So, time for a little growing-up story.
No matter what you do, after a certain period of time, you fall into habits. I've been out a year, and I admit, I had developed some unhealthy missionary habits. We had a zone meeting on the new Standards of Excellence. I admit, I felt rocky about it, but I swallowed it and said, without much thought, it's got to be possible, so let's see what I can do.
Well, then I got sick, as you recall.
Getting back into the work on Wednesday evening, I just couldn't seem to find my rhythm. Planning for a lesson that night, I saw in a moment good things to share, but when I got down to it, I couldn't even explain my ideas to my companion. So I gave up, and agreed with her ideas instead, even though I didn't particularly care for them, especially as she wanted to give an exceedingly short lesson to a family we were hoping to baptize this month. (More on them later.) She saw I was frustrated, and felt like I was just spitefully caving. I pointed out that she had several good arguments for why she wanted to do what she did (talking about how PMG says we should keep lessons down to 30-40 minutes, and leave with the spirit following us out the door) and that I couldn't even put my ideas into words, even though I felt that they were excellent. I was upset, but I was swallowing my pride and letting her take the lead, because I really couldn't offer any argument. Well, things kind of devolved from there, her upset because she felt we weren't planning as a companionship, me still trying to swallow my pride, just wanting to move on, and hoping that a full day working would help me feel better again. We didn't really fight, but we were both frustrated.
The next day was weekly planning. I still didn't feel particularly with it, and being on the couch for three days had made me homesick. I mechanically led the process of setting numbers and planning for our investigators. For some reason, we ran out of time, and had to wait until Saturday to finish.
We start planning again Saturday after I felt a little better, and Hermana asks me a very important question.
"Why don't we ever reach any of our goals?"
I was a little stunned. "What do you mean?"
"Look at our member-present goals - we set for three every week. We discuss who we can bring to each lesson, and plan to have twice that many, but I've only had 1 member-present lesson my whole mission. And look at our contacts - we don't get anywhere near our numbers. We just set contacting as something to do we can't find anything better. We barely get our less-active lessons, and we haven't reached out lessons with supers goal in weeks." she went on to explain how she was studying goal planning in PMG, and how she thought we needed to seriously re-evaluate what we were doing, not only in planning, but in our efforts during the week, and why.
So, I guess I'm a prideful person. I got mad, and felt she was attacking everything I had learned on my mission to that point. But there are two huge things I've learned in my mission:
- When two people are not on the same page, ask questions before you speak your opinion.
- If my companion says something that makes me feel bad, there's a good chance there's something to what she's saying.
So, rather than defend myself I swallowed my pride, again, and asked her to explain what and why she thought the way she did. She saw I was upset, so she was hesitant to explain, but I insisted. So she laid out a logical, well thought out, and totally founded argument, and by the time she was done... I felt absolutely awful. Not because I disagreed, but because I couldn't help but agree. I had been doing an absolutely horrendous job planning of late, and I had been had definitely not been striving to reach my goals. I mean, I had felt like I was struggling a little in that department since the beginning of the holiday season, but her words really shocked me and made me realize how far off I was. It was a full-fledged call to repentance, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Of course, I have no poker face. She starts getting upset because I'm upset. We have a little bit of a breakdown together, (does that happen with elders?) and we move on, setting better goals, and resolving to be more diligent and consecrated. It was awful. I still feel bad about how casual I had gotten with the work. I'm repenting hard, and hoping I can relay be better.
So, I said I would talk about Ruben and Rosa. We found them around Christmas, and we were thrilled. They were so prepared, and so enthusiastic. But Ruben has been out of work for months. He went down to Mexico to make an attempt to sell their house down there, to no avail. We had a couple more lessons with them, and then he missed one. While not unusual, it was unexpected, because they have never missed a lesson before. (Tangent) I think it has to do with the fact that we general teach lesser- educated migrants, but flaking out on lessons is an everyday occurrence. And getting both the investigator and the member to the lesson at the same time is nigh impossible.(/endtangent)
Well, two days later, they call us, with the standard, "We're super busy, we don't want you to come over because we're never home" sort of drop. We were heartbroken. Usually when we get dropped, we feel OK, because they don't really understand some point or another. Typically, they just decide they're happy where they are and aren't interested in learning a new religion, not really understanding the apostasy or the restoration. (Teaching the idea of authority takes weeks of repetition of the ideas involved most of the time. the false doctrine that 'all churches are true and good because they all worship the same god' is too soundly entrenched.) That was not the case with Ruben. He knew exactly what we were about. He knew exactly what the claim to a modern prophet meant, and agonized over it. He had now answer yet (Still had not asked. The idea of asking a QUESTION to god is a foreign as divine authority.) But he knew it was huge, one way or the other. So when we dropped us, we felt awful. He knew too much. If he didn't make the change here, his chances in the spirit world were slim to none.
Well THEN he called us back again, from some random number in Chicago. He says he's reading the Book of Mormon, but he's looking for work. He doesn't know when he'll be back, but he'll call when he is, or on the off chance they decide to move to the city. He calls two other times to talk to us, and we encourage him as best we can. Hope things go well! Maybe he'll find someone to teach him in the city.
Well, that's my novella. Love you all. Keep being amazing.
Hermana Maren Jones.
