September 8, 2018 -- My Name is...Laurel?
Hey Friends!!
Okay, so this has been the absolute craziest week of my mission! For three days, I didn't wear my name tag, I wore jeans, and I went by my first name. More on that later! This is probably going to be a long email... sorry about that!
First I wanted to talk about the miracles of missionary work. There is a guy in our ward here named Dusty who got baptized a little over three years ago. After his baptism, he went and served a Spanish-speaking mission in Idaho. He got back a little over a month ago, and I was here in the ward when he gave his homecoming talk. Since then, he has been called as the Assistant Ward Mission Leader. He is basically the best member fellowshipper ever, and goes so far out of his way to help all the new people we bring in. It turns out that Dusty actually taught Kaleel with the Sisters two years ago, and then he got to speak at Kaleel's baptism a few weeks ago. So why am I telling y'all this? It's because missionary work, works! There are so many days that I feel like what we did might not have mattered, that the people we talked to didn't listen and their lives weren't changed. Then I meet people like Dusty, and they give me hope. I know that not everyone will listen to what we are saying, but some people will. There is Dusty. There is Autumn. This week, I have been so grateful for the missionaries who taught Dusty. They have given my little missionary heart so much hope. Which has been really necessary, because I have been going through a bit of an identity crisis. Which explains the subject of my email.
This week we got to participate in something called the "Book of Mormon Experiment". Basically the point of it is that we want to give people the opportunity to read a page of the Book of Mormon and have an experiment with it that eliminates all bias. So what we do is we ask people if they would like to try a social experiment. We give them a page of the Book of Mormon and ask them to highlight references to God, Jesus Christ, or Deity, and then we ask them about their experience. After they complete the experiment, we tell them what the Book they read from was, and then challenge them to read the next page. We don't ask if they would like to meet with missionaries, we don't ask if they would like to learn more. The point is to let the Book of Mormon speak for itself, and then when it does they will ask US more questions about it. If you want to learn more about the experiment, just go to thebookofmormon.org. To eliminate bias, the missionaries and members of our ward do this together, and the missionaries go undercover. So for three days this week, I was just plain Laurel again. No Sister, no tag, no skirt. Just me in my jeans and sneakers, talking to people about about God. So if you see any pictures of me on Facebook without my tag, that is why.
This has been an eye-opening experience for me in a thousand ways. It was really weird to be referred to as "Laurel" again. It was like remembering a different life time. We walked around campus and no one stared at us, no one approached us, no one even looked at us twice. They all thought we were just normal students. I even did some tap dancing to get people to come check out our experiment, which is not something I have been able to do in a while because of the limitations of a skirt. I got to have people look at me and only see me for a while. I had forgotten how freeing that was. I also realized that I was standing there in jeans, fulfilling my missionary purpose, without a tag. It has been incredible, because I have realized just how possible it is to do missionary work as a member. Sister Scott might be a missionary, but Laurel is one too. Missions never really end, friends. They just change a little bit. I can't wait for all the missionary work I will continue to do my whole life and after. If nothing else, I know that missionary work is possible no matter what you are wearing or what the people around you are calling you. Plus, I really love pants. I hope to wear them a lot more in the near future!!
Thanks to all of you who made it to the end of this monster email. Know that I love you and miss you each dearly, and I can't wait to see you again in a little less than 3 months! I'll still be missionary Laurel then too, just to warn you. <3 Much love everyone! Talk to you again next week, and hey-- don't forget to read the Book of Mormon!
Okay, so this has been the absolute craziest week of my mission! For three days, I didn't wear my name tag, I wore jeans, and I went by my first name. More on that later! This is probably going to be a long email... sorry about that!
First I wanted to talk about the miracles of missionary work. There is a guy in our ward here named Dusty who got baptized a little over three years ago. After his baptism, he went and served a Spanish-speaking mission in Idaho. He got back a little over a month ago, and I was here in the ward when he gave his homecoming talk. Since then, he has been called as the Assistant Ward Mission Leader. He is basically the best member fellowshipper ever, and goes so far out of his way to help all the new people we bring in. It turns out that Dusty actually taught Kaleel with the Sisters two years ago, and then he got to speak at Kaleel's baptism a few weeks ago. So why am I telling y'all this? It's because missionary work, works! There are so many days that I feel like what we did might not have mattered, that the people we talked to didn't listen and their lives weren't changed. Then I meet people like Dusty, and they give me hope. I know that not everyone will listen to what we are saying, but some people will. There is Dusty. There is Autumn. This week, I have been so grateful for the missionaries who taught Dusty. They have given my little missionary heart so much hope. Which has been really necessary, because I have been going through a bit of an identity crisis. Which explains the subject of my email.
This week we got to participate in something called the "Book of Mormon Experiment". Basically the point of it is that we want to give people the opportunity to read a page of the Book of Mormon and have an experiment with it that eliminates all bias. So what we do is we ask people if they would like to try a social experiment. We give them a page of the Book of Mormon and ask them to highlight references to God, Jesus Christ, or Deity, and then we ask them about their experience. After they complete the experiment, we tell them what the Book they read from was, and then challenge them to read the next page. We don't ask if they would like to meet with missionaries, we don't ask if they would like to learn more. The point is to let the Book of Mormon speak for itself, and then when it does they will ask US more questions about it. If you want to learn more about the experiment, just go to thebookofmormon.org. To eliminate bias, the missionaries and members of our ward do this together, and the missionaries go undercover. So for three days this week, I was just plain Laurel again. No Sister, no tag, no skirt. Just me in my jeans and sneakers, talking to people about about God. So if you see any pictures of me on Facebook without my tag, that is why.
This has been an eye-opening experience for me in a thousand ways. It was really weird to be referred to as "Laurel" again. It was like remembering a different life time. We walked around campus and no one stared at us, no one approached us, no one even looked at us twice. They all thought we were just normal students. I even did some tap dancing to get people to come check out our experiment, which is not something I have been able to do in a while because of the limitations of a skirt. I got to have people look at me and only see me for a while. I had forgotten how freeing that was. I also realized that I was standing there in jeans, fulfilling my missionary purpose, without a tag. It has been incredible, because I have realized just how possible it is to do missionary work as a member. Sister Scott might be a missionary, but Laurel is one too. Missions never really end, friends. They just change a little bit. I can't wait for all the missionary work I will continue to do my whole life and after. If nothing else, I know that missionary work is possible no matter what you are wearing or what the people around you are calling you. Plus, I really love pants. I hope to wear them a lot more in the near future!!
Thanks to all of you who made it to the end of this monster email. Know that I love you and miss you each dearly, and I can't wait to see you again in a little less than 3 months! I'll still be missionary Laurel then too, just to warn you. <3 Much love everyone! Talk to you again next week, and hey-- don't forget to read the Book of Mormon!
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