Planning
a Party, Planning a Baptism:
All in a Day's Work for Missionaries
By
Cynthia J. Rieben
Missionaries
in the Czech Republic must do everything from speak at a moment’s
notice, help run a branch, organize a regional activity complete
with information about public transportation and more. Where do
19-year olds learn how to do this? There isn’t time in the
Missionary Training Center, that’s for sure.
“Okay,
that group, you go with Elder Glecher for the three-legged race.
You guys, you go with Elder Smith over to that bench for the watermelon-eating
contests, and the rest of you, come with me. We’ll do the
water balloon toss. Elder Parrish will blow the whistle when it’s
time to rotate.”
Sounds organized
doesn’t it? A 20-year old Elder Simmons and his equally young
companions are in charge of an activity involving members from four
branches from several different cities and a dozen other missionaries,
along with their investigators and friends.
Here are the
tasks that went into the successful execution of this picnic that
took place September 2002 in the prosperous Moravian town of Zlin,
Czech Republic. The missionaries had to meet with their supervising
branch president, arrange a playing field in their town, get planning
going far enough in advance so that announcements could be made
repeatedly in the branches, send out directions and train or bus
schedules, prepare a hand-drawn map showing how to reach the picnic
area, figure out a reasonable agenda for the day that would appeal
to Czechs and not just 19-year old boys from Las Vegas, Nevada,
gather up any necessary equipment for games, provide for trash disposal,
guesstimate the amount of food and drink necessary based on projected
attendance, make assignments to their branches via the local missionaries,
and then pray for good weather.
Where do 19-year
olds learn how to do this?
There isn’t
time in the Missionary Training Center, that’s for sure.
If you are preparing
for a mission, or preparing someone else for a mission, you’ll
be interested in what follows. Missionaries in the Brno District
of the Czech Republic, Prague Mission recently shared a list of
things they suddenly found themselves doing once they arrived in
the mission field. Most apply to both sisters and elders. These
are things that you as a typical full-time missionary need to do:
- Talk at
a moment’s notice. In a small branch, your turn comes up
frequently in sacrament meeting, and if you are lucky, you’ll
have a lot of opportunities to speak at baptisms.
- Know how
to study. You won’t have your mother standing over you each
morning when you and your companion are expected to study the
language, study the discussions, memorize scriptures; you will
have the Holy Spirit there, though, and that’s even better.
- Care for
the child of an investigator so she can attend the Gospel Essentials
discussions undisturbed. If you know how to change diapers, you
won’t get a wet lap.
- Prepare
stuffing and bake a turkey, banana bread, brownies, or pumpkin
pie from fresh pumpkin. You’ll be contributing to branch
Christmas dinners. Besides, having a little homemade treat in
hand on other occasions has proven to be a very effective way
to endear you to an investigator or inactive member. This advice
comes from the elders who contacted their moms for instructions
about the turkey and pumpkin pie
- Understand
how presidencies in the church work so that if you suddenly find
yourself the second counselor in a branch presidency, you’ll
be able to assist by explaining the practical applications of
the church handbook, helping organize the Primary and setting
people apart, and otherwise, well, counseling. Your Branch President
has been a member exactly one year and one month.
- Call on
the Holy Spirit for help. You’ll need help immediately,
so it’s best if you’ve learned HOW to get it before
you come on your mission, but if you haven’t, you’ll
have a major immersion lesson right off the bat in the MTC.
- Give priesthood
blessings, a sacred, awesome opportunity. Pay attention now to
those priesthood lessons when you are a teacher and priest; when
it comes time, don’t worry about what to say. The words
won’t be yours; they’ll be the Lord’s. Someone
in great physical or emotional stress will say, “Can you
help me?” and you need to be prepared to say without hesitation,
“Would you like us to give you a blessing?”
- Lead the
singing. You may be the ONLY one in the branch who can do this
when the regular chorister is sick, misses her bus or has to go
to her parents’ village for a visit. The branch president
should not have to conduct the meeting AND lead the singing.
- Sing church
hymns with your companions as part of your regular sidewalk presentation
in your town. It doesn’t matter if you say, “but I
don’t sing” because . . . you will. But it will be
a little easier if you were a good sport when your ward choir
director asked you to help her out by singing with the tenors.
- Knock on
doors. It won’t seem so scary if you’ve sold Christmas
wreaths door to door for scout trips, canvassed your neighborhood
for money for school band uniforms, visited neighbors to drum
up lawn-mowing business in the summer or gone on splits with the
missionaries in your ward.
- Teach English
language classes. Everyone in foreign language missions wants
to learn English, and you’ll discover that teaching conversation
classes is an excellent way to develop rapport with potential
investigators and help them feel the Spirit. The mission president
will provide you with excellent materials, but if you’ve
taught Family Home Evening lessons, priesthood quorum lessons,
led a class in your school’s Senior Switch Day, or taught
a boy scout patrol an important skill, you will be more comfortable
in front of your eager learners.
- Prepare
publicity for branch or mission events, like free English language
classes or multi-branch picnics. If you have had journalism, marketing
or computer graphics in high school or college, it might come
in handy.
- Look directly
into the eyes of the person to whom you are speaking and keep
your eyes right there. On warm Saturday mornings, teenage girls
in Victoria’s Secret underwear or heavy- set men wearing
Speedo swimsuits have greeted tracting missionaries at the door.
That’s when eye control comes in handy as you launch into
your door approach.
- Make arrangements
with the administrators of a local elementary school to use their
indoor swimming pool for baptisms. If you’ve arranged for
rental equipment for your youth conference, talked with the manager
of a local lumber supply store to get materials for your Eagle
project, phoned businesses to get advertising in your school newspaper
or contacted a recreation center to use the volleyball courts
for a church tournament, this won’t seem so daunting.
- Be willing
to walk up to total strangers and strike up a conversation. I
first wrote, “be able” but then I realized that if
you are willing, the Lord will make you able. And don’t
worry; they give you a chance to practice this in the MTC.
- Know where
to find key scriptures that show what we believe. At least know
the location and order of books in the Old, New Testament, Book
of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price. Seminary comes in handy here.
If you can’t find the books in an English quad, it will
be a lot harder to find them in your Czech scriptures. By the
way, you could wait and hope that you learn to love the scriptures
on your mission, but in the meantime you’ll be wasting valuable
time: yours, your companion’s and the people who are praying
for your message.
- Be worthy
to come. President of the mission, R. Richard Chidester, gave
this final note. “I can think of no endeavor more important
to a young man who is willing and able than to plan for, live
for and prepare for a mission. In order to have the privilege
of serving, those who desire to serve must recognize the need
to guard and maintain their personal purity as a vital part of
their preparation."
Parents, bishops
and young men and young women leaders might ask themselves: “How
well am I helping to prepare my young men and women? Do I hand them
every activity perfectly orchestrated and provisioned or do I bring
them more and more as their age, experience and talents allow into
the planning and leading of these activities? For example, from
an early age have they learned how to give a talk, teach a lesson
or conduct a simple Family Home Evening?
I cannot fathom
now why ANY family converted to the gospel would be negligent in
conducting Family Home Evenings, but since there are such families,
let me suggest that Family Home Evening time is perfect missionary-training
time. It is one of the many formal and informal opportunities parents
have for discussing cleanliness in thoughts and in actions as well
as many other values we hold dear. So if you have aspirations for
your youth, get those Family Home Evenings going.
What about youth
who come from homes where gospel instruction isn’t a regular
part of their family life? Have these youth had as much opportunity
to hone some of these skills, to discuss and apply the Standards
for Youth? Ward and stake young women and youth priesthood leaders
should know their youth well enough to know who would benefit from
informal mentoring and activities that help them learn how to plan
and conduct activities. Inspired callings into quorum and Young
Women class presidencies can give these youth successful experiences
with serving and leading.
As for the Zlin,
Czech Republic, picnic that September afternoon, there were watermelon
-covered moustaches, bruised ankles and shines, and soaked shirts,
good-natured laughter, plenty of sandwich fixings, enough soda to
cool everyone down, bags for the trash, handshakes and hugs and
for new and old friends, and best of all, plenty of sunshine. Everyone
went home happy, including the missionaries.
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