Journal entry 23 Nov 1997:
Today is Sunday, we had a baptism in the zone today. It was a young kid who Elder Nelson was been teaching. My new companion's name is Elder Bassett. He is VERY molly mormon. I've learned that his parents have protected him his entire life. ie: edited his entire life, what he did, watched, ate, thought, everything. He is dead bent on following the rules as he perceives them, at all costs. I don't know why President Wright keeps assigning me with these types of companions. Perhaps it is that this is how most missionaries are and that I am the enigma. They seem to lack the life experience and consequential ability to think for themselves, so they rely on the rule book to think for them.
I need to vent:
We went tracting tonight and had a rare thing happen, a woman let us in to talk with her. Which is "against the rules." We aren't supposed to teach anyone of the opposite gender because we might slip and fall into their vagina's. Instead, we are to get their info and have the Sister missionaries talk with them. But that doesn't help when we are initially contacting people. It actually hinders. We were able to spark her interest because she knew English. So we began talking with her in English. She told us she has a test tomorrow in her English class, so I offered to help her study. Bassett was against it the entire time, trying to get us to bail. But after we helped her, she let her guard down enough that she allowed me an opportunity to tell her about the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and about the church. She said she doesn't want to change religions but is willing and would like to listen to what we have to say. She began to tell us about her son, that he doesn't believe in God. I offered to help, saying that we would be more than happy to try to teach him about God and Jesus Christ. Which are commonalities between our differing religions. She seemed to very much like that idea. However, after this point, Bassett started being a dick and made us bail telling me that, "it was a total waste of time." I didn't say but what seems to me to be a total waste of time is walking around the city calling it, "productive street contacting" when we didn't even talk to anyone. He doesn't seem to make the connection that walking around the city and not talking to anyone is not productive. And that actually getting into someone's home and talking with them and building a relationship of trust then talking to them about the gospel is much more productive and in fact why we are here. I could go on and complain more about my companion but let me just say, he believes everything he is told and follows every rule and tries to follow the missionary guide but doesn't really know it. I wish he could know that being sincere can replace pretty much any and everything in the missionary guide and more.
Oh well, I am learning in a companionship that the first few weeks are the roughest. So I will just ignore the first few weeks worth of things that piss me off.
Okay, I'll get off my soap box now and go to bed. Thanks for listening to me bitch and moan.
Yours truly,
Tony
Today is Sunday, we had a baptism in the zone today. It was a young kid who Elder Nelson was been teaching. My new companion's name is Elder Bassett. He is VERY molly mormon. I've learned that his parents have protected him his entire life. ie: edited his entire life, what he did, watched, ate, thought, everything. He is dead bent on following the rules as he perceives them, at all costs. I don't know why President Wright keeps assigning me with these types of companions. Perhaps it is that this is how most missionaries are and that I am the enigma. They seem to lack the life experience and consequential ability to think for themselves, so they rely on the rule book to think for them.
I need to vent:
We went tracting tonight and had a rare thing happen, a woman let us in to talk with her. Which is "against the rules." We aren't supposed to teach anyone of the opposite gender because we might slip and fall into their vagina's. Instead, we are to get their info and have the Sister missionaries talk with them. But that doesn't help when we are initially contacting people. It actually hinders. We were able to spark her interest because she knew English. So we began talking with her in English. She told us she has a test tomorrow in her English class, so I offered to help her study. Bassett was against it the entire time, trying to get us to bail. But after we helped her, she let her guard down enough that she allowed me an opportunity to tell her about the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and about the church. She said she doesn't want to change religions but is willing and would like to listen to what we have to say. She began to tell us about her son, that he doesn't believe in God. I offered to help, saying that we would be more than happy to try to teach him about God and Jesus Christ. Which are commonalities between our differing religions. She seemed to very much like that idea. However, after this point, Bassett started being a dick and made us bail telling me that, "it was a total waste of time." I didn't say but what seems to me to be a total waste of time is walking around the city calling it, "productive street contacting" when we didn't even talk to anyone. He doesn't seem to make the connection that walking around the city and not talking to anyone is not productive. And that actually getting into someone's home and talking with them and building a relationship of trust then talking to them about the gospel is much more productive and in fact why we are here. I could go on and complain more about my companion but let me just say, he believes everything he is told and follows every rule and tries to follow the missionary guide but doesn't really know it. I wish he could know that being sincere can replace pretty much any and everything in the missionary guide and more.
Oh well, I am learning in a companionship that the first few weeks are the roughest. So I will just ignore the first few weeks worth of things that piss me off.
Okay, I'll get off my soap box now and go to bed. Thanks for listening to me bitch and moan.
Yours truly,
Tony
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| Elder Spruel and myself giving Igor a lift. |
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