Chabacano

May 2, 2011


Hello family.

Once again nothing to noteworthy has happened this week. It's the same old stuff, our newest important inestigators Rosa and Angelica, aren't doing so great. It's great whenever we have a lesson with them but they couldn't make it to church this week because Rosa's husband wouldn't let them go. Whoever this dude is, he's becoming a huge problem. He refuses to meet with us, and there's really not much we can do about it.

What else did we do this week? Oh yeah... So this Wednesday we're to have a 'Church Tour' training with our ward leaders. A few months ago a new 'tactic' was introduced to the mission, a thing called 'church tours'. What they are basically, is you have the investigator come to the church and show them around a bit and then have a short lesson in the room where the baptismal font is, after showing them the font. The whole idea is not to show them the church, but rather to teach someone in a dedicated building (they will be able to feel the spirit better) with no distractions like TVs and other noisy things that people keep in their homes. According to the handout we got these church tours were originally started by the Washington Tacoma Mission. Once they got a formula figured out and applied it their baptisms doubled in one year, and then doubled again the next year. They found that 1 out of every 10 people who went on a church tour got baptized and 1 out of every 3 got baptized if there was a member present in the tour and lesson.

Naturally when our mission found out about it they were eager to adopt it, President Hansen is a business man and figures like that would say something to him. Now the thing about these tours is that they have a very rigid order, it's a specific formula that, as our leaders are always reminding us, must be followed to the letter. Basically it's this: You start in the foyer, have an opening prayer, briefly talk about our basic doctrines (faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost etc.), go into the chapel show them the sacrament table talk briefly about the doctrine of the sacrament, show them the podium and explain that we don't have a paid ministry, and have them choose where'd they like to sit on Sunday. Then you go into the relief society room where the baptisimal font should be, and you open it up and show them, and you show them a the picture of John baptizing Jesus on the wall and then talk about baptism. Then you sit down in there are have a brief lesson on the Restoration of how all of this came to be and you challenge them to baptism.

Sounds all well and good but there are few problems, mostly because our chapel is built rather retardedly. For example we have the scariest looking baptisimal font ever, it looks like a cage to put animals in, the font is not in the relief society room, it has it's own room. And another element of the tour is, as your walking along in the hallways is to point at all the pictures of Christ and drive the point home that we are a Christ-centered church. Well we don't have a single picture of christ from the foyer to the font. Just pictures of pioneers burying other pioneers, Lehi's boat, and Mormon compliling the plates.... yeah.... And we don't have a picture of Jesus' baptism so we (or rather the other companionship) went and found a small card stock one and pretty much nailed it to the wall next to the font. It looks so tacky but most hispanics don't seem to have a tacky filter. Also the tour insists that you use Mattew 3 to teach the doctrine of baptism and Jesus' baptism.

So this week we went and translated the handout that goes through the whole thing into spanish and hopefully when we have our training this wednesday with the ward leaders we can get them on the same page with us.

So yup. That's pretty much all that's going on. This week will be weird, on Thursday I hit 21 months on the mission and on Friday I hit 21 years of mortality. Kind of weird. Well I hope you all have a good week and enjoy the cold because we are dying in the heat down here....

I almost forgot, we haven't heard on the times when we will call home this sunday but it will likely be in the evening 6-7-8ish. Happy mother's day! I love you mom.


-- Elder Rice