A Mission Story: the Rock
Posted by Matt W. on February 9th, 2007Ok, I can’t decide if this story is funny or not. It’s funny to me though.
One day, as I was with my “do-gooder” companion (same one from last story.), we were taking a ride in a Bicycle Taxi, and my Companion, as was his over-exuberant nature, began to speak to the man about the Gospel and gave him a Book of Mormon. (It was a point of pride in my mission that we were eventually asked to give out less Book of Mormons because we were giving them out faster than Salt Lake could print them and ship them to us, and the Church had run out of copies in our language.)
Anyway, a Few weeks later, we see him again, and he starts talking to us like he’s read the whole Book of Mormon, and more than read it, It’s like he understands it. If you’ve ever been a missionary, you know that it’s a miracle when people actually read anything you give them, so for this guy to have read so much was impressive. In our naiveté, no warning bells went off when he speculated if Hagoth’s ships had not arrived in the Philippines.
So we set an appointment with him. It’s exciting. He tells us he has read and prayed and knows the Book of Mormon is true. He says he wants to share a scripture with us. He shares:
And it came to pass in the days of Mosiah, there was a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it; and he did interpret the engravings by the gift and power of God.
And then he pulls this rock about the size of your head out from under the table and triumphantly places it on the table. The rock has three small cracks in it. He explains these are the engravings. He tells us he recently found this rock and knows it is the rock from the days of Mosiah, carried to the Philippines by Hagoth and left there to let us know he was a true messenger of God sent to tell us to join the Iglesia ni Cristo. (One of only two Churches founded by a philippino that I’m aware of.) We waited to see if he was serious. He was absolutely serious.
My one major regret is that I didn’t have the composure to think to ask to take a picture of the rock.
Theory derived: Missionaries are crazy-people magnets.
Yes indeed. This is a classic as well. If only you had your mission issue Urim and Thumim with you.
Comment # 1 left by Eric Nielson on February 9th, 2007
The only way this story could have better was if when he came up to you later and told you the whole BoM story while drunk.
We encountered such a man in Teresina, Brasil. That was one wild street conversation. I’m pretty sure he’d read the whole book before and he kept on mentioning how the Lamanites always wanted war, war and more war. Anyone else ever run across drunk former investigators?
Comment # 2 left by Jon in Austin on February 9th, 2007
I had ALOT of them in mississippi. Alot of the locals liked to sit on their porch and drink colt 45 and watch the cars pass by. we had a lot of people toasted ask us to come talk to them. great memories!!!!
Comment # 3 left by seth on February 9th, 2007
Missionaries also are magnets for lonely people and sometimes the unemployed. Lonely people, because obviously the missionaries want to schedule visits - so if a person doesn’t have family or friends, they can easily create a friendship with missionaries. The unemployed, well, because missionaries can find them at home during the day.
Comment # 4 left by danithew on February 9th, 2007
Jon and Seth, the alchohol relates to another mission story, in which I ran for my life from an angry mob. It’s really too short of a story for a full blown post, but in a nut shell, when a drunk man tells you that if you will not drink with him you are a coward, do not, under any circumstances, take the drink from him and pour it on the ground….
Danithew, for some reason, we often seem to get a combination of all three. It’s the church of lonely, unemployed, crazy people. I wonder where I fit in the mix when I was an investigator?
Comment # 5 left by Matt W. on February 9th, 2007
danithew,
Which makes me glad that due to new rules, in most missions the missionaries aren’t leaving the house until 11:00 or 11:30ish and they go straight to lunch = less time wasted on those unlikely to develop sufficient faith to be successful in the gospel (I hope I phrased that diplomatically enough….)
I remember having a hard time trying to find productive things to do from 9:30-12:00 on the mission, not to mention the two blazing hot hours after lunch as well!
Comment # 6 left by Jon in Austin on February 9th, 2007
9:30 to 12 are good hours in the phillipines, it’s 6-9 at night when everyone is watching TV, getting drunk, and wanting to be left alone. I never thought I would watch so much Dragonballz, Lupin 3rd, or Spanish Soap Opera… Ahhh, those were the days.
Comment # 7 left by Matt W. on February 9th, 2007
DragonBallZ… dang that show…
Comment # 8 left by Jon in Austin on February 9th, 2007
Oh, my. I’d say it’s a sad story, because I wanted the guy to be golden. Misplaced faith is a sad thing. (This is not to say that I don’t see the funny side…not trying to be a downer here, but it’s hard to laugh at the guy when he really, really believed it, ya know?)
Matt, are you going to share what kind of investigator you were in future posts?
Comment # 9 left by Michelle on February 9th, 2007
The thing is, once you stumble across someone who asks for the missionaries to keep coming back, claims to believe all the basic things, and verbally commits to the commandments, shows up at church for at least a couple Sundays, and requests baptism, you basically have to baptize them.
A couple years ago, when the Priesthood/RS study manual was Heber J. Grant, there was one quote, in reference to an ex-member requesting re-baptism, where Grant at first didn’t want to vote in favor of his re-baptism. When Grant finally came around, he said “I’d baptize the devil if he requested it.”
I plan on having that quote at the ready during my re-baptism interview in case the Stake Pres asks bluntly “Why should you be rebaptized?”
Comment # 10 left by Bookslinger on February 10th, 2007
Oh, here’s the lesson in the HJG manual with that quote. Search the page for “devil.”
Comment # 11 left by Bookslinger on February 10th, 2007
I hope you guys realize that “mission stories” can continue long after the mission. I’m having more fun, and having more awesome experiences making contacts and giving out material now than I ever did in Ecuador over 20 years ago.
I’m up to 791 contacts, from June 2004 through now. And there’s been one baptism that I know of, a cool young adult guy from Mongolia. And at least 100 of those contacts are of the “WOW!” variety, where the Lord had an obvious (to me) hand in it. I only had three experiences in the mission where the Spirit said “Go HERE” or “Talk to THAT person.”
Just yesterday I met another young adult aged Mongolian in town, and got him in touch with the Mongolian convert. My convert friend didn’t know there were other Mongolians in town. Well there was one lady, but she was kind of cold to us. So now my buddy has an “in” to the local Mongolian community. We both learned that there even is a Mongolian community, and the Mongolian community now has a Mongolian contact in the church.
Wowsers. Oh, and in both cases, finding these guys was likely the result of following promptings.
I stand all amazed, though I shouldn’t. After all, the Lord knows what he’s doing. He knows where eveyone is.
Comment # 12 left by Bookslinger on February 10th, 2007
bookslinger, I wasn’t aware you needed to be rebaptized…?
While I am aware that there is still missionary work all around and love what you are doing, These are my “black name tag” experiences. I’ll share some of my member-missionary experiences some other time.
Comment # 13 left by Matt W. on February 10th, 2007