My friend's son just went in the MTC after Christmas to serve an English speaking mission in the Connecticut area. He's been in the field a few weeks and today we got a letter from him. I assumed it was a typical gung-ho, love the church type letter but it wasn't. He said they had a family they were teaching about a certain gospel principle but the family didn't speak much English because they were native Spanish speakers. He didn't speak any Spanish and his companion only spoke a little, he needed my help. They'd been able to teach them other things with his companions broken Spanish but this particular concept was beyond them. He didn't want to ask the Spanish-speaking missionaries for help because they were too busy and wanted to know if I'd help him. He wrote out his testimony of this principle and asked me to translate it for him and send it back.

This makes me suspicious on a couple of levels. First of all, why aren't the Spanish-speaking missionaries teaching this family in the first place? Maybe my little friend and his comp are desperate for a baptism and don't want to let it go. Second, by the time his letter gets all the way across the U.S. to me and I translate it and send it back, hasn't an awful lot of time passed? Can't some Spanish-speaking RM in his wards in Connecticut translate this for him? Sorry, but this sounds like a ploy to get me to bear my testimony in my favorite other language, bringing back warm feelings of my mission.

Nevertheless, I'll probably do it for him. He's a really good kid and his parents are some of the very few people who acted like nothing changed when we left the church and we were still worth having as friends. If I had to name a list people who've behaved nicely, they'd be on the list, even though it would be a very short list. And even though this missionary is a couple years older than my kids, he's been super nice to them even when we were TBM. He's an all-around good kid.

But I was wondering if he's just trying in his creative way to do a bit of reactivation long distance. Anyone had anything like this happen to them?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2012 02:41PM by CA girl.

My first thought was it was his way of bearing his testimony to you without you realizing it.

Too bad he's so nice. If he weren't you could translate it to mean something dumb and silly and get a good laugh out of the whole thing. ;-)

Don't know if it's a new ploy, but I have an idea.

Write an untestimony instead, and save the poor investigators from a lifetime of Sunday boredom.

If Mormons weren"t anti-google, they would know about Google translate (or other free and immediate services).

Sorry to say it, CA Girl, but this is an attempt at manipulation. You didn't forget how you were trained to manipulae on your mission, did you? i didn't, and feel guilt about it all the time.

+

In your Initiatory, your lips were blessed that you may never speak guile. Surely this also means speaking gulie in any form including the written word, no?
Love,
CA girl

What a sneaky little missionary. TBMs have played the "remember your mission" card several times with me in different creative ways, like contacting me out of the blue to ask for help or advice when traveling there. I am always helpful and sure to express my love for the country and the language. I try to point out (without directly saying it) that enjoying a mission is not evidence that the church is true.

I would translate the letter too, since he is a friend, but then, as a friend, I'd also share a few words of your own "testimony" that the church is not true.

Sneak in an added short sentence, warning them that the speaker's church is full of lies.

When he discovers this later on, just say you thought it was sooo funny. Especially considering that this is the only truthful thing the potential victims will ever hear from a missioary.

They'll never know the difference.

I doubt it is any sort of official program or anything like that.

I remember when I was a missionary and I would send letters home to people who I wanted to become active again. I tried that on my Mom a few times. It is hard to think back to those letters because I was such an immature idiot.

I still have the letters to remind myself how brainwashed I was.

He knows you will probably translate it for him, without any chance of you dobbing him in to the mission president.

I await a call from the stake mishies, or whomever is charged with trying to reactivate my apostate a$$.....so that I can tell them what I think of the whole deal....and I'll report back here should it happen....

piss into the wind. and I think you already know that, CA Girl.


..... do I really need to, have to, remind ppl of what happens when ppl start peeing into the wind?

Ummm ... you turn into a junk yard dog?

Whoops I think I just melded 2 separate Jim Croce songs.

Yeah, it was pretty obvious he was up to something. I just wondered if this were common practice or if he's just trying to pull a clever stunt. I'm going to translate it for him and let him be puzzled when it doesn't move me a bit. I like being super nice to Mormons and still rejecting their dumb, lying religion. It really messes with their heads.

But here is how I see it. My SIL's first marriage was to a handsome, charming, romantic RM who swept her off her feet and into marriage after a very, very short courtship. (Ironically, she did the exact same thing with her second marriage but so far she seems OK). Anyway, after a few months of marriage and getting pregnant, she realized the guy had been sleeping with anyone he could all through high school, before his mission, DURING his mission, after his mission and the whole time they'd been dating and married. He'd only married her because it was the only way to get her into bed.

Now, if she hadn't burned them, you could go get one of his apparently very romantic love letters and ask her to translate them into Spanish, hoping to invoke the same feelings, remind her of his good qualities, start a fire in her heart again. BUT IT WOULD NEVER WORK BECAUSE HE'S STILL A LYING SCUMBAG WHO HAS SHOWN NO SIGN OF CHANGING.

Reminding you of how it felt when you were happy, before you found out you were being played by a unrepentant, lying scumbag who now simply wants you back for his/their/it's own satisfaction just doesn't work.

:)

Good point and good post CA girl. Concise and even the most dissciative TBM has to understand it. I request permission to borrow it the next time i get asked to lead prayer at family functions.


This one should be immortized somehow. Is there a place for exmo parables and pithy stories.

Use it whenever you can - I think that parable catches the problem with trying to get exmos back by manipulating their feelings as well as anything.

WHY would he care about getting the baptism glory for himself? Wouldn't it be much better to get the spanish speaking elders to work with the family so that they can get the family acquainted with the other hispanic families in the area? For that matter, are there no spanish speaking people in Connecticut he can get a translation from? How ridiculous! And why not find someone in the ward who can go with him and translate on the fly?

OF COURSE he's trying to manipulate you. These thinly-veiled attempts at manipulation really irritate me.

I re-read the letter this a.m. and he said he doesn't want to ask the Spanish speaking elders because they'd want to teach the family themselves, and he and his comp have a good relationship with the couple.

Whatever- his testimony (of patriarchal blessings) is simple enough to translate - but it's a bit sad how much he thinks they are really God speaking to him. I wonder what he'd think if he knew his ploy made me feel very sorry for him instead of feel the spirit.

I think I'd write back and say, "Aren't you worried that I might just write my un-testimony instead?"

I'm pretty sure Bishop Jackwagon told everyone I was offended - or the First Minion did. I know for a fact the first minion told our hometeachers we were offended and once told Bishop Jackwagon we were offended. First Minion (or former First Minion, I should say) has a real problem with lying.

Anyway, my point is that this missionary probably thinks I left because I was offended, not because I have an un-testimony. Oh well, he's knew to the mission field. Hopefully some nice person in his mission boundaries will teach him a thing or two.

It is a ploy. There are translations sites on the internet for fairly short texts (three or four paragraphs). They can get it translated on line or at any place with a "se habla espanol" sign up. They are all over the place, banks, stores, etc. Don't do it.

Hold the phone CA girl. He's obviously lying to you.
The Spanish-speaking missionaries are too busy? Doing what exactly? They can't take a few minutes to write something out in Spanish for a fellow missionary? Right. You're probably correct in your assumption that they're desperate to baptise someone and want to keep this one for themselves, but getting a Spanish translation is a no-brainer. He's up to something, sneaky little Mormon.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2012 08:06PM by canadianfriend.

You've got to be right that this is a stunt he is pulling.

There is no way in the world he would wait around for 2 weeks for a letter to be sent back and forth to you to get a translation.

His explanation is ridiculous and convoluted.

He's playing games.