In the
eleven months I've been a missionary, I've invited approx. 300 people to
learn about the restored gospel by knocking on their doors.
1 of them has gotten baptized (and it wasn't until after I left.)
Before my mission, I invited approx. 3 people to learn about the restored gospel.
1 of them was baptized.
1/300 : 1/3 = Member missionary work is literally 100x more effective than tracting.
Do you get my point yet? Ok good.
Last
Monday, tragedy struck. Treason in the district. One of our elders ran
away from his companion. On his bike. While the unsuspecting other
was getting a haircut. I mean, he was soon located, but went home the
next day. So now our district is orphaned. It's kinda sad. We were
pretty depressed for a whole day (a dismal rainy day, too) about losing
one of our own (and being abandoned) but we're making it. People have
their agency. And sometimes they use it to abandon you.
It's cool to teach people who actually do some heavy
pondering about life and religion and what they believe (rather than
accepting everything their parents taught them). We taught a woman who
strayed from "traditional Christianity" and came to believe in a diety
that embodies both masculine and feminine because it didn't make sense
to her that one would be without the other, and she believes in
reincarnation because she can't find any other explanation for why when
she looked at her baby girl for the first time, she felt that their
souls already knew each other. Needless to say, we leapt into the
pre-mortal life... and other things. Heavy doctrine. Yes, I went
there. We'll see tomorrow night whether she accepts our view of the
Plan or not.
Speaking of heavy doctrine, we also shared a lengthy
lesson on the Plan of Salvation + Restoration with Mr. E and the two
young kids who came out of their apartments and joined us without having
to be coaxed. Three birds, one heavy-doctrine stone. The member with
us thought I might have blown his mind when I answered one of his
questions by mentioning baptisms for the dead, but I think he could
handle it. You know you're in the ghetto when in the middle of a
lesson, a bag of weed ends up on the ground next to you and you have to
try really hard not to laugh when he gets up to put it away and says
"Man, I know that did not just fall out my pocket!.... ya'll just pray
for me." One of the young men who was there with us seemed to be
listening intently and summed up the Plan of Salvation in his own words:
"So you sayin life a open book test...but you gotta read the book."
Bingo.
We finally made contact with our golden investigator
from two months ago. And met her husband/boyfriend person who was more
excited about the Book of Mormon than anyone I've ever seen. He also
asked if we knew anything about the Secret Sayings of Christ, and if the
Book of Mormon was part of that, and if we'd heard about the
archaeological evidence of giants that proves the Bible to be true, and
asked us to pray that the government stops putting fluoride in our water
because it's making America dumb and lazy and less capable of praying.
So if you're wondering about the title, it's not
about the time that we got dropped four times in one day. I mean, that
was not fun at all, but it got better when a 90 year old lady we met
tracting asked if she could buy us dinner and handed us $40. We took
the other sisters out to Mexican. No, the day of tears was yesterday.
As usual, none of ours showed up to church, not investigator nor less
active. And we'd had six that we'd invited. You'd think the chances of
someone coming goes up. Not here it don't. So during our correlation
meeting, the other sisters are gushing about the family they're teaching
that showed up, and then our ward mission leader talks about a similar
family that he taught and baptized in Mexico city, and he says the one
phrase that seems to always push me and my comp over the edge: "The
field is white." ".... in Mexico," I added. And then splash! came the
tears. Poor WML then said all the right things to console me but I
would not be consoled. Not right away, anyway. You just have to cry it
out sometimes. And then correlation meeting ends, you eat some greek
yogurt, and you get back to work.
Same night, we had dinner with bishop and somehow
got on the subject of the end of the world. I don't really know how to
describe what ensued, because none of us really understand it, but
Bishop who's really into emergency preparedness mentioned food storage,
and one of the sister missionaries burst out that she had no food
storage at home, that there was no point to going to college after her
mission because she doesn't even have enough money for gas to get to
Missouri when all the saints will have to leave society, and we can't
have our babies in hospitals or they'll all go to hell because the law
is going to mandate putting micro chips in their arms and that's the
mark of the beast (note: these concerns are only about 35% valid).
Then she burst into tears. Then her companion starts crying because our
assurances of "the righteous need not fear" got her thinking about
less-active relatives - we all have em - that are not being righteous
and will perish in their sins. My comp and I had been laughing up to
this point because of how excited everyone was getting about it all, but
then it turned into cry-laughing because they were scared. And we were
sad for them. Bishop, who's stoked for the end of the world and has
closets full of apocalypse supplies, just didn't know what to do with
us. Except be highly amused. Then in the car on the way home when the
zone leaders call to get our weekly reports and ask how we're doing, the
entire scene repeats. And they don't know what to say except, "Uh....
sounds like ya'll had a good week..."
So here's the scripture Sister Dailey flipped to this week while tracting:
6 And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor,
we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform
whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all
righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God. [Moroni 9]
So we labor diligently. Whether is blazing
sun, or pouring rain, or both at the same time (which definitely happens
here), we labor to conquer the enemy, and to obtain that wonderful and
well deserved rest that only the Lord can reward. So are terrible
things going to come upon the earth? Yes. Is it going to happen soon?
Most definitely. Should we fear? No. Labor now, prepare yourself
spiritually, and follow the counsel of the prophets. They know what
they're talking about. Then, pass it on. "It becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor." Love you all. Be good.
Sincerely,
Sister Valdez
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