Stories: Excerpt from Elder Fisher's letter
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| Written 3/29/2010, about 5 mo out in the field:
I would like to answer a few way too often asked questions. First of all, the missionaries are not normally allowed to go to Disneyworld, except for the week before we leave. Still, how many missionaries can claim that they went to Disneyworld on their mission. However, for all of you people disappointed that their are no missionaries working in Disneyworld, there actually are but they are the assistants to the president. I can definitely see why the mission president would do this. Having his most trusted and presumably best missionaries work this area when there are way too many temptations and ways for disobedient missionaries to act up, lets face it, Disneyworld would be a disobedient missionary's paradise. However, I have absolutely no aspirations to become an assistant, and I would question the mission president's sanity if he ever tried to make me one.
Another often asked question has been whether or not Florida has awesome weather. The answer would be no. From experience battling the elements I would have to say no, and I haven't even been in the worst of it. In the summer it is apparently always humid and over 90 degrees, and rains everyday, dubbed the wall of water by most missionaries. As for the winter, it has actually been cold enough to snow and have the pond in our apartment complex freeze over. I am told it has been the coldest winter that anyone can remember, but still...
Another question I am often asked is how firm in their various religions Florida is. To be honest, it can be really tough. Down in the south like this, people can have very firmly ingrained beliefs and refuse to see it any other way. We meet many, many people who, though they can tell us nothing about their religion or even who Jesus Christ is, refuse to change their religion or listen to us at all. On the opposite spectrum we have met many people who know the scriptures backwards and forwards, but are so bitter they refuse to even shake our hands, or see that they are constantly contradicting themselves. People [of other religions] also work very hard in the Orlando area, to "convince" people of the truth. We are often mistaken for [another religion], one of the biggest problems we encounter. When people find out that we are not [of that faith], they are usually a lot more willing to listen to us. Fortunately for us, one of the problems that [other religion] has is that in their church they don't believe in praying to know if something is true or not, including their own religion, as it is tempting god. One funny story I heard is of two missionaries in the mission who were teaching this family, but who were also being taught by the [other religion]. The missionaries had scheduled an appointment right before the [other religion's respresentatives] were supposed to teach them. They taught the family that if they wanted to know if what they were teaching was true or not that they should pray and ask God if it was true. When the [other representatives] found out what the missionaries had apparently taught them they said "No, don't pray!" The family obviously knew which church was true.
Personally, my absolute favorite thing to tell someone, especially investigators, is that if they want to find out if what we teach them is true, is that they can just pray and ask God if it is true. That, I believe, more than any other thing, is what separates us from any other religion is that we can tell people that. |
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