Passive Religious Culture

Reality of releases:

I am almost confident that you talk to the Stake President and he comes over that day I get home and releases me. No waiting as far as I know.

I still feel like I'm in the middle, as much as I did a year ago in La Cisterna with Elder Myres. I know what I'm doing a little more but not so much. I'm starting to freak out when I think about people that have kids and stuff (and I remember when I was a kid 21 wasn't that young - you could have kids at 21 and that was okay) are my age and younger and I kind of just sit there staring at them because I am definitely not that old. I feel like an educated large fourteen-year-old. Is that bad?

No, it's all good. I make it work.

Everyone's getting back from vacations now so I'll have more to tell you about it next week. We contacted a lot, for there was very little peopleage in the sector. We did find some pretty good new people. They were a mom and two fraternal twin girls. We only talked about some basic... nondenominational (to say it that way) christian stuff, throwing the Restoration on the end. The girls were really pretty interested. The mom too, I think, but she recited some classic no-church-necessary stuff. It's all about the Book of Mormon in those cases. It really is about the Book of Mormon in every case, but especially these people. Our area president calls it "Passive Religious Culture."

One of the things that's been on my mind lately has been our power to define ourselves. Those non-conformist people are as lost as a Turk in fog! They let society make them whatever it wants. Real non-conformity is defining one's self. Why dress in black clothes? What a product!

It's very interesting to me how much power I have in my own life to change what I am. Not personality (you can if you want, but I like my personality), mostly speaking about work habits, thoughts, vocabulary, and on a longer-term scale, attributes and tendencies.

As a result I've been thinking too about what I'm going to do with myself. (Not when I'm not supposed to or anything.) I got a paper last wednesday about my mission termination paper! I have to write an essay with ten goals for the future and what I learned in the mission and stuff. I still don't feel like I'm going anywhere. Even if I will only write home three times more - ever. I still have baptisms to do and stuff so it's not over for me. We are splitting the sector, so it's going to go super fast. I just know it. It only slows down when you resent it. If you just go out and stuff and laugh and get to know your companion and do family nights and it rips away.

Wierdly the only effect going home has on me nowdays is it makes me impatient. I can't stand waiting for people to come to the door. I can't take people saying they can't see us this week. I think, "Hey - I need someone to get out here so I can contact them." or "Hey - I can only teach you for so long, man. Let's get on this thing. What are you waiting for?" I don't even know what trunky is. It doesn't make sense to me.

Therefore I feel totally okay giving you this idea:

Priority one : Mountain Dew. I don't care in what medium. I only need there to be a decent amount and it needs to be cold.

Two: Mexican Food

Three: PF Changs

That's really all.

Four: Shasta

Five: Good Chocolate Milk make from milk and powder

Six: Peppery steak Italian Place Sandwich

Seven: Burgers

That's all.

I feel like I hear the Indiana Jones theme song. I'm going to keep going. See you next week.

Love,
Elder A Conrad Crist

Note C
I have an idea, furthermore. I think it would be cool to make a two-part journal after - one part written of my writings in journal with printed out letters put in at corresponding dates. Two - all the recording plus an interview with questions of your choice in style of interview. Maybe some sunday we could sit down and let everybody ask or say something. I think that's a good Conrad thing to do. In fifty years people will kill for that recording.

3 Nephites Text

Another really fast week. We did pretty well in terms of investigators. Josefa (Abby's age) has a baptismal date for the 29th. We'll see, though, because the mom left too and so we may have to put off the baptism until the mom's come to church a few times. Josefa is ridiculously solid - tons of friends, goes to all the activities, everything you could want. The ward loves her. Javiera, the other one, is still in the South so it'll be a little later when we get her - but her family is fairly interested, so it will probably be mid-August.

This week we started teaching a recent convert's girlfriend who is also really good. What's more, this certain convert is a little lazy to come to church, but as we've taught his girlfriend, they show up together to everything consistently. Some kind of synergy thing, I think.

We had a spiritual guiedance this week that was very interesting. We got a text (unmarked - not from the office here in Chile) for a reference (in english) that only had a name and address. The person, when we contacted her, hadn't talked to missionaries for at least a year or two. We decided to go to the reference and we found her, her mom who was just recently thinking about coming back to church (they're both members). We had a really long and spiritual lesson, part of which resulted in us finding another young girl who has wanted to be baptized but hasn't been able to yet. I am still very wierded out - texts don't send themselves, but no one sent it. At least no one here. The number was ominously 5960. Not even a telephone number. A member, upon hearing the story, said, "That must be a three Nephites text."

The scriptures that they did rob of mine were spanish. I also gave Elder Guevara my english ones. For some reason I think I will still want physical scriptures. We can look at that later.

Speaking of things like that, it would be nice to have a computer when I get there because I will want to figure it out in time to use it. Is that possible? They've made a lot of changes and I'll have to set up a lot of stuff and copy other stuff to be able to work like before. 

I am pretty serious when I say I can't remember what it's like to be normal. I watched with Elder Fernandez a talk by Elder Holland about converting one's self in the mission and I realized one very simply thing: I don't belong here anymore. I feel like my... operating system?... has been... updated?... to be a returned missionary. I feel so much older than my companion, or, for that matter, everyone in the mission! Like nothing surprises me anymore. I feel like my place is studying, working, going out with the missionaries, having a calling, going to church meetings, etc. While I was eating lunch with members the other day a brother was telling me about how he felt at the end of his mission. He said when he had a month to go he started to feel increasingly out of place daily. When they asked him if he wanted to stay on longer he said, "I am grateful for the mission and I will never be the same for it, but no." That's kind of where I am, as it happens. This week I will tip below one month. That is a terrifying thought, but more in the way a roller coaster is terrifying, if you "cachai" (feel me.)

I just do my job daily and take a few mates and the days rip past like rapids on the Colorado. See you soon, I guess.

Love,
Elder A Conrad Crist

Note A
Did someone make a recording of Jake at any point?

Scriptures were stolen!

I have decided I still dislike moving.

It ended up being a big deal because we had to take out all the duty that was already in the house. We had to disarm (that's a spanish error)(the word for take apart is desarmar)... I mean, take apart the bed and the stove and stuff to be able to move it. My stuff is pretty scant - it was all these ridiculous plates and stuff we had to mess around with. We moved for like two hours with a car and two hours after. We still are missing a table but we've just not had time to finish.

I am working dang hard. We are doing a system of reference-seeking that's started to get somewhere. If you remember Josefa, Abby age, she's doing basically perfect - but we have to have her mom at least coming to church to be able to baptize her on her original date, the 29 de July. I'm starting to worry she'll want me to baptize her - which is not the idea. The idea is that they don't support themselves on me, for I'm practically toast. We have a lot of people but it's been hard to really nail them down good. It's a matter of calling and confirming - but even that doesn't always do it.
We have a wierd situation going with one. There's a new convert guy who is pretty good but lazy as Barack. He has a girlfriend who has decided to be baptized but we make appointments and the convert guy forgets or something. We've passed like six times like that. It's bizarre. Talking to him face-to-face you'd never think he'd do that. I always think that we have to be missing some understanding of his character - otherwise he wouldn't do that.

It is cold as Barack! The floor is pain-cold! Not cool. You basically have to shower as fast as you can because there's no other way to build up the resistance to cold to be able to dress yourself or otherwise function. The house itself is entirely ceramic except for a wood floor room that we don't use because it's too big - or be it, unheatable with the tiny heater thing we have.

In the end we stuffed everything into the bedroom - study tables, beds, mate, boiler, etc - to be able to heat the room up to a human temperature. That's where we've ended up. The rest of the house is an unoccupied freezer that will be really cool in the summer.

We are doing a reference program now that looks good. This ward is a ward of "maquinas" - machines. We're finding that just about every family's got someone that was listening or could listen. Or some inactives, at least.

To answer to your doubts as to my trunkiness, I can truthfully say that I am of the exact same level of trunkiness as I was a year ago. I always tell people that I don't even remember what it's like to be normal, so it's very similar to someone asking me if I want to go to... for example... Bolivia. I have no idea what Bolivia is like, so if you ask me if I want to go to Bolivia I will say, "I don't know. I've never been there." Similarly I say to people on the subject of going home, "I don't know. I don't remember what it's like."

Quote from weekly report:

"We're all moved out. It's certainly a lot nicer, if very cold. We moved all the stuff into one room to study and sleep there - so we only have to heat that room. That works.

With reference to the girls - well, girl, because with the other one we are teaching the whole family, but it's going slow - she does everything we give her. She has not missed any Sunday or Mutual for five weeks now. We are starting to make real progress with her mom, but she's been really sick recently, so we've not been able to see her. The other girl is starting from zero with her family, which has proved elusive so far. We'll see how it goes this week.

We have a newer investigator, Luis, who is shooting up to the top of our list. It is really a product of that he really wants to change and drop a drug habit he has which drives him to keep all his commitments. He reads and understands the Book of Mormon. It'll be a quick matter to bring some good member to get him to church.

I am, unfortunately, lamenting the loss of my bag, complete with scriptures and all other teaching materials I own. Somehow it was stolen in the move. Not to mention, my studies have been... mas o menos for this week. I am actually really sad about that - and I don't know how I'll get scriptures in time to actually work, as lds.org

 takes a good long time to arrive. Well, I'll see if the office can get me some or something."

That's right. I have no scriptures. I have been walking around with an old non-church bible and a hard-cover investigator Book of Mormon. All that work and stuff! I can't believe that my scriptures are probably weed-wrapper now! That's two years of work! I read the Book of Mormon and New Testament in their entirety! I don't know what to do. I think I'll just pull some office strings and have them buy me some. There is no worse thing to happen. Whatever. I still have my journals, at least.

I need to do some Excel nonsense.

See you.
A Conrad Crist

4th of July...What is that?

Okay.

I had actually forgotten the fourth of July thing. I basically forgot that that exists.

Honestly the only thing that makes me trunky is computers. I can wait for anything else. In the absence of having one I've realized that it wasn't just a time waster in my life. I was really good at computers. I could do just about anything. Excel, video editing, formatting drives, changing out chips and video cards, programming, etc - it all interests me. I am thinking I may do a minor in computer science after all.

In terms of missionary stuff we're doing pretty good. We have taught a lot and the people are doing good. The Abby-age girls have gone from 70% decided that the Church was true to a real and, in my opinion, lasting testimony. They like church, they like young womens, they go to everything, they read and pray - there's nothing they don't do. In addition, their parents are slowly getting interested. Their baptismal date is the 29th of July... the idea is that the parents be attending by then. If not, new rules will prevent us from baptizing them.

We have a lot of people that have big obstacles. I got somewhat angry with myself because we went with the intention of telling an investigators that he would have to stop working on Sunday, which would be somewhat of a problem from his dad who can only take days off if his son works for him. We went to teach that and the investigator started talking about how hard his studies were and how he was barely passing and how he was really disanimated... so I backed off and we didn't commit him to do it. Mistake. How are we going to teach it now? He can't get baptized if he is straight breaking the commandements.

It's made me think a lot about how I regard the commandments. I would just stop working on Sunday and look for something else because God doesn't give impossible commandments, and the faster I turned over my will the faster I would be out of it. There are some commandments that are much harder for me than others - for example, I was a first-class software pirate before the mission. Can I go back to doing that? No. I'm not sure how I'll operate exactly, but no. How could I? How could I huck all my eternal progress out the window for something I could pay for with money that doesn't even matter?

It's an easy argument to say that it doesn't hurt anyone or steal anything tangible, and that the software manufacturers charge much too much to compensate for all the pirating that goes on (which is absolutely true), but it's the same thing. What will I do when I want to mess around with Photoshop? Not pay $699.

But it can be hard to convey that to someone who's so new to the Church. We actually have two really good investigators with the same problem. I suppose before too long we're just going to have to be straight with them.

It's an interesting place to be trained for my companion. We are doing a lot better than I did with my trainer. At least we have investigators. I actually am doing better here than I have in any other place. We are getting above-average results in every factor. It would be very strange if I left here without five or six baptisms.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ABBY! Those two girls that are her age always ask about her. I try to imagine Abby at their age and I can't ever do it. They seem too grown up. I remember very well when we got her - shows how young I am. More people have seen her than you know - almost anyone with whom I am has seen her and asked, "Wait... your sister? Are you sure?"

Then I tell Mom's story about "Look at her lips!" and I tell them that it was never weird or anything. It got to the point (Jake will back me up on this) that people see you with her in the park or something and they say, "That's your sister?" and you would look at them with a "What are you talking about? Um, duh..?" Then some ten minutes later you think, "Oh... that's right."

I love you, Abby. It's gonna be demasiado (too much) fun when I get back. Happy Birthday.

I'm in for the concert thing. As long as there's good musicianship I'm in for anything.

I think my vision for how I am going to be when I get back is similar, but three times more vibrant and active. I am going to not just like backbacking - I am going to be an expert at it. I am going to learn how to build and fix stuff. I am going to learn everything I can. I am going to go to the gym and run. I am going to practice piano and even more so practice voice. I am going to learn Greek and Hebrew. (I learned Spanish on paper in a month; how much harder could it be?) I am going to be something. Somebody find me a project! I can't handle the idea of wasting time. Excel, painting, DVDs, pictures - whatever. Just something.

I think I mentioned too that I am going to change how I dress. Forget baggy cargo shorts (when I'm not hammering). I am in love with dress shoes and colored button shirts. And I'm oficially a 33 waist and a "medium tall," so I can get all that sick atheletic-fit stuff.

Sorry about that.

Okay.

We've actually been limited in wierd places to go but I think next week we'll be able to. I will be going to Maipu tomorrow for my last zone conference... ever... and that'll be fun. We're moving out on thursday to our sick new house. 

We've recently been in a rut of having people not show up to our appointments. Last night we only got one lesson the whole night. Lots of midnight contacts that aren't sure if you're going to rob them or baptize them. I think it is honestly just bad luck this week. We went to Ward Council and the whole leadership was pretty surprised by our initiative. More than anything I just say napoleon "yes" with the fist pump for my companion because he's learning how to really be effective in ways that took me a year or more to discover. That and the MTC, which is much more focued in what matters than when I was there. His mission is going to be so much less confusing than mine... I suppose by the time he has his own trainee he'll have figured out new stuff on top of that. Is this what it's like to be a father?

I almost know how to be a good missionary now that I'm almost done! Fantastic.

What more can I say? I'm doing better than ever. My companion is a baller. (He is basically me except from Argentina.) We did have to make a no-Babylon-during-proselyting policy. I think that's good though, because we have something to talk about always. It is not that fun to have a companion that says nothing ever or even only talks about mission stuff.

You know what I mean.

Elder A Conrad Crist

Extremist