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I've mentioned to a few of you that I have decided to go on a mission. I've decided to write a bit here elucidating this decision. I'll try to keep it basic for those of you who aren't familiar with Mormon jargon and philosophy, and also include scriptural and gospel insights for those of you who are. For those of you uninterested, I apologize and shall write something pleasantly secular tomorrow.

First of all, I'd like to address the common reaction I get when people hear of missionary work in general. I shall let Paul simon phrase the reaction I hear quite often:
You want to be a missionary?
Got that missionary zeal?
Let a stranger change your life
How's that make you feel?
There is a very strong reaction against any kind of proselyting among many of the people I know. Efforts to that effect are met with immediate resistance. I fully understand the desire to be kept away from pushy people of any sort, and I think that's where a lot of this attitude comes from - "Don't push your ideas on me!"

But I'd like to take a slightly different look at it. Maybe my assumptions are valid, maybe I'm off base - let me know. I propose that anyone who has ever written a book was proselyting. I put forward the possibility that perhaps we are all being missionaries every time we speak of our ideas to one another. Are we not? When we have discussions with our friends, are we not being ambassadors of our own ideas and persuading them, out of our love and concern for them, to believe as we do? I would venture to say that any well-meaning neighbor who has ever extolled the virtues of a new brand of fertilizer, in the hopes that his friend would try and find pleasing the solution that he discovered, is a missionary. He shares what he, through experience, has found to be true out of love for his fellow men.

Perhaps, you'll say, religious zealots are different. They're selling a lifestyle - they're telling me that the things I believe are wrong and trying to get me to change. If you see it that way, I invite you to talk with LDS missionaries next time you have the chance and see if that's the attitude you detect. I think, for the most part, that they're very pleasant people, reasonable people, and humble people, the attitude that differentiates them from the used car salesmen of the world. They teach by building on common beliefs, by showing how the truth of the gospel as they know it pertains to your already existing beliefs. The LDS faith is not promoted by debate; it has never convinced someone through heated discourse. It is taught with firm conviction and strict structure, but is never a hard-sell.

Moving on from missionary work in general to my own story:

LDS young men are expected to serve a mission at the age of 19. Girls may serve a mission if they so choose, but not until they are 21 and they are not obligated to go. I have found that the reason they serve later, as far as I know, is to allow them time to get their education, something that is statistically more difficult for them later in life.
I never felt the compulsion to serve a mission (I am now 23). I respected and appreciated those who did but found, through prayer and fasting, that I needed to pursue my education. I did so, assuming that I would continue in that until I found myself employed and seek a marriage and family in the meanwhile. Even up through a few months ago when my boyfriend, a new convert to the church, decided he was considering serving a mission before we got married, I intended to go to grad school and pursue my professional options while he was gone.
Surprisingly, this summer, I received the prompting that I should serve as well. I was a leader at Girls' Camp, a church camp for teenage girls, which is always an intensely spiritual experience. Hearing my good friend Vanessa tell of her mission to Anaheim, California, I was struck with a sudden desire to be involved in missionary work.

This initial desire has been intensified this semester as I go forward in my studies. One of my biggest philosophical dilemmas has recently been the problem of injustice in the world and the overwhelming size of humanity. Last semester, my French capstone class explored the problems of poverty in first-world nations and I was motivated by several of the texts we read (especially that of Abbé Pierre) to do something to work against injustice and poverty. I was left feeling uninspired though, apart from a vaguely socialist bent I may never outgrow.

The problems of the world, in my opinion, are caused largely by what can always be traced back to various forms of selfishness. As much as we can fight with politics and words, we can only ever win when people can interact with love and respect. We can't fix broken systems by arguing people into submission.

And above all things, the gospel as I have been taught it in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a gospel of love. As a people, we are diverse, but when we are living the teachings as we should, the most noticable effect is that we grow in love for one another. It was this that made me realize that the only way I am going to save the world is going to be by teaching love.

The fact that the church is a worldwide church and is available to people of all economic levels, all races, and all intelligence levels is, to me, proof that it is a viable and benefical philosophy. If something is going to save the world, it is not going to be a complex philosophical treatise that only the educated class can understand. If something is true, it is comprehensible to the most simple man and woman and is also sufficiently thorough to be accessible to the gifted mind. The fact that I go to church with a PhD. student who is currently designing a rocket to study the sun and a humble farm boy from central Montana who has a basic reading level who both can understand and learn from the gospel is testimony to me that it is a workable worldview. The fact that the church exists on all continents and in most countries and prizes a humble congregation in the wild highlands of Chile and a metropolitan people in the center of Hong Kong as much as a 7th generation suburban Utah family humbles and amazes me. When I hear the testimonies of those who heard the teachings of the gospel in Zimbabwe and Norway and Venezuela and changed their lives regardless of social repercussions to live a higher law, I am brought to tears.

The missionaries teach basic Christian principles. They teach the atonment of Christ and the plan of salvation. They rely on the Book of Mormon to convey basic principles, though the LDS faith accepts the Bible and other, modern revelation as holy scripture as well. There is something essential about the gospel as presented in the Book of Mormon, the record of a middle eastern people who migrated to the Americas in Old Testament times and built civilizations here. It contains a record of Jesus Christ appearing to these people after his Resurrection and appearance in the Holy Land. It is another witness of truths taught in the Bible and a second witness of Jesus Christ.

In the Book of Mormon, we read much of families. The Book of Helaman contains the story of one of these families, a father who is speaking to his sons who are about to depart on a missionary trip during a particularly volatile period in their people's political history. Here is what he tells his sons, whose names are Nephi and Lehi (named after their pioneer ancestors):

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6 Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good:

7 Therefore, my sons, I would that ye should do that which is good, that it may be said of you, and also written, even as it has been said and written of them.

8 And now my sons, behold I have somewhat more to desire of you, which desire is, that ye may not do these things that ye may boast, but that ye may do these things to lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away; yea, that ye may have that precious gift of eternal life, which we have reason to suppose hath been given to our fathers.

9 O remember, remember, my sons, the words which king Benjamin spake unto his people; yea, remember that there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, who shall come; yea, remember that he cometh to redeem the world.

10 And remember also the words which Amulek spake unto Zeezrom, in the city of Ammonihah; for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins.

11 And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance; therefore he hath sent his angels to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance, which bringeth unto the power of the Redeemer, unto the salvation of their souls.

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

13 And it came to pass that these were the words which Helaman taught to his sons; yea, he did teach them many things which are not written, and also many things which are written.

14 And they did remember his words; and therefore they went forth, keeping the commandments of God, to teach the word of God among all the people of Nephi, beginning at the city Bountiful

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Anyway, good luck. May they send you to France. (Of course, now that I've jinxed you, you'll surely go to Fresno. Hope you like beans )

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Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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I think, for the most part, that they're very pleasant people, reasonable people, and humble people, the attitude that differentiates them from the used car salesmen of the world.

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If attitude is the only thing that separates Mormons from used car salesmen, I'd say you guys have some work to do.

Anyway, congratulations, Annie!

[ September 29, 2004, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: Da_Goat ]

Posts: 2292 | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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Do you have any input into where you might be sent?

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RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA!

Maybe there's a checkbox on the application form to indicate that you're a Jatraquera.

Do you think our favorite cousin will be going to Rapid City as well?

Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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But I'd like to take a slightly different look at it. Maybe my assumptions are valid, maybe I'm off base - let me know. I propose that anyone who has ever written a book was proselyting. I put forward the possibility that perhaps we are all being missionaries every time we speak of our ideas to one another. Are we not?

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Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged |