I served as a full time missionary for the LDS church in the Nevada Las Vegas Mission (there was only one mission in Nevada at the time).\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of fond memories there.\u00c2\u00a0 Blistering heat that would leave your footprints in the asphalt, desert rainstorms \/ flash floods, really interesting people from all over the world.\u00c2\u00a0 There was also the “work”.<\/p>\n
I remember the first time I was a trainer.\u00c2\u00a0 We were instructed by our mission president to take our new missionary tracting as soon as we got them back to the apartment.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t even give them time to unpack.\u00c2\u00a0 I think I handled the first dozen or so door approaches before my “greenie” got the courage to try one.\u00c2\u00a0 On his very first try, a man came to the door wearing nothing but boxer shorts with a handgun tucked in the front.\u00c2\u00a0 The man suggested we leave.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We did.\u00c2\u00a0 What a great way to start a mission.<\/p>\n
I experienced two mission presidents while there.\u00c2\u00a0 Both of them had different approaches to proselyting, but one thing remained the same.\u00c2\u00a0 We were to spend as little time as possible with existing members of the church.\u00c2\u00a0 We were even told that if there wasn’t an investigator at church, that we were to be sure to attend one of our wards and take the sacrament, but then we should leave and be out in the community proselyting, even attending other churches.\u00c2\u00a0 We did this quite a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 While in Nevada, I attended Catholic Mass, Jehovah’s Witness meetings, and a variety of other Christian denomination meetings.\u00c2\u00a0 While not\u00c2\u00a0 always resulting in formal teaching opportunities, attending these other churches generated a lot of gospel discussions.<\/p>\n
When we were with members, we would tract or take them street contacting.\u00c2\u00a0 We never visited with the less active unless it was a part-member family situation that had a potential convert.\u00c2\u00a0 Our dinner appointments with members were to be wrapped up in under an hour unless a non-member was present.\u00c2\u00a0 The total focus was on bringing souls to Christ through the ordinances of baptism and confirmation.\u00c2\u00a0 And you can’t do that when you spend all your time with the “already baptized”.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to today.<\/p>\n
The mission in the area where I live has been given a mandate that every companionship needs to teach 20 missionary discussions a week.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess that’s a good thing.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember similar goals when I was a full time missionary.\u00c2\u00a0 However, here, where I live, the focus seems to be on teaching these discussions to member families, not non-members.\u00c2\u00a0 The missionaries in our ward pass around two calendars.\u00c2\u00a0 One is the dinner calendar, and the other is a calendar for you to have them over to teach you a discussion.<\/p>\n
To me, that’s just bizarre.\u00c2\u00a0 I just don’t understand the logic in “Preaching to the choir”.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, pretty much all active, attending LDS families are probably already converted.\u00c2\u00a0 There is almost zero chance that anyone they are teaching is a candidate for baptism and confirmation.<\/p>\n
I’ve heard the argument that this will help inspire members to invite non-members over to take part in these discussions.\u00c2\u00a0 Frankly, I don’t buy it.\u00c2\u00a0 In the last couple years that they’ve been trying this, we have had ZERO convert baptisms in our ward as a result.<\/p>\n
Is this the future of missionary work in the church?\u00c2\u00a0 To spend all that money, time, effort, and resources to become an over-glorified home teaching program?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"