Kishkumen wrote: ↑Sun Nov 24, 2024 1:32 pm
msnobody wrote: ↑Sun Nov 24, 2024 3:39 am
I’m sure some crazy things happen while on a mission. I forget what book I was reading, but it was written by a guy whose LDS mission was in a South American country. Several of the things he talked about reminded me so much of many things our daughter told us about while on her non-LDS mission in Paraguay.
I am so very thankful for the missionaries the Lord sent to me back in 2002-2004. It made a huge impact in my life. I hope their lives were impacted for good as well. I’d like to hear about it from their perspective, but I suspect that will ever happen. One of the last things Elder K, the one I had contact with for most of the two years, told me was that God would hold me accountable for not joining the church. My reply was, “I know.” Loved my missionaries. I hope they know they were and still are loved.
I am not a big fan of the missionary warning. It is odd to me that kids with so little experience in life should be encouraged to issue dire warnings.
By the way, the book you read sounds like Runtu’s missionary memoirs.
Well, I interacted with this one missionary for his full two years, so the warning in this one missionary’s mind was probably appropriate. If you think about it, he taught me everything, I understood what he taught, yet still would not join the church. I believe he only had the best of intentions. I imagine he probably thought there was no one else to hold responsible but me. So, I can understand that. To be honest, there was a part of me that wanted to alleviate his disappointment, but I would have to deny my Savior to join the church.
The setting when I was asked to be baptized into the church was in our Southern Baptist church library. Four missionaries, one of whom was the AP. It was the first time I ever met the AP, who behaved like a total jerk. I think one thing that may have set him off was that a chart of religions, cults, and new age religions was hanging on the wall in the hallway of the church. There wasn’t anything on the chart that wasn’t true. When the AP started firing off, “Have you ever wondered why they make you pay the preacher, when Jesus never charged anyone, make you donate to the church, huh, huh, huh?” I didn’t say anything about LDS tithing settlement, because I figured they already knew about it. I think it was highly unusual for the AP to direct the missionaries to stand abound the seated investigator, pull out their missionary hymns and sing all of Called to Serve. In my mind I was thinking, “I can’t believe this is happening.” There was no argumentation of back and forth to have caused him to behave that way. During all of that one of the missionaries voiced all he had to “ give up” to go on a mission, including, “I had to quit looking at girls.” That could have also contributed to the AP’s behavior.
So, is it highly unusual to stand surrounding a seated investigator and have your 3 subordinate missionaries sing Called to Serve, then file out in a single line?
The one I knew the longest told me it would be a waste of time to continue to teach me, to which I responded “Anytime you talk about Jesus, it isn’t a waste of time.” Yes, I know they are out to get people to join, and definitely should have moved on.
Anyway, and again, I am so thankful the Lord sent them. Forever changed my life.
I think you may be right about it being Runtu’s book now that you mention it. I don’t know if it was Runtu our our daughter that mentioned getting an electrical shock with each shower. Pretty sure it was our daughter. They even had someone come onto the Word of Life camp grounds and steal doors, door frames, toilets, etc. There were witch doctors, etc. there.
