Preach My Gospel Chapter 4: Recognize the Spirit

I know I am not writing anything great here. Last week I did not even post the blog links on Facebook or Twitter. Right now, I don't have anything on preparedness to share, because I am working on other things.

At the same time, keeping in the habit of posting something seems important for discipline, and also, doing this has been kind of good because it is bringing up a lot of memories from my mission. It's been a while.

Twenty years ago, I was in Fresno with Sister L. I do not remember the exact dates of when the regular transfer happened and when my transfer happened, but I remember the circumstances.

I did not get along well with Sister L. She was a widow, so much older, and stubborn and set in her ways. I heard things about her from other sisters that made me dread working with her, which I should not have listened to. The most frustrating thing about her was that if she did not want to listen to you, she would shut you out.

She was native Chinese whose family had moved to Thailand. So, English was her third language, and she actually didn't speak Laotian at all, though Lao and Thai are similar enough that she could generally communicate with missionaries and members and investigators. However, if you were saying something she did not want to hear, it did not matter what language you were speaking in, she did not understand you. Since we disagreed about a lot of things, this was frustrating.

The mission president had wanted to separate us because she couldn't drive at night, and I couldn't drive at all. I really had my hopes up for a transfer, but it didn't happen, and I realized that I had to be able to work with her. I had to make myself love her. So I worked at that, and prayed for it, and then they had special mid-month transfers that sent me to Modesto. It was necessary that I love her, but I only had to do so for a few days.

The thing is, I had pride there. She had her good points too, and I had a hard time seeing those, getting hung up on my frustration with her. There could very well have been things that I should have done then and missed out on because of my pride.

I mention this because I had two different times when the Spirit was strong during times that we spent with people, and I felt it, but other people didn't it, and that showed me that just because the Spirit is there doesn't mean that everyone is partaking. In both cases, pride was involved.

One time was with Sister L. We were reading the Book of Mormon with an older couple, and it felt important to do that. The Book of Mormon is chapter five, so I will write more about that in the next post, but it felt like the right thing to do, and I thought it went well. The husband was an old military man, and tough, but I knew he was touched, and I thought we were sharing something special. Then, after we left, Sister L started complaining in the car that we had treated this man like a little boy, just reading.

I know it did more good than a lesson would have done, and they were already members so we weren't trying to teach them for baptism; we were trying to help them be stronger members, and The Book of Mormon is good for that. For her, I guess it seemed like something anyone could do, and why would he want to just sit reading with the missionaries? She was very rigid though, and that was something she admitted later, in that she had kind of tried to be a robot. Departure from the norm was not comfortable for her. She did learn to be better about that, but she needed to do it with someone other than me, where I was so different in terms of being intuitive and organic, and so similar in terms of being stubborn.

This is already pretty long, so I am going to save the other incident for Chapter 6. Based on the chapter title, it looks like it will fit.

Preach My Gospel Chapter 3: Study and Teach

This section is a little longer because it goes over the discussions, such as they are. They have not exactly been done away with, where you go in with no plan other than to listen to what the Spirit says. Some structure is helpful.

There is still the point of reducing the chance that someone will feel that they should memorize the lessons, always give them in the same order, and in the same way. One thing that I was interested to find is that they give examples of different discussion lengths, so if you have five minutes or fifteen minutes or forty-five minutes, these are different ways of handling it. In that way, just by building in adaptability, it encourages adaptability.

I remember talking once with my mission companion that we would want to give the missionary discussions in a series of Family Home Evenings any time there was a child approaching baptism, because it's important to know the basics, and studying them in this manner helps you fit things together. It's not that you don't cover the material through primary and then mutual and other things, but actually putting the basics together over a short span seemed important.

One other change that I notice is that while the discussions always built upon each other, there is less assumption now that people will have the basics of Christianity and what's in the Bible down. This feels very natural to me. Most of the Lao people were Buddhist, and so we did go over extra material when talking about prophets and scriptures and the Atonement. Fifty years ago, most adults in the United States had probably been through Sunday School with some congregation. Today, that's just not very likely.

 And, of course, it builds upon what we have been getting at earlier, that you need to know the material. You need to know how everything fits together, and then adapting is easier. Things come to mind more easily. Questions will be asked that you have already thought of . It's good.

Preach My Gospel Chapter 2: Effective Study

I saw this chapter was about studying, and I kind of already wrote about that two weeks ago, but there was something in the lesson about lesson order, because again, the purpose is to teach with the Spirit, and it turns out I have a story about that too.

There was more structure to the lessons back in my day, and in the second discussion it was traditional to go over the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel (faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost) and invite the investigator to be baptized.

When you were teaching baptism, one of the suggested scriptures was 2 Nephi 31, where it points out that even though Christ was holy, he was baptized to show obedience, so how much more necessary was it for us to be baptized? And it feels really natural after reading that passage to invite them to be baptized then, but the gift of the Holy Ghost and the part about enduring to the end was still coming, and really,  you should ask all the way at the end. Therefore, sometimes I would have the Spirit there really strong, and I remember feeling like I should invite, but decided to get back to it, and then it just made things awkward. We recovered, but it could have gone better.

The first problem is really a logical fallacy. We were asking them to be baptized on the second discussion out of six anyway; clearly it was possible to commit without knowing everything. Surely it would be just as valid to ask after principle five as principle seven.Also, if the Spirit is telling you to ask, just ask. Don't beat around the bush.

So part of effective study there could be the decision to save that scripture towards the end, or go through the four principles as a group quickly, or maybe to change it around based on how it feels with the investigators. Working with Lao people, who primarily had Buddhist backgrounds, there were some concepts we spent more time on because there was less built in familiarity.

I don't know how different being out in the field right now would be, but even here and now I periodically get asked questions, and it is good to have knowledge ready. It is perfectly fine to tell someone you will get back to them, but I know that sometimes that I have already thought about something and learned about it really helps.

Also, this reminds me of an old favorite, so I am going to link there:

http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2009/01/december-2007-scriptural-literacy.html

Preach My Gospel Chapter 1: My Purpose

I don't know that where I am going with this is the most obvious path for this chapter, but it fits in with some other things that I have been thinking about.

The Gospel is true. It is also necessary for salvation. These things are true. The plan accounts for a lot of issues though. So if people need more time, or more help, that is covered, and that's very important. I guess I have been thinking a lot about those who need more time.

We were talking about someone who is kind of messed up, I guess is a charitable way to say it, and my sisters were telling me that I needed to straighten her out, and, no, I really don't. I think she has heard all of the normal admonitions already, and they have not sunk in, and so all I could really do is prove that I am just one more person who doesn't get it.

The funny thing is, and we discussed this more, is that we actually know and love a lot of people who are messed up, and whom we do not try and set straight. To some extent, they already know for themselves what they should be doing. For that part that they don't know, if we did try and tell them, it would be alienating.

I realize I seem to be saying that you can't tell anyone anything, but that's really not it.

I'm going to compare it to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If someone is starving, or in physical danger, you need to deal with that before you can address creative fulfillment and self-actualization. That is an oversimplification, and I think there is a lot of interaction between the different tiers of the pyramid, but there are issues that will block the acceptance of other truths. It doesn't mean that the person is not being difficult or shooting themselves in the foot - they totally could be - but there may just be messages they are not ready to hear. Focusing exclusively on that message prevents you from delivering other messages that might sink in.

I don't need to tell anyone what they already know, but I can't tell them something that is so far from what they do know that it is incomprehensible. So the first thing I start with is not telling them anything at all, but listening. And I do tell them some things, perhaps, little things, that can take root, but I don't need to hammer at anyone. People are not nails.

When you are a full-time missionary it is different, because you are pretty much focusing on people who are ready to learn now. Your time is limited, which necessitates a somewhat narrow scope. As a member missionary, caring about those around you, you can be in it for the long haul. Yes, right now her head is not on straight, but she is going to have some experiences over the next two years that will teach her things that she would not believe coming from me. If I haven't chased her away, we can talk about it then.

Obviously, there are limits to how much we can know, but there are no limits to what the Spirit can know, and the only limits to our ability to listen to the Spirit are self-imposed. All of those things that help us listen better, with scripture study, and prayer, and humility, are going to be easier, and we will have better motivation, because we love those around us.

My purpose as a missionary is to love. Everything starts and circles back to there.

Preach My Gospel: Introduction

I guess this is the easy week. The other thirteen chapters will be longer, and I may do one chapter a week, or break them down into smaller segments. I will see how it goes.

When I have tried reading Preach My Gospel before, I got bogged down. So much is familiar, but this still feels like what I need to do.

As I said, much of it is familiar. The missionary schedule is still pretty much the same as it was back then (1993-1994 for me), and you still have zone meetings and district meetings. Studying is mainly the same, but there are a few differences that I notice.

One is that the other allowed books for reading are different. If I recall correctly, back then it was Jesus The Christ, A Marvelous Work And A Wonder, Articles of Faith, and I think there was one more. It might have been True To The Faith but was definitely not The Miracle Of Forgiveness.

Now it is Jesus The Christ, True To The Faith, Our Heritage, and Our Search For Happiness. Our Heritage is new since then, but I am pretty sure I have read it. I have not read the other two. I may try and do that at some point, and compare.

I suspect the reason for those changes is due to the other change, which is an overall simplification. The direction they always try and send us is to listen more to the Spirit. This makes people nervous, and they look for scriptures, like memorizing things and adding visual aids.

I get that. I have also always been a bit more comfortable going by the Spirit for teaching and speaking, so that helps, but also, it's just so important to be able to do it in your life. You can't prepare for everything and figure out everything on your own, but being able to receive guidance and inspiration makes up for that. It is vital to sometimes know that you need to leave, or make a phone call, or say something, or even study something.

I remember once on my mission during my scripture study, I stopped on the part in the history where Martin Harris takes the characters and translation to Professor Anthon. The professor said the characters were Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldaic, and Arabic, and I realized he was wrong. From The Book of Mormon, we know they were writing in the Hebrew language using Egyptian characters.

And, that does not reflect horribly on Anthon - not like the rest of the story does. Champollion was working on the Rosetta Stone just a few years previously, so this field was really quite new at the time, and that he would not know is understandable.

The point is, shortly after that, someone asked me about it, and I was able to answer. I didn't know why it came to my mind when it did, but I was going to need it. That isn't even flying blind, because I was studying in advance, but it was a general study for general preparedness for teaching, and it worked.