A little over a year ago the President and Prophet of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, announced that the age requirement
to fulfill a full time mission was being lowered to 18 for young men and 19 for
young women. As a result, missionaries
are flooding not just the Missionary Training Centers, but my ward as well. We went from sharing a set of Elders (young
men) with the other Orchard Mesa ward to having both a set of Elders and a set
of Sisters in our little 11th ward.
I used to not like sister missionaries, because they were weird. Back in the day sisters couldn’t go on a
mission until they were 21 and apparently by that time they were bitter and
full of self righteous indignation. Now however we have young happy sisters who
are pretty funny and seem quite normal.
I know this because they hang around my sister Nancy’s house on a
regular basis hoping to convince my niece Kassandra that she needs to get
baptized. Truthfully I think it’s just a nice place for them to come and relax
a little bit while they chat about bible stories.
The other night however, I didn’t realize they were in
Nancy’s family room while I was down the hall dissing several people and not
exactly using Christ like words. Imagine
my surprise when I walked out and saw them, oh yeah…I’m totally heading to
hell.
Anyway, apparently we (the 11th ward) need to
keep these young missionaries busy, so they have been going out to some of the
less active members attempting to convince them to return to church. As a result they get all kinds of excuses on
why people can’t come…”It’s to hard to be there every week” “Can’t you teach my
son? He’ll be eight soon and while I haven’t been to church since before he was
born I’ld like him to be baptized” “I just don’t feel comfortable in this ward
(even though I haven’t been in 15 years)”
blah blah blah…excuses excuses!!! Being my intolerant self I have little
use for these excuses. I dare anyone to be more bone tired on Sunday morning
than me, or to feel less welcome at various times even in the ward I grew up
in.
The truth of the matter is that at some point in their lives
people that are on the rolls of the church did believe enough to get
baptized. They took that covenant in
good faith and now they seem to want to re-negotiate the contract with the
Lord. Look, either you’re on the Lord’s
side or not, live up to your covenant or get out of the way. There are enough people in the world that
haven’t had a chance to learn about the gospel of Christ, you are wasting
resources trying to make up your mind.
There that is the true spirit of the gospel…pardon my
insensitivity.
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