"I have an old beer and wine making set that I'd like to give to you"

Quote of the week explanation

We have to go a little ways back for this one. We have a list, as I may have mentioned some time back, of all of the members in the ward records. On this list the people are assigned a number from -3 to 5, and depending on their number it means that they are active, or they've moved, or they're antagonistic towards the church, and fun stuff like that. On that list there are also a group of "unaccounted" members who we don't know anything about. Something that it is the responsibility of us missionaries is to find out what the heck is up with the unaccounteds. This often takes the form of going around town knocking in their doors and seeing what happens. A few weeks ago we ran into the classic situation of somebody who is in the records, we have it down that they've been baptized, and they claim not to be a member of the church. We had a brief conversation with her, but she said she was hung over so she couldn't really talk. We left not thinking much of it, and marking her as "not interested" on the list.

Now, this week. She calls us out of the blue and tells us that she wants us to come over so that she can tell us the story of how she was baptized in the "Mormon church". The way she was talking it sounded as if this was some super secret matter of international importance. We set up an appointment for a member visit, and then she called back to change the time from 5 to 3, because three is her "magic number" (42 wheels on a tricycle, anyone?) She then calls us again the day of the appointment. And this is where it gets interesting. She told us that she actually didn't want us to come over, because she "doesn't want anything to do with the Mormon church". She told us that she was tricked into getting baptized by some guy who chased her all the way to Helsinki and set up a secret meeting where he tricked her into being baptized, and then she went on a rant about how she doesn't believe in the "Mormon church" because the "gold tablets" aren't in a museum. Then she completely changed directions and started telling us about her seven houses and how she is part of one of the oldest Finnish families and her hobby of brewing alcohol. That's where the old beer and wine making set comes in. All in all, it was a thirty minute conversation. We kept trying to close it off after we realized is wasn't going anywhere, but this woman was not stopping. When we did eventually close it out, we realized that it had taken up so much time that we were running late for a zone meeting. Doh!

That one was a bit longer.

The week progressed as normal. Some stuff happened. 

Elder Watts shoved off for Hong Kong Tuesday morning, and now we are back to a regular companionship.

The week grinded on as usual. In all honesty not much unique to report. Same old same old with Joan; she's basically a member except for the fact that she is not baptized. Mae is super busy and for now our contact with her is restricted to phone calls.

We did find a new person this week, named Cynthia. We were looking through old records and saw her name listed as someone previously being taught, and we decided to stop by and see what was up. We went by and she was surprisingly excited to see us. She said that earlier that same day she had been looking through her phone, and had seen the missionaries number and wondered what had happened to them. She let us in and we briefly shared about the Book of Mormon and some other basic doctrine, and she said she wanted us to come back on Thursday. So that's exciting. We have a few more people, for both the ward and the branch, that we are hoping to start working with soon as well. Should be fun.

Anyhoo, I know you all have busy lives to get to, so I'll leave it at that. 

Bye

-Benn

P.S. Oh yeah, I have been on my mission for more than one year now, so that's weird.

P.P.S. We also dropped Looking For. He keeps telling us that he won't read the Book of Mormon because "Mormon" isn't mentioned anywhere in the Bible. No matter what we said he could not be swayed from his course. Our District leader had a "revelation" suggesting that we should introduce the Pearl of Great Price to him, since it is largely about people in the Bible, so we went over one last time to try that, but he just went on a rant about how the Bible is already perfect and he doesn't want to read anything else. It's weird, though. He is still probably the nicest person I've met on my mission, and just tries to gently lead us poor misguided children into the right way.

P.P.P.S. We also found some pretty solid people who want to come back to church while working on the unaccounted list, and one of them might be the coveted part member family...