Missionary Thursday

This week we join our hero after a not so vitalizing trip to zone conference, where he is subjected to what the President demands and what reality actually allows. And some good old fashioned apostasy too. Yee haw.

Dear fam. and friends,

Last Thursday was Zone Conference and according to Elder B. it was just one big waste of time. The theme for this zone conference was how to become baptizing missionaries, but really all President R. did the entire time was rebuke us for breaking the rules. According to Elder B. our zone's motto is Work hard, Play hard'. Elder G. said it was to do everything you can to avoid tracting, but that's another story. According to Elder B., a baptizing missionary is a happy one and you can't be happy if you're working too hard, you've got to take some time to chill. According to President R., what we've been doing is not allowed. President R. wants to see our numbers go up and gave us permission to do whatever is necessary to do that, but what he doesn't realize is that all of the legendary missionaries who got a load of baptisms are also the ones who broke most of the small rules and had the most fun. He doesn't realize that he is contradicting himself on that point. We are all tired of the show we have to put on and I'm glad other people besides me feel frustrated about that. Personally the rebuking, for me, was water on a duck's back but everyone else took it harder. The elders got over it faster but the sisters still aren't over it. My personal policy is that i obey the rules to the best that I can but if my companions want to do some stupid activity that will ultimately not effect anyone in the long run, wont get them sent home or damage the reputation of mission work or the church; then I wont stop them. I will get on them however if it starts looking like that though.

President R. chewed the whole zone out on lots of stuff, but our district actually only had any problems with two things: 1. Hanging out with the sister missionaries. They get the shaft of mission work. They cant really talk to anyone at all unless its related to mission work, they cant do anything else much either. The only regular contact or socializing with other missionaries that they get is a phone call to the district leaders to let them know their safe for the night. Elders don't have it as hard because they can at least talk to each other. The socializing rule is hard for everyone but hardest for them. Needless to say we haven't been doing a very good job of observing that rule. 2. P-day: apparently we can't have much fun on P-day either. We must do things like laundry, shopping and cleaning house. The only fun thing we can do is occasionally in the city zone go down town to some recreational place. but officially P-day is only 7 hours long, not even the equivalent of a whole work day. If we do all that work we wouldn't have time to go downtown and have fun. We would be too exhausted and would dread the next day. Don't get me wrong, I get why these and other rules are there, without the little rules to keep us at least somewhat on track there is no way we could obey the bigger rules. So that was zone conference; one big rebuking from President R.

Sunday unfortunately again we did not have any investigators at church. I haven't had a single investigator at church at all. Our investigators are primed and ready for baptism, but the only problem is that they are not coming to church. Everyone else in the district gets theirs to church but ours will not come, and this burned me up even more than the rebuking did. Also Sunday we finally got back to Sister C.'s, shes been avoiding(Editors note: I am unsure of what word Elder Fields was trying to use) us for her new boyfriend for the last month and decided to forfeit the blessings that come from feeding the missionaries. She was there this weekend and informed us of the sad news that they broke up. Everyone thinks shes better off without him and now she can resume the joy that comes from feeding us.(I hope he's being sarcastic there) Also Dad, when I was there I asked her about if we might be related and she said that her husbands surname was C. and he had family all over the southern states, so yes, I think we might actually be related to her, at the very least through marriage.

Tuesday night we we talked to the catholic mother of a media referral. She said that she doesn't do or accept anything without praying about it first. When she said this, the spirit strongly prompted me to teach the last principle of lesson one, pray to know the truth. I am glad I listened to that prompting because the rest of the lesson was scattered with no central point. My companions both said I was very bold in doing that. I love the feeling you get when you follow the spirit.
Wednesday we went back to Sister C.'s for more doctrinal discussions. Here are some of the things we talked about: 1. I always wondered why Satan told Cain to make an offering to God, now I know it was a weak attempt to cover the fact that he had sinned and was planing to sin again, now Cain is Satan's adviser. 2: When Israel went up the mountain with Moses and got scared to go all the way up, they said he should go alone and they would listen to what HE had to say, not God. That was there first wrong move. During the time of Christ they were still listening to Moses and still not listening to God. When they crucified Christ, they didn't just reject him then, they had been ironically rejecting him since the time of Moses. 3: Did you ever notice in the restoration movie when the twig snaps as Joseph is about to pray? That was the trees acting for God to warn Joseph of the immediate danger of Satan's approach.(Editors Note: WTFreak?) I always wondered about that part of the movie. there was lots of other stuff, but again pray about it before deciding if it's truth.
After Sister C.'s we went to a zone activity. We started with winter football at the Point, went to the high park building for lunch, played doge ball, basketball and just hung out. It was fun, but nothing like this will ever top the first Zone activity with the sword fight. I spent some time with other people in the zone I didn't know as well and got to know them better. I never knew just how fun hanging out could be. I also talked to our sisters, they have been more distant than necessary since zone conference and I think it's just sad that they have decided to cut themselves off from us completely. The rebuking from President R. scared them really bad,. even though it wasn't directed only at us. Sadly they couldn't be talked out of seclusion. None of the other sisters in the zone seemed to have this problem. They all seemed very happy, but the sister's in our district didn't. Even with that, the zone activity was still fun.

Anyway, my area has really been picking up and baptisms are around the corner if we could just get them to come to church.
That's it this week.

Salutations to all,
Elder Fields.

Editors Note: Great snapping twigs of 1820, I need to talk to this boy. Advice, anyone, to tell him Sister C. may be a bit loco, and to ask for references to what is said?