This story is going to make Wilfried wince, because he’s heard too many like it, but I finally need to tell it to someone besides myself.
Today, February 4 (the day I wrote this anyway), is Annie Nijs day. The day of the only person I baptized on my mission. The day (well, half-day) that Annie Nijs was Mormon. The day that I commemorate to myself every year, for the past 33 years, not because of the baptism (which wasn’t much), but because of the surreal and indelible events around it.
Elder Roy and I first met Annie soon after we were assigned to a small town outside Brussels, just before Christmas 1976. The missionaries we replaced left a cassette telling us about the people they’d been working with, and Annie was obviously the star.
She was in her early 30s, tall and striking, married with three children from 6 to 11, but most striking of all was her insistence that she wanted to be baptized.
No one ever said that. Not in my 18 months of experience anyway. A few said they would think about it. A few said they would and then wouldn’t even open the door the next time we came. One family said they wanted to be baptized, but because they had no car decided it was impossible (maybe they were right; travel times on public transport made it hard indeed for such people to feel a regular part of the church community).
But Annie was adamant. The departing elders proudly told us this of course not only to inform us of her progress, but to implicitly claim part of the credit. Baptisms were so rare that if you even shook the hand of a convert at some point before the big day then you wanted some credit. You tried not to think that way, but you wanted to have something to write home about.
Especially when everyone kept telling you (from your leaders to friends on missions in South America to people back home, all of whom had the most amazing stories of converts) that a mission was all about converts and all you needed to make converts was a little faith.
During our first visit to Annie’s home, she repeated her desire. In her strong and deep but slightly slurred voice (from her various medications for various operations on her back), she explained that something like a vision had convinced her to be baptized.
I sat there open-mouthed. And tried not to calculate in my head whether it would count more as a baptism for me, or the last missionaries, but the thought wouldn’t go away. It depended on how much work it took, I decided. Because if she got baptized right now, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, and how hard was that? Where was the big dramatic story of how we found her and then the laborious discussions to bring her along? The sorts of stories everyone else in the world had? It had to take at least awhile before I could really count it.
Over the next month, we visited Annie two or three times a week to finish the discussions. Though she was foggy at times because of her medication, she was intelligent, and there were many moving moments. But something still nagged me. I still wasn’t sure that she knew what she was getting into.
For instance, she kept smoking like a diesel bus, even though she knew that Mormons didn’t smoke. Also, the church was so far away (an hour and a half by public transport, and of course she didn’t have a car), I wondered if she really had the energy and desire to regularly make the trip. And what about her husband and kids? Joos, a postman by trade but a chef by avocation, was friendly to us and made us fantastic meals (who knew that eel could be fantastic?), but he wasn’t interested in religion at all. He never sat in on the discussions, but he said he didn’t mind if Annie did. The kids always wandered in and out as if torn between their parents. Or maybe they were simply curious.
When we finished the discussions, and Annie could recite everything to us, she still insisted that she wanted to be baptized. And that Joos was fine with it. The Zone Leaders came to interview Annie, and the big day was set.
Still uneasy, I called the Mission President: I think I wanted him to tell me that it was okay to baptize someone I had doubts about. That way I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for my selfish motives of just wanting to have a baptism, any baptism.
Though he wasn’t thrilled about her prospects either, he said that if she wanted to be baptized so badly and she was willing to do what it took then we shouldn’t stop her.
So it was okay.
Then on the morning of the baptism, a Friday, Joos changed his mind. Anatol, the middle child, came around to tell us tell us that the baptism was off. After a little hesitation, we rode to Annie’s home (they had no phone either, also still common), and were met at the door by an obviously upset Joos. “It’s over,” he said. She didn’t want to talk to us either, as she lay upstairs, sick from her medication.
We rode away dejected. Elder Roy was brand new; he’d have other chances at baptism. But based on past experiences and too many almosts to count, I wasn’t sure I’d get this close again.
Too upset to do anything else, we went back to our apartment. I went upstairs to the attic, to be alone. Sometimes I looked out the windows in the slanted roof to all the houses across the rolling cityscape and felt this great (and now I think presumptuous) sense of responsibility for everyone. But today I just lay on the floor exhausted and wrestled with the feelings inside me.
It took about an hour for me to realize how silly I was being. This was about her and her family. If it wasn’t good for her, I should give it up. And what was good for the branch? Did they really need another uninvolved member, like the other 90% on their rolls?
By the end, drained, I was able to let the baptism go.
A couple of hours later, Anatol came knocking again. He said that Annie wanted to go through with it after all, and that Joos had finally consented. We rode to the house once more, and there was Annie, lying on the couch in pain. She lit a cigarette. “The last one,” she promised.
Joos wasn’t anywhere in sight. But after awhile he came into the room, to let us know that he was unhappy about things, but that he wouldn’t stop her. I apologized if we’d caused trouble, but didn’t know what else to say. Our church was supposedly about family togetherness, and here we felt like we were causing division.
Annie told us to come back at 4, and that she would arrange for a cab to take us to the church for the baptism at 5. That way she wouldn’t have to endure the train and tram ride. Full of doubts, I called the Mission President again to tell him she was still smoking but that she still insisted she would quit after the baptism. He sighed, but told me to do what I thought best.
We arrived at her place at 4, full of anxiety, but she was ready and eager to go. The oldest child, protective Natalie, wanted to go too. Joos and the boys were gone. The four of us climbed into the backseat of the cab, a big Mercedes, so we fit fine. And we pulled away: it was really going to happen, I thought.
Five minutes later, Annie, to my horror, shakily pulled a cigarette from her purse, and lit it. Maybe it wasn’t going to happen after all.
Kindly as I could, I coughed a reminder through the smoke that if she were baptized she’d have to give those up, and she responded that she knew: “it’s the last one,” she said again, and gave me the pack.
At the church, we were greeted by the famously grumpy custodian, who had seen plenty of cancelled baptisms in his day and he wasn’t about to fill the font all the way until he was sure. I was just hoping he wouldn’t notice the cigarette smoke on our clothes, or worse the pack of cigarettes in my coat pocket.
Well? he asked. Is it going through? I think so, I replied. “Think so!” I mean, yes, it is, go ahead and keep filling it please.
I wasn’t sure though, and went down the hall, to be alone again, while Annie changed, and Natalie helped her. This time I was on an even bigger roller coaster of emotion than before. Here I had been ready to give up the baptism, but once we got in the cab I got my hopes up again. Then the cigarette threw me off once more.
My mind filled with images of how many times I’d been disappointed, with the faces of families and individuals we were sure would convert but then did not, with the wind and rain we’d endured, with the hours we’d put in, with the sweat and emotion and bicycle spills, with the 60 Proselyting Skills we’d tried to master, with the 60 Points of Spirituality we’d tried to attain, with the countless will-breaking times we’d forced ourselves to talk to people in awkward situations, with images of my parents and friends and the glorious expectations I assumed they had of me.
And I wasn’t being completely selfish, of course: every week I sat in the sullen little branch in Brussels and looked at the few members trying so hard and vowed that I would find some co-believers for them and I tried with all I had to make it happen. But so far no one. And here was a chance!
Still, I could give it up, I thought, if it wasn’t a good idea.
After the deluge came the calm. It sank in even deeper now that I did not have to baptize her to feel fine about my time as a missionary. The whole business was about giving your heart to people, whether they joined or not. Joining was up to them.
Sure I’d heard that before, but it got confusing because then someone else would always come along and condemn such lazy thinking: no, no, no, went the refrain, don’t let anyone tell you that you are here merely to plant seeds or to make friends, because you are here to baptize (a lot) and you just need faith!
Sure there were some who easily took this to heart, and could adopt the mindset of a New Jersey car salesman (sorry, I love New Jersey, but had some bad experiences with cars there). This basically says that no one is bright enough or brave enough to decide important things on their own; instead they must be pushed and manipulated, for their own good, or they will never go through with it. I tried that approach myself, and hated it. But I felt guilty about hating it, because although missionary culture was dressed-up sales culture it was still missionary culture and must be good so I must be wrong.
But tonight I stopped feeling guilty.
I didn’t have to make this happen. I didn’t even have to baptize Annie. I could baptize none, or 100, and neither gave a perfect clue of where my heart was.
I felt a lot lighter. And, improbable as it sounds, also more sure that the right thing to do at that moment was to baptize her. Not for the local church: she wasn’t likely to contribute anything. And certainly not as some sort of reward for me or Elder Roy, to legitimize our missions. But rather in some big cosmic sense, because she really wanted to.
I can still feel precisely the weight of Annie in her heavy gown as I eased her into the water, and brought her out. She was beaming, and so was Natalie.
The branch president went far out of his way to give us a ride home, and promised that he would be Annie’s home teacher. But I wondered how he would manage, as he lived clear across Brussels, and already had ten times too much responsibility (within a few years he quit the church, exhausted). And I sensed that Annie would never set foot in the church again.
We went by the next morning to see how she was. Joos was at work, but Natalie let us in, and told us that Annie was sick upstairs. We could see her if we liked. I smelled cigarette smoke and just smiled and shook my head as we climbed the stairs. There she was, propped up and smoking again.
“Hello Elders,” she said groggily. By now my energy was shot and I just smiled and said Hi Annie. How are you feeling? We talked a bit. I said nothing about the cigarettes, but she asked me to take her pack. Again. I was sure she’d probably get more soon.
She didn’t go to church the next day, or ever at all. We kept visiting during the rest of the time I was there, about six more weeks, and Annie and Joos were always friendly, and cooked us a great meal when I transferred. Months later, just before I went home to California, I made a point to go through their town and give my bicycle to Anatol. I was glad to be able to say goodbye to them. Joos was especially nice to me, maybe because he didn’t lose Annie after all.
Over the years, we stayed in touch with cards and the occasional visit, as I went back to Belgium often to do research. Annie’s health got a lot better. She even gave up smoking, which made me laugh. It also made me laugh that she still called me “Elder,” which was a lot easier to say than my impossible first name but which I suppose was also how she always thought of me.
One year Joos was hit on his motor scooter, while delivering mail, and suffered damage to the part of the brain that controls taste and smell. But he laughed that he was still cooking anyway, he loved it so much.
Another year I called and Annie said, “Joos is dead.” A complication from his accident. She took me out to visit his grave. I really liked Joos.
A few years after that, not so long ago in fact, I called and the number was disconnected. I found Natalie, who now ran a restaurant, and she told me that Annie had died too, barely 60.
I’d hardly seen Annie the previous 25 years, and her baptism was hardly a highlight of church history. But when I heard she had died I felt as if I lost something. Not the baptism, of course, which she never mentioned again, and which proved meaningless for the local church, to my regret. But rather that thanks to the experience I had with her I learned to enjoy people more on my mission, and to feel friendlier toward everyone. To this day I am still close to people I met then, almost none of them Mormon.
I finally realized that baptism wasn’t the measure of success and that it didn’t all (or even mostly) depend on me. It depended on people themselves. And it probably depended even more, I learned much later, on a lot of other things I couldn’t have grasped—economic and political conditions, social structures, cultural movements, and especially personal relationships.
It turns out that most people convert to, stay in, or leave a religion because of relationships. In Belgium almost no one knows any Mormons. They only know someone who knew someone else who knew something (bad) about Mormons. Thus very few join. Those who do have some exceptional experience (even Annie’s), or they tend to be social outcasts and are happy to join a group that will accept them (at least until they realize that Mormons aren’t so acceptable themselves, at which point many leave).
I wish I would have know this early on, rather than only after I met Annie. I don’t think I would have tried any less hard, but I would have tried differently. I would have tried to be one of the Mormons people know so they realize that Mormons aren’t (necessarily) from another planet. That would have been huge progress. (And is a big reason why I’m in favor of significantly more humanitarian and cultural missions, or hours for current missionaries, including in the developed world: proselyting missionaries wearing suits and nametags are scary or laughable for most people I know in Europe, but those same people would be favorably disposed to good deeds.)
And I wouldn’t have beaten myself up as much those first 18 months.
Still, better late than never. Without Annie I may never have learned it at all, and felt awful long afterwards about the mission. Ironically, I may not have learned it in a well-oiled mission either. There, I would have (knowing me) imagined that people’s joining was due mostly to my superior skills and faith, and was also a reward for my efforts. I wouldn’t have imagined that their joining probably had a lot to do with big invisible things I could neither see nor understand.
Sure they had to feel something, but they were a lot more likely to feel it if the big invisible things around were right.
It’s also not too late to tell it to others in my shoes, such as my niece in Finland. She wrote recently, discouraged because someone passing through had given the usual talk that only their faith was preventing them from doing what was being done in South America. As if all the missionaries with faith are there, and all those with little faith are in places like Belgium and Finland.
I tried cheering her up. Sure, we can always think of ways to be better. But no matter how badly we want to run a four-minute mile (she’s a great athlete or I would have found another metaphor, don’t worry), only a very few can. At some point you have to see that what you can do is just as valuable.
And sure, if you don’t go out and open your mouth, then people won’t join. But even if you do, people may not join anyway. Because of other things going on in that world. If you can accept that, and can find other ways to make a contribution and feel satisfaction, you’ll feel better than you do when you punish yourself. And a lot happier.
Maybe that’s heresy. But that’s how it started to come together for me on that February 4, amid the smell of cigarette smoke rising from my brown stainless steel suit.
Great post with important insights. Thanks for posting this.
Now this is what ‘nacle posts should be! Thank you, Craig.
My mission was served in France, so I know first hand much of what you describe, including one bad day when I felt like I had been slugged just under my heart, and I wasn’t sure I would make it back to the apartment where all I could do was lie on the bed and gasp. I’ve known the drive-by authorities and the ward mission leaders with their competing philosophies of how to baptize thousands, all of them somehow laying the full blame for the decisions of others (the French people as a whole) on the shoulders of the missionaries, as if we were in control of other people’s lives and decisions and as if we were responsible for fulfilling the goals and fantasies imposed on us by those same drive-by authorities and ward mission leaders.
I never had any trouble loving the people and enjoying their company, even the fun of watching strangers in street arguments or exercising their dogs or their creativity in turning away tracting missionaries. I wish, though, that I had learned to enjoy enjoying them, and to slip out from under the untrue belief impressed over and over by mission leaders that *I* was a failure if *they* didn’t listen or believe.
Thanks for comments. I also learned to laugh at the creativity people showed in pretending they weren’t home. Once we knocked at a door, then knocked again, and about 15 seconds later we heard a woman screaming out her back door, “THIEVES, THIEVES!” That did the trick.
Craig, this is just the most wonderful post I think I’ve ever read anywhere in the bloggernacle. Bless you for sharing.
BTW, who was your mission president? Virgil Parker was the MP in Belgium in the late 70′s. His family was in my ward and his son, Paul, grew up with me.
OK, I have to say this: Presidents Virgil and Jackie Parker. Women leave their families, move around the world, learn new languages, and serve the entire time. I think they deserve titles, too. :) (And, please, something besides “matron”!)
Very well-written post. I feel like I love Annie now, too.
Thanks all. Alison, I was in the Dutch (or Flemish, but don’t tell Wilfried)-speaking part of Belgium. But I knew the Parkers from church in Brussels. They were very nice, and sane. When I had a health problem, he referred me to a local doctor he’d gone to school with: the guy did all sorts of tests but concluded I was simply exhausted and he was adamant that I go to Spain for a month. I told my MP, but no luck.
Thanks. It took me a while during my own mission to come to the realization that what I did was only one factor in whether people accepted the Gospel or not, and that my mission was to witness to them, and teach them if they were willing, but not to manipulate them into baptism to make me or the mission president look better.
I have come to the conclusion that the real church where most people are going to receive the Gospel is in the Spirit World, where they won’t have the distractions of health problems or making a living and the plain fact of eternity will be undeniable, and the leadership of the church by Peter, Paul and John will make it obvious where the legitimate priesthood is. The Church here on earth is more of an outpost, a small minority that is anchoring one corner of a massive endeavor that will become unitary at the Second Coming and Resurrection.
Ah. Love the Parker family.
We rode a bus for almost an hour and then walked a couple of miles in the rain (uphill, both ways) to an appointment in Doncaster (UK). Knock. No answer. Knock. No answer. Knock. No answer.
My companion says, “Watch this.” She knocks three times.
Little girl answers the door. “My mom’s not home.”
“Oh, can you ask her when she’ll be home?”
“Mooooooom! They want to know when you’ll be home!!!”
Heh.
It’s possible Raymond. In the meantime I came to a much earthier and unexpected conclusion: some people were happier Catholic and I should just leave them alone and get to know them. I learned that many were fine people not in spite of being Catholic (as I’d imagined) but because they were. I quit trying to convince everyone, and tried to be more informational, especially to those who seemed unhappy where they were. But even there I stopped pushing: one person wanted to learn more about the church, strictly informationally, and so we did it that way (it felt odd). By the end, she wanted to be baptized–the day before I went home. What a great way to end! Then it fell through of course.
Yes, indeed, Craig. So familiar, seen so many of such cases… You told it in a masterful way. Both hilarious and tragic. The topic raises many difficult questions about the way local missions function and the way missionaries are trained. But no doubt you put the finger on the most important aspect. Your post is the kind of preparation material all missionaries should read. Top-runner for best post 2010.
I had a similar experience a long time ago. What finally made it all clear for me was realizing that the majority of people Christ interacted with didn’t believe or convert. And some of them even killed him. And I knew that couldn’t have been due to any lack of faith on His part, or any imperfection He had.
Thanks so much for sharing this!
Excellent post. It reminds me of my ah-ha moment after years serving in the Young Women program. Until that moment, I felt responsible for every poor decision those girls made. Then something clicked and I just knew that I had been wrong, so wrong. It was enough for me to love them. In fact, that’s what I was supposed to do.
This is terrific. You are a gifted writer. I especially liked this–”And it probably depended even more, I learned much later, on a lot of other things I couldn’t have grasped—economic and political conditions, social structures, cultural movements, and especially personal relationships.” I’d like to think that I’d be a much better full-time missionary now, over a decade later.
I’m going to print this out so when the time comes to hopefully send my boys off on their missions, they’ll be able to refer to this (and maybe avoid the 18 months of beating themselves up).
At the risk of sounding whiny, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for us missionaries in South America (not that I think you’re saying this but we frequently seem to be held up as the ‘lucky’ ones).
I still have dreams where I have to return as a missionary. They are not pleasant ones.
Thanks for comments.
Glad you figured it out Ahna.
Lupita, I know that my image of Latin American mission life is mythical—I didn’t know it first hand, but that’s also what made it powerful in our minds. I’m sure it’s distorted in reality. And I’ve since heard stories from friends in some missions who baptized people under far shakier circumstances than Annie’s. So I know it’s not all wine, er, grape juice and roses there. But I still get the impression (from about a dozen nieces and nephews, plus lots of friends who went there) that if you try hard enough there, you will find people who want to be baptized. Am I far off? The difference of course is to imagine being in a place where if you try hard you still may not find anyone, and then you conclude that it must be because you’re not trying hard enough.
How wonderful that a mission is just as unique an experience as our mortal life. You get what you get. But wherever you are you can learn so many things the Lord would have you learn.
I noticed that you wished you had known things before. As a parent, I try and I try to teach my children. I’ve got all these years of life experience and I want to teach them the wisdom I’ve gained. But, really, so much they have to go out and learn for themselves.
Thank you for the story. I always appreciate the little bit I can learn just by reading someone else’s experience.
P.S. Lupita: I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve had the same dreams (including me), and though I have no statistically significant results they tend to come from similar personalities (I won’t say more here, but plan to write about this elsewhere), and aren’t necessarily restricted by any means to those in non- or little-baptizing missions.
In all honesty, I was disappointed many years ago when I was called to serve in Mexico (with zillions of baptisms), rather than some place exciting and challenging (but fewer baptisms) like Europe or Asia. I felt a little better when a room mate explained to me that the Lord called people who needed greater humility to tougher missions and those of us who were already humble got sent to where the harvest was greater. QED ;)
Craig,
My brother also served in the Belgium Antwerp Mission around 1976. His name was Elder Woolley. He too went through the same things that you mentioned and like you said got letters from friends serving in South America who were baptizing many. Many. But I believe he too learned that it was really about the love. I don’t know that he *ever* baptized there but did return twice before his tragic accident in 1995. He returned to that area to go be with the people he loved and who loved him.
Thank you for the moving story. It *so* reminds me of him….
Tommie Sue
Humble DavidH: thanks for that.
Tommie S: I even remember him, and am sorry, I didn’t know about his accident. I’m glad he got to go back; I go about every year, and that used to be a novelty, but since the mid 90s it seems like everyone travels. Still, I love visiting my old friends.
“But I still get the impression (from about a dozen nieces and nephews, plus lots of friends who went there) that if you try hard enough there, you will find people who want to be baptized.”
No, you’re not far off. But, as you so eloquently expressed in your post, there’s so much more beyond baptism. When I followed a “super missionary” into his zone, who’d been baptizing dozens of people a month and attendance hovered around 40 with 700 names on the rolls, it was hard, for me anyway, to stay motivated to just baptize more people.
I even asked my MP if I could be a ‘reactivation’ missionary. He told me I was there to do one thing, which was, of course, to baptize.
My husband served in Spain, though, and his experiences sound quite similar to yours.
I always quoted Winston Churchill (involved in a different sort of war), to my missionaries: “You cannot guarantee success; you can only deserve it.”
All of which should not make us forget that sometimes, by blessing or by accident, missionaries teach and baptize people who become dedicated workers in the Kingdom, and who will live the Gospel faithfully for decades in often challenging circumstances. In the late 70s and early 80s, when the Antwerp Belgium mission had its own short-lived existence, quite a few of such members were baptized. Many are still active and serving diligently.
Hard to say what makes an individual missionary succesful — if there even is a formula behind it. My impression, after having worked with missionaries for a few decades, is that a missionary who simply does his work because he loves people, who is respectful of local traditions and eager to learn, who does not care too much about figures and reports and rewards, who just simply and plainly is him or herself without playing a role, who often is a little bit older than the others — has somewhat more chance to win the trust of investigators (and of local members to entrust friends to such a missionary).
But the irony is that even a missionary who is the contrary of all that can knock on the door of the golden investigator, a future bishop or RS president, waiting for the Restored Gospel.
Thanks for telling that story. I never did learn those lessons on my mission, and I wish I had. In hindsight, I can see many opportunities where I could have simply loved the people, and I passed them by. I’d be a completely different missionary now. I’d baptize fewer people, and love all of them more.
I was in a high-baptizing mission, and we heard talks about how if we only had more faith, we could baptize thousands instead of just hundreds. Just so you don’t think that only missionaries in low-baptizing missions got guilt-tripped about not having enough faith.
Every missionary needs to hear your insights about how conversion depends on many factors besides the missionary’s faith. It would free up the missionaries to love the people, instead of seeing them as proof of their faith. That was my attitude, and it was so very wrong.
Thank you, Craig. I related to your story. It almost caused me to jot down an incident from my own mission in reply, one that the cigarette reminded me of, even though it did not involve a cigarette but rather a female body, which I got too much of a glimpse of to do a missionary’s sanity any good.
But I decided to hold off for now. I am working on two books based on my mission – one fiction, one non-fiction, wrapped around photographs. I don’t know which one I will finish first, if I ever finish either, but when I do, fiction or non, the story will be in there.
Maybe you could write a book, too.
Based on what I just read, I would buy it.
Oh, damn! My black cat just knocked my iPhone off my desk onto the floor.
Don’t misunderstand. He is a very good cat and I love him.
Great post Craig. Should be part of mission presidents training.
Bill at #24 – but do you love your iPhone more than your cat?
One real problem that exists is when mission presidents look at numbers of baptisms as a status figure for themselves or for what they believe to be their chances at future advancement. This drive then of course gets pushed on to the missionaries to make it a reality. Perhaps there is ample training on the importance of avoiding this attitude in mission president training but if not it should definitely be incorporated.
I loved this post. I can really relate to this post as one having served in Europe.
We had a GA visit our mission. He told us that the point of being a missionary was not to baptize, but rather to teach. The individuals we encountered were the only ones who could decide to accept the gospel. His talk seemed to clarify a lot. In general numbers weren’t pushed too hard and I appreciated that.
I decided to focus much of my attention on becoming the best teacher I could and not being afraid to open my mouth. I tried to work hard and my companion and I were privileged to teach some wonderful people. None were baptized, but at least they had the chance to hear about the gospel. I remember coming home some days and thinking about what a privileged it was to be the first person to tell people about the gospel for the first time in their mortal existence. They may not have been ready to accept what we taught, but I felt the Lord was pleased with my effort.
Thanks for comments. Wilfried, I like what you said about the attributes of a missionary. I remember the initial disappointment but then the relief and the truth when I came to the conclusion that I needed to be myself, instead of some legendary figure I’d learned about.
Melinda, it’s interesting that even in your mission the cry was “more, more!” I guess we could say that about everything but I wonder at what point we should be content with where we are, or at least accept it. Maybe there’s fear of complacency in that, but what about the fear of self-castigation that comes from never being satisfied?
Thanks Bill, we’ll see.
John F., it’s hard to read people’s motives, any time, but I’d say pressure is put on them as well, from experiences I know.
rk, yes that talk is given too, and I’m glad you absorbed it and took it as your standard; maybe it was my own fault for letting the other sort of talk (when it came through soon after, as my niece in Finland and another niece in Poland both experienced in the past three years) overwhelm it. I often wished the report forms would just disappear, because I felt I’d be better without them, not worse.
Murray: There can be no question – My cat. That’s why I didn’t get mad at the cat when he knocked the iPhone onto the floor. My cats. There are four of them.
Craig – I take that as, yes, you have given plenty of though to the idea and have even done work in that direction.
Keep at it.
I had some similarly heartbreaking experiences in my mission.
It took a while for me to figure out that this was simply a lesson in the worth of souls: in some missions it took the efforts of one missionary to bring many souls into the fold; in other missions, it took the efforts of many missionaries to bring one soul into the fold–and only the last two of those many missionaries might ever see the results of those accumulated efforts. That soul might be behind the 100,000th door, and who knows how many missionaries it would take to get the first 99,999 out of the way.
Melinda (#23), P.S. Maybe another six months and you would have figured it out then? Those last six months were crucial for me, but maybe I’m a slow learner too.
Jeremy, heartbreaking is the right word. Some of that isn’t bad, you know with the broken heart and contrite spirit and all that. The question is how much you can take. As for the worth of souls: the one matters, but so do the 99,999, and so the question there is what might be done to connect with them somehow? So they feel content, and so the missionaries feel a more regular sense of worth in what they’re doing?
This brings back many memories from my own experience as a missionary in France during the turn of the millenium. Perhaps by then the visiting authorities had changed their outlook, as most of the training we received from them and from our mission president centered on doing our very best to persuade others to come to Christ, but understanding that our role was to warn, serve, and teach; if we did so, we would be blessed as if we had baptized thousands. I distinctly remember one general authority directing us (jokingly) not to write or otherwise communicate with missionary friends in South America. Another general authority specifically denounced things like “covenanting with the Lord” (oh, the mission lore) and other things that involve asking the Lord to interfere with others’ agency. In short, there seemed to be a strong push against the type of faith-guilting described in the OP and other comments.
Thank you for the wonderful post.
Ray Tak Swenson:
Amen. I also like to think that missionary encounters in this life will be remembered in the future in the spirit-world; and those memories will be useful in A) letting people know that the Lord cared enough about them to send missionaries to them with “clues” at least, so that they at least had a chance. “Don’t you remember those two boys in suits and black name tags? I sent them to try to reach you.”
B) serve as starting points of an investigation in the spirit world. The Holy Ghost works in the spirit world too, and will “bring to remembrance” things from the mortal world. If a deceased person prays in the spirit world, the Holy Ghost can bring to remembrance those encounters with the missionaries, which can trigger the deceased person to go look up “mormon missionaries” or equivalent in the spirit world.
Craig H:
That’s actually a sales technique called “divorcing yourself from the outcome.” Present the product with information and let the prospect decide. And it actually works better because there’s less pressure and makes the salesman more confident. That confidence and lack of pressure allows the prospect to feel more confident in receiving and considering the information. I try to do that in my book-slinging as I believe it to be important. I always try to frame my info offers as: “would you like…” as opposed to “Here! [shove material in face] Please take this.”
Jinny:
Same with all the prophets and major missionaries in the scriptures. Even with Ammon, more Lamanites did not convert than those who did. (The converts were outnumbered and had to flee to Nephite-land.) Noah didn’t have much success, etc. The biblical apostles had thousands of converts on Pentecost, but even those were in a minority. The branches that Paul set up were small minorities too. Most prophets and missionaries in the scriptures seemed to make more enemies than friends. Even in this dispensation, when we think of Wilford Woodruff baptizing thousands, there were many more times that many who were mad at him.
Lupita:
I don’t have them any more, but in the past I used to have dreams where I was in a previous stage of life. In high school I sometimes dreamed I was in grade-school. After college I sometimes dreamed I was back in college. After my mission (which was post-college) I sometimes dreamed I was back in the mission. I don’t know (and didn’t then) whether in the dream I had “gone back” or whether I was “still in”. They weren’t nightmares, but they were unpleasant and frustrating. I suppose the analysis is that I still needed to “process” those periods or that I felt I had left things unlearned or undone.
rk:
See my above reply to Ray Tak. The benefits will be more observable in the spirit world. a) they’ll feel grateful the Lord cared enough to send you, b) grateful to you that you took the time and effort to go and make the contacts, etc. c) It will be a memory that will have other uses for them in the spirit world, where the Holy Ghost can influence them to focus on that memory and give it consideration.
craig H
Pressure is a leadership technique. A _little_ pressure is good, but can be taken to extremes. I think it took into the 1990′s for the GA’s to get a full picture of what that pressure was leading to (ie, 100′s of thousands of bogus baptisms in Latin America, ie, John Dehlin’s story), and until the early 2000′s for President Hinkley to fully implement management style changes through the GAs and mission presidencies.
Interesting JT, but the outlook can change again, I’ve learned. Still, let’s hope that holds, and the emphasis probably on the serving, because that’s what there’s probably most time to do. Hard to warn and teach if few people let you do so during all those working hours, And does the sense of satisfaction have to be equated with thousands of baptisms? I’d think the satisfaction was itself enough.
Bookslinger, so even that was a sales technique! Good grief, I can’t escape them. Well, at least it didn’t feel that way, it wasn’t a conscious tactic. I would have felt less comfortable if I thought of it as an attempt to manipulate.
Craig: Uh… no, “divorcing yourself from the outcome” is not manipulation. Not all sales techniques are manipulatory. There really _are_ righteous sales techniques. One book that has that philosophy is Same Game New Rules, by Bill Caskey. http://www.samegamenewrules.com There really is such as thing as “righteous selling” that fully respects the agency of the prospect/investigator. Sales don’t have to be manipulative.
Was Ammon being manipulative when he told King Lamoni he wanted to hang out for a few years and work for him? No. But was hanging out and tending (4-legged) sheep really what Ammon had in mind? No again.
I imagine a courtier whispering to Lamoni during that first encounter: “Don’t trust him, oh King! He’s up to something. He’s just a Nephite after all. He’s just going to try to convert you to those silly Nephite beliefs and traditions. That’s all he’s here for!”
And maybe during that first discussion the next day (after the sheep watering arm-cutting-off incident) King Lamoni may have asked : “You didn’t come here just to tend sheep, did you?”. Or maybe Lamoni asked that question later in the week over dinner. Ammon would have said “uhhh, no, I didn’t.” But, Lamoni, now having been converted to the Lord, would have said “That’s okay. I’m so glad you came!”
Like the Bible says, they can’t believe unless they hear, and they can’t hear unless someone goes and preaches. You can’t just go out and only do service and hope that people will intitiate investigating on their own. Too many people wait for the ball to bounce their way first. Most people need an invitation to investigate.
Even Elder Packer once said that “legitimate sales techniques” are appropriate in getting people to listen and read. There is no wrong reason to read the scriptures. The only “convincing” that needs to be done is to convince people to investigate, read, ponder, and pray. The conversion is always up to the Holy Ghost. And the commitment is (or should be) up to the individual. The problem is when missionaries take the pressure they receive through the mission/church hierarchy and apply it all the way through the process including the committment to baptism.
One guy used the phrase “to elderize” people, in reference to using the “power of persuasion,” or the power of personality, instead of letting the Spirit testify and convert.
In my opinion, there’s no sin in using any legitimate or righteous “sales technique” to get people to investigate, read, ponder and pray. The sin is in any mental/emotional/psychological or other coercion pertaining to baptism and membership committments.
One highly successfull sister missionary, who was a convert herself, said: “Sure, I had a testimony when I was baptized. But those elders still were awful cute.”
I now understand where your mission president was coming from. If someone voluntarily gives all the right answers to the interview questions, and verbally makes all the right committments without any coercion, and actively _requests_ baptism, they shouldn’t be denied baptism unless the Spirit specifically tells the interviewer not to.
(Interview questions have been modified over the years, and sometimes from mission-to-mission, so that actual number of weeks “clean” in terms of WoW, and number of consecutive Sundays attended are taken into account.)
Our mission recently had a case where the missionaries knew, or had good reason to believe, that an investigator was not keeping the word of wisdom, and lied about it. But the investigator said he was keeping it, and requested baptism. A counselor to the mission president even performed the interview. But it’s kind of like a temple recommend interview, where the bishop is supposed to go by what the person says, and if they give the right answers, poof, they get the ticket, even if the bishop suspects otherwise.
Go back to the Heber J. Grant PH/RS manual, and read the chapter where someone who was excommunicated requested rebaptism, and HJG as a member of the 12 was vetoing it. Eventually, HJG came around and told President Taylor: “I’d baptize the devil if he requested it.”
I remember a case in my mission where I thought a person was needlessly baptized, but he turned out to be a key stepping stone for one of his friends to join the church. The Lord is very merciful, and He is in charge. I think the Lord has been and will be very merciful towards person “A” in his inactivity because “A” was necessary in the conversion of person “B”.
Like Elder Oaks and Nelson taught, the church has to teach the standards, but the exceptions are up to the Lord. It just may turn out that in some cases, the Lord might not want earthly problems with the Word of Wisdom to interfere with someone’s progression on the other side of the veil, and the Lord might want that person baptized before they die instead of having to wait untold number of years for a proxy baptism.
Sorry, I ramble.
Here’s the relevant chapter describing “divorcing yourself from the outcome” (or detachment) in the sales paradigm, free download:
http://www.samegamenewrules.com/pdf/SGNR_Chapter_Four.pdf
In response to Elder Packer’s quote, I still wonder about sales techniques. True, the Holy Ghost is what converts a person, and the Holy Ghost may touch that person while they read the Book of Mormon…. but don’t we also want the Holy Ghost to touch that person while the missionary is speaking as well? I’m wondering how much Spirit felt during the usage of “sales techniques.” Any thoughts?
I think superficial missionaries are easy to spot a mile away. Investigators can tell the difference between a missionary who is speaking from their heart about something they actually care about and are passionate about, and a missionary who is trying to “sell” something. I think the latter may often get more baptisms, but as President Hinckley said during a broadcast while I was on my mission, “it’s the net result that matters.” These sales-pitched investigators may not remain active as long, since a sales pitch approach is probably less inspiring, and afterall, it’s the inspiration–the Holy Ghost–that makes for a lasting impression and a true conversion.
On second thought, I guess it depends on how you define “sales technique.” When I hear the phrase, I usually think of manipulation, deception, or misleading a person. But I suppose an honest explanation of the benefits of something could be considered a sales technique.
As Wilfried pointed out, a person can be touched by even the least prepared or sincere missionary, because it’s not all dependent on the missionary. And that’s what I’m really trying to get at; we can talk all day long about what is or isn’t a sales technique, and whether they’re inherently wrong, and whether missionary work is inherently sales work because after all you are at some level trying to persuade others, but the real point of the post is the excessive burden of responsibility the missionary can take on him or herself.
In the same vein, sometimes the excessive burden of responsibility and of guilt is passed on to members of the local unit. Some missionaries (or the mission president himself), when results are not reached as set (are they ever?), may shift the cause to the members who are made to believe they don’t do enough of their share or do not have enough faith, etc. It’s pretty awkward to hear a 20-year old missionary from Utah, who has been in this European mission branch for just a few weeks, preach that kind of sermon to seasoned members who often have already endured so much for their membership.
For some members that kind of approach may lead to their discouragement and even inactivity. A vicious circle! Indeed, a healthy dose of insight and a balanced perspective are welcome in missionary work.
Yes, I might have paid more attention to it Wilfried; I alluded to it regarding the branch president in Brussels who was expected by everyone and all to do everything, and we both know more like him. There was a lot of pressure on members, especially in small branches, but yes also when someone else’s goals weren’t being met, and a separate post could be devoted to that. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of ideas!