Week 20: "This Is Important Professor Stuff"
Dear Loved Ones,
Quick funny story: Last week for P-day, we went to the zoo. Eight elders were there, dressed identically, as elders are. One of them thought it was a good idea to shred pieces of a leaf and stick it through the cage to the monkey. The zookeeper got mad and yelled at...the wrong elder. Because they're all interchangeable.
Now, onto the email.
Before I became a missionary, I worked as a research assistant for a BYU folklorist, Dr. Rudy. I also took two classes from her. She is a mentor to me and I definitely have a closer relationship with her than any of my other professors. Her son helped give me that priesthood blessing last May in England.
After I got my call, Dr. Rudy was the first person I had to tell because going on a mission necessitated me quitting my job. It is no understatement to say that there were very few good things in my life for the past three years. My job with her was one of them. It hurt to have to quit a job I loved for a mission that might not last for more than three months. One day I hung back after class because I had a question for Dr. Rudy about a paper. I had only planned to sit in her office for a few minutes discussing this paper, but I ended up baring my soul to her, rambling on about my mission and how bad I felt about quitting and how much working with her had meant to me. After over an hour of that, I had the good sense to dismiss myself.
I told her, "I'm sorry I took up so much of your time. You must have important professor stuff to do."
She looked at me and said, "This IS important professor stuff."
My mission president wants everybody to practice teaching truncated lessons so we don't take up too much of peoples' time and they're more likely to invite us back. This week, my companion and I practiced twenty minute lessons on a couple in our ward. The wife is a member and the husband is Hindu. He has met with years-worth of missionaries in multiple countries without wanting to join, though he supports his wife. We're pretty tight with them and they both went to the zoo with us last week. It was interesting to teach him because I was trying to simultaneously teach his role play person and the real man underneath.
He gave us feedback. Since we were supposed to be under a time crunch, I focused more on getting through the bullet points than meeting his needs and forming a relationship, which is what I usually do. He told us that he felt like we weren't caring for him at all because we were just trying to get through the lesson. Then he point-blank asked my companion, "Why do you want to convert people? So you can bring them up in front of the ward and everyone says yay you?"
She answered, somewhat desperately, "Eternal life?"
He said, "No, that's not enough."
It isn't. Missionaries are supposed to "teach people, not lessons," but fall into the trap of seeing people as baptismal statistics. That's an ongoing problem with mission-centricness. People care about being missionaries, not about helping people.
After that experience, I thought back to that day in my professor's office. She doubtless had papers to grade and things to write and lessons to plan, but she took the time to care about me. Because that was important professor stuff.
One day in Boise, my companion and I stood in a guy's driveway forever and talked to him about some struggles he was facing in his life. Our mission president there had this initiative where we were supposed to talk to ten new people a day, and we didn't get it that day because we spent time on him. But I don't care. To me, talking to someone in their driveway like that is important professor stuff.
I hope my mission is full of moments like that, moments I can spent doing important gospel-sharing stuff.
Quick funny story: Last week for P-day, we went to the zoo. Eight elders were there, dressed identically, as elders are. One of them thought it was a good idea to shred pieces of a leaf and stick it through the cage to the monkey. The zookeeper got mad and yelled at...the wrong elder. Because they're all interchangeable.
Now, onto the email.
Before I became a missionary, I worked as a research assistant for a BYU folklorist, Dr. Rudy. I also took two classes from her. She is a mentor to me and I definitely have a closer relationship with her than any of my other professors. Her son helped give me that priesthood blessing last May in England.
After I got my call, Dr. Rudy was the first person I had to tell because going on a mission necessitated me quitting my job. It is no understatement to say that there were very few good things in my life for the past three years. My job with her was one of them. It hurt to have to quit a job I loved for a mission that might not last for more than three months. One day I hung back after class because I had a question for Dr. Rudy about a paper. I had only planned to sit in her office for a few minutes discussing this paper, but I ended up baring my soul to her, rambling on about my mission and how bad I felt about quitting and how much working with her had meant to me. After over an hour of that, I had the good sense to dismiss myself.
I told her, "I'm sorry I took up so much of your time. You must have important professor stuff to do."
She looked at me and said, "This IS important professor stuff."
My mission president wants everybody to practice teaching truncated lessons so we don't take up too much of peoples' time and they're more likely to invite us back. This week, my companion and I practiced twenty minute lessons on a couple in our ward. The wife is a member and the husband is Hindu. He has met with years-worth of missionaries in multiple countries without wanting to join, though he supports his wife. We're pretty tight with them and they both went to the zoo with us last week. It was interesting to teach him because I was trying to simultaneously teach his role play person and the real man underneath.
He gave us feedback. Since we were supposed to be under a time crunch, I focused more on getting through the bullet points than meeting his needs and forming a relationship, which is what I usually do. He told us that he felt like we weren't caring for him at all because we were just trying to get through the lesson. Then he point-blank asked my companion, "Why do you want to convert people? So you can bring them up in front of the ward and everyone says yay you?"
She answered, somewhat desperately, "Eternal life?"
He said, "No, that's not enough."
It isn't. Missionaries are supposed to "teach people, not lessons," but fall into the trap of seeing people as baptismal statistics. That's an ongoing problem with mission-centricness. People care about being missionaries, not about helping people.
After that experience, I thought back to that day in my professor's office. She doubtless had papers to grade and things to write and lessons to plan, but she took the time to care about me. Because that was important professor stuff.
One day in Boise, my companion and I stood in a guy's driveway forever and talked to him about some struggles he was facing in his life. Our mission president there had this initiative where we were supposed to talk to ten new people a day, and we didn't get it that day because we spent time on him. But I don't care. To me, talking to someone in their driveway like that is important professor stuff.
I hope my mission is full of moments like that, moments I can spent doing important gospel-sharing stuff.
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