On The Team (PIAT 4)

I had a very good reason for this photo. Just can't remember it, is all.

   Today's the final Putting It All Together, doing a project on a Book of Mormon topic, with the entire semester's worth of lessons to choose from. There's a great article in the newest issue of the Ensign about Recognizing Satan's Counterfeits, which happens to be the topic that we had this morning (Lesson 17, Exposing the Enemies of Christ,) but that's too perfect and kind of cheap, and we're supposed to at least look like we put any thought or effort into these PIAT assignments.

   Looking over the list of previous lessons we've had in class, this semester's worth of material, I feel really impressed to write today about missionary work. For some reason. I can't even find my study notes I took while doing the required reading, so I'm adrift out here, but this is the one standing out to me.

   This is the lesson that stands out to me, and, how every PIAT must have a quote on the topic from a general authority, there's one talk on the subject that also stands out to me... Saturday, October 1st 2011. Priesthood session. Jeffrey R Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gets up to the lectern, and delivers his address entitled "We Are All Enlisted." He begins with the first vision of Joseph Smith (which we're discussing this week in my other religion class, incidentally,) and the power of Satan coming and trying to halt young Joseph in the prayer that was to lead to the vision. Joseph prays harder and sees God and all that, which is what everyone focuses on, but Elder Holland draws our attention to the tactics of Satan, and calls for missionary work against that.

"...Satan cannot directly take a life. That is one of many things he cannot do. But apparently his effort to stop the work will be reasonably well served if he can just bind the tongue of the faithful. Brethren, if that is the case, I am looking tonight for men young and old who care enough about this battle between good and evil to sign on and speak up. We are at war, and for these next few minutes, I want to be a one-man recruiting station."

   And from there he goes on to talk about missionary work and the whole bit. So, relevant to the discussion-- to "bind the tongue of the faithful" is a bad thing to have happen, and so we need to not have our tongue bound, we gotta wanna serve, which reminds me of D&C 4:3 for some reason, "...if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work."

   There's more to missionary service than proselyting, though. David A Bednar with his idea how electronic communication can be missionary service and all that, even that aside. There were two untrue stereotypes that Elder Broadhead hated: 1, all metal music is devil music, and 2, all missionaries are prost.

   Metal being used for the power of awesome instead of evil is shown above, in this live performance of one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists. Acoustic version, though still a metal song; Amaranthe is one of those more genre-bending groups. Which also goes over the second point, in a sense; missionary work can come through non-traditional channels. Elder Holland's talk is about proselytizing, though, which always got my goat, and which is why I was surprised to feel impressed to choose this all as my topic. And I've always wanted to address it, and need to address it here. Elder Holland's address is about proselytizing; all others are, I don't want to say dismissed, but dismissed with a wave of the, you know. "You are 'on the team' and always will be. But we need the rest of you!" A wave of the lip.

   You see it sometimes. Lip service. Usually with talks about single mothers, giving lip service to single fathers; single fathers, giving lip service to single mothers; mothers and fathers with each other, giving lip service to single parents. Well-meaning, and totally justified lest the entire talk get derailed, but... I know Jeffrey R Holland is good with this kind of thing, mental health and all that, so I'm sure he didn't mean it to come across so... well, for me, it just felt like, yeah right, like, it didn't apply to me, because by this point I already knew that I wouldn't be serving a full-time prost mission anyway. Elder Holland mentioned "health reasons or other impediments beyond their control," of "those who have hoped all their lives to serve missions," and it looked like my case didn't even fit easily into that category.

   Maybe if I weren't so liminal it wouldn't have been so, borderline insulting, to me, but I am liminal and my eventual mission was liminal. Though, like apparently you can go on a proselyting mission if you've been diagnosed with Asperger's. just you have to jump through a hoop or two, honk this little horn and balance balls on your nose to do so, or something? Liminality requires paperwork, in a world used to dealing with only the things it's used to dealing with. I'm not sure if I knew that was a possibility at the time, though I ain't bitter. Best two yards of my wife.

   Hey, though, "on the team," what else is there to do? Probably canning or something, we were looking at, using my aunt and uncle's place in Farmington as a base of operations. I explained a lot of this here already, you should reeead it so that I can get onto the PIAT stuff. Which, right, I should do.

    Where was-- "desires to serve God, called to the work," right. We read in the Book of Mormon again and again how those born of God naturally have the desire to spread His word. Alma the Younger used to be an enemy of the church, until he had an Apostle Paul sort of experience, and afterward, he writes in Alma 36:24, "...I have labored without ceasing, that I might bring souls unto repentance; that I might bring them to taste of the exceeding joy of which I did taste; that they might also be born of God, and be filled with the Holy Ghost." Alma labors, brings souls to repentance, while in this life...

   Last week I wrote in my scripture journal, FAMILY HISTORY IS TOTALLY RADICAL, though, during Christ among the Nephites talking about how baptism is an essential ordinance. 3 Nephi 11:33-34, "And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God. And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned." Everyone needs to be baptised, but not everyone can be-- there's nothing at all about family history work in those verses, but I felt impressed to write about it during my study of them. Not all missionary work is prost, but all missionary work is missionary work.

   In our case, it had to deal with the salvation of those that we can't literally get to, but whose baptisms are in our hands. It's not building the kingdom through canning awesome pears, or anything. It's not grabbing converts while they're still alive and able to do further work on the earth. But I'd still say that's on the team.

   What did Elder Holland mean by being on the team? In my farewell talk at church I mentioned being sure to ask him when I saw him, and, he's the only member of the first presidency I spoke to while there, but it must've slipped my mind for (ha) some reason...