around for a few months. He had held some sort of lay ministry position in the Catholic church and was employed by them. He had to give up his job when he joined the church, and he had some difficulty finding meaningful employment since (I think at the time he was working at Home Depot*). It is not apparent much of that information was shared with the visiting AA. So he calls up this believer and devout ex-Catholic and does a little small talk on how wonderful it is he found the true church and puts his are around the guy and says something along the lines of “Isn’t it wonderful how the gospel changes lives? Hasn’t your life really been better since finding the true church?” to which the guy responded “Not really, I’ve always known Jesus.” I almost burst out laughing but I controlled myself and disguised it as a cough while the AA, who was not looking for that kind of answer, said “Thank you” and literally did a “Moving right along” and changed the topic. BTW, the convert did remain active for a couple years but has since slipped away.

*This is not to say Home Depot can’t be meaningful employment. For some people it absolutely is – but it was not so for him as it was not in line with his previous work or his career goals.

Well, we had the missionary lesson a few minutes ago…just got home and thought I would report what happened.

Both of my professor friends showed. They dressed up in business casual outfits so they were dressed appropriately they said. I was impressed with that. Me, I was in spandex leggings, a t-shirt and running shoes.

I was impressed with my friends’ approach to the missionaries. One of the professors was frank that she was Catholic and wasn’t really there to convert. The other professor made a similar comment, although Muslim. The conversation was not structured — I felt a bit impatient the missionaries were responding only to their comments throughout the meeting rather than taking charge of the direction of the conversation. But afterwards, my friends both said the missionaries were excellent in how they listened and responded to questions.

Somehow, throughout all the meandering, the JS story came out, the restoration came out (that one was a hard thing for the Catholic professor to navigate), our structure of prophets and apostles, and a fair amount of the time at the end, after my friends drew another line in the sand, was invested in describing the missionary program. My professor friends brought the whole thing to a soft landing at the end, giving the missionaries advice for their lives after their missions and explaining how they thought the missionaries could help them eventually.

In fact, of everything that happened, I think the character and attitude of the missionaries made the biggest impression for our church than anything that was taught.

There was no bible bashing, but well-worded questions, some regarding gaps in logic they felt existed in our beginnings and restoration.

I didn’t feel it was unfair to the missionaries — one elder goes home in 2 days and I’m sure he’d rather be teaching people who may not want to change than doing yard work or finding. I know I would be. The other elder had been out for about a month and didn’t say much — he was new to it all. The experience is another drop in his bucket to reflect upon as he gains competency.

Afterwards, I toured the building with the two of my friends and that prompted questions about why there are no crosses, the lay ministry when I showed them the chapel podium etcetera.

I didn’t really feel the Spirit throughout any of it, and personally, I was a bit frustrated that the missionaries didn’t approach the meeting in a more structured way. When I was a missionary, I had definite objectives in the first lesson. These were to determine if they believed in God, Christ, and Prophets, and then get their reaction to the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.

But perhaps, given the reluctant nature of my friends, a free-flowing conversation with the agenda set by the frank, but kind questions asked by the two professors was the best thing for that circumstance.

And that is all I have to report — what do you think?

Yeah — that actually makes sense DJ. I suppose if the “investigators” said they weren’t interested in converting, the missionaries would simply answer questions to satisfy curiosity and dispense with a commitment-based lesson like we are used to seeing.

I, on my mission would have tried to make the room fill with the Spirit as best I could with the view of changing their minds, but I was idealistic. I believed everything literally regarding the sons of Mosiah and the power of God to change minds through the Spirit. I think that is one reason I am a less-active Mormon today…

One thing — the friend who said he wanted “to make the missionaries think” never did go that route. He just asked questions in a search for meaning. Meanwhile, the other person tended to ask questions based on what she felt were impossibilities or inconsistencies. But she never descended into a Bible-bashing situation. These were the things that came out during the lesson and the tour afterward when I was on my own with them:

1. The FP and Q12 pictures we viewed had all white people even though we are supposed to be an international church. How could we be an international church and have so few leaders from international areas?

2. The FP and Q12 picture also had no women in it. Aren’t women leaders? (I told my friends that we are working on that with changes in which groups of leaders handle the decision-making at the congregation level. My female friend replied ‘Shouldn’t that already be happening if your Church is true?’)

3. The Apostasy period seemed like a long time for people to be without the truth — how is that fair? (spoken by the Catholic friend who believed the church never left the earth after Peter).

4. My catholic friend made a reference to the scripture that starts “thou art Peter and upon this rock shall I build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” — she felt this meant there would never be an apostasy. Therefore the idea of restoration makes no sense if the line of prophets/popes continued unbroken until the time of Joseph Smith or even the present.

5. How do you know Joseph Smith was a prophet? (Moroni’s promise was the answer we gave –BOM/JS/Church is true). This isn’t didn’t satisfy as the female friend felt that everyone feels they have felt the spirit regarding their church.

I have to confess, I did enjoy the discussion. I enjoyed hearing my faculty colleagues share their thoughts, their razor point questions, their ability to get straight to the key issues, and their soft-landing kindness at the end of the discussion.

Honestly that sounds more like the kind of discussion I preferred on my mission instead of the standard lessons. The “commitment model” always felt pushy and artificial. I would always rather just have a normal conversation with people. And frankly I think the church is also better served when missionaries are seen as people having discussions and answering questions and not some high-pressure marketing tactic.

So there may not be any “numbers” for the missionaries to report or anything, but I would have considered it a success.