Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Musings From The Mission Field

To: abbottsville fourth ward
From: elder young, france paris mission
Subject: bon jour from the mission field!!!!

hey abbottsville fourth!!!!

first off, thanks all of you for your letters and care packages!! especially Sister Renfro for the super yummy fudge bombs, and mom for my favorite monster cookies with the extra chocolate chunks and gummy bears. my comp says i have the best ward ever!!!

we were bummed at the beginning of the week when we learnt that Madame Muzet's felony court sentencing date has been moved back so she can't be baptized until december. but then my comp reminded me that we were in gay par-ee, and we should be gay!!! lol (btw, by gay he meant happy, and I totally knew that by gay he meant happy, btw.)

so we put on our happy faces and rode our bikes over to Noter Dame to pass out pamphlets. at first nobody would take them, then comp and i started sticking them anywhere we could, like in people's bags, or under their armpits. comp even managed to slip one down the back of this guy's pants!!! lol sometimes people got all mad and threw them on the ground, but comp and i figured that was ok cause then the wind would just blow them all over france!!!     :-)))))

then this super cool guy rides up on his bike and introduces himself as Henri in ENGLISH!!! :-))))) he said he needed practice speaking and reading english. So right off we offered him the greatest work in the english language, The Book of Mormon!!!!! :-))))) He said he didn't want to read it, and I said yes he did, and he said no he didn't. i said have you ever red it? and he said no, and i said that he was being prideful and judging something he hadn't even red, and he said he didn't care, but he ended up taking it when comp tried to stuff it under his armpit. lol

we asked him if we could schedule an appointment to teach him, and he said he didn't want to be taught anything and got on his bike and road off. we knew he was just being prideful, so we got on our bikes and followed him. he speeded up, then we speeded up and pretty soon comp and i were in this super cool chase scene like in the Born Identity, only instead being CIA assassins, we were valiant warriors for the Lord, which made us way cooler than Matt Damon. i was amazed at how good the french drivers and pedestrians were at swerving to avoid our bicycles! just like in the movies!! :-))))) thanks to them we were able to stay on Henri's tail for idk how long, maybe an hour. then the chase came to an end when the handle of my scripture case hooked onto a rack at one of those outdoor book stalls and sent a gazillion antique postcards flying into the Sane River.
comp and i were kind of bummed after that, but we kept up our spirits and passed out more pamphlets to people who were either prideful or ignerant or downright satanic. this one old lady even pushed me down with her walker. i took it in stride. as a messanger of the Lord i realized that i have been blessed with more spiritual maturity and therefore must practice tolerence.

when we ran out of pamphlets we wandered over to a cafe to check the menu and who do you think we saw sitting at a table with a glass of wine? Henri!!!! :-)))))
we parked our bikes, grabbed a couple of chairs and joined him at his table. Henri covered his face with his hands and begged us to leave. i launched into the lesson while comp emptied the wine glass into a plant. then i remembered that the manual said that before each lesson we were supposed to get the investigator to pray, so i stopped and asked Henri to say a word of prayer, and he said no way, and i told him the manual said he had to, and he said he wouldn't, and i said he was being prideful. meanwhile the other people in the restaurant started to complain and this guy in an apron ran out and told us to leave. we told him we wouldn't leave until Henri prayed. the guy in the apron muttered some french words comp and i never learnt at the MTC and disappeared. then Henri bowed his head and said a short prayer that wasn't very revrent, but was a good enough start, and we stood to leave.

then 2 guys in aprons came out, each carrying a strawberry tart. only, instead of serving them to a table, they smooshed them into me and comp's faces. comp and i scraped the tarts off of our faces and into our bicycle helmets which we then used as bowls to eat out of. it's a technique we've developed by experience. french food is amazingly good, and it's surprising how often we get it for free like this!!! lol

on the way home we were kind of bummed when we saw that some of the strawberry cream filling had gotten all over our jackets and we didn't have any money to have them cleaned. then we realized the stains were really badges of honor -- like all battle scars heroes bring back from war -- and we wore them with pride!!!! :-)))))

please keep sending the letters and especially the care packages. my comp's from idaho, and all he ever gets are rice krispie treats and his mom's homemade fruit leather -- barely enough to sustain our testimonies.


love to all of you!!!!! :-)))))

elder young
france, paris misssion







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12 comments:

  1. How "ignerant!" Love it.

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  2. For some reason, I have a feeling that this is not too far from the truth for some missionaries. I never quite had an experience like that on my mission only because I knew when to have respect for other people. I bet there have been missionaries coming home with badges of honor like this. Great post.

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  3. Thanks Bowie. I actually was inspired to post this after reading some of the missionary websites on dearelder.com. Check out the one from Paris and you'll see. Also, there's a good one from an older sister missionary in SLC.

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  4. Well fer gawsh sakes. Yew got the tone and all down good. Although I bleve its spellt ignert. As in "Fer ignert" to explayne people who are too ignert to acksept the gospel.

    My son went to the France/Switzerland mission and spent two years chasing people down and got once single baptism to share between him and five other missionaries. Within five months the convert had switched teams and become a JW for a week or two.

    Luckily his mission only cost $15,000 so if you add that up between the other five missionaries that one convert cost approximately $90,000.00. I'll bet if they'd taken a handful of $100 bills to any border town in Arizona or Texas they could have gotten a dozen converts in under an hour who for the promise of a free bath each month would have stuck with it till their signature was dry on the baptismal record.

    There is a sad element to all this parody. The hours, money, and the amazing energy spent for miniscule returns yet meanwhile children starve, wells aren't dug, the sick aren't comforted, and the lame are not healed.

    Hilarious post Donna. You captured the kid-speak very well.

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  5. Hilarious! I red it twice! lol! :-)))))

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  6. Thanks, CD and Insana D, what can I say? The church insists on chasing the BIG tithing.

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  7. Piggybacking off Insana D's comment, it always stunned me that Mormons save thousands of dollars over many years, just so they can proselytize to people who aren't inclined to convert. It seems like such a waste -- those thousands of dollars could pay for college, or be used as a down payment on a house!

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  8. Good point, Ahab. I think the LDS Church is more interested in retaining the missionaries (19 yrs old) than any potential converts.

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  9. I think the church is more focused on converts and numbers, other than people being truly converted. Why else would they challenge them to baptism after 2 weeks... before they had a chance to find out anything significant first? Great post! I'm new here and love reading this!

    www.celestialrodeo.blogspot.com

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  10. @Fanny. I agree, and I remember being surprised by how much studying other churches required before allowing a convert to join. Also, welcome!

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  11. lol... love it! Thanks for making me laugh.

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