A Blessing on the Food at the Clubhouse Pig Roast

One of the challenges for us on the mission has been trying to determine what the mission rules are for senior couples. Most everything is written for younger missionaries and we are trying to determine what does and doesn’t apply to us. I do remember in our meeting with the Mission President, that he said that if we needed to take a nap during the day that was okay. (Chuckle)

Sister Anderson and I have made it a point in our missionary efforts to try to meet and get to know the people that work and congregate at the clubhouse. We have found everyone to be very friendly but there are times we can tell they are a little cautious about the church. The clubhouse has a social event about once a month and Sister Anderson has done a pretty good job of trying to get to know and befriend several of the women involved with these social events. Last evening was the annual pig roast, which we were told was a very popular event and always gets a great turnout. Prior to going to the pig roast, we prayed that this event would be good for our missionary efforts and not just a social event. When we arrived I think there were as many as 125 people there. We started to greet some of those people we had met and a man came up to me and saw my missionary badge and said he had a question for me. He said that he had read an interesting book by a woman that was in the Church for a while and then became an attorney and decided to write a book evaluating the evidence for the Church, her approach was to ask questions about the Church the way an attorney would. He said that this lady’s conclusion was that the church was a fraud.  I told him I would be very interested in visiting with him.

While I was visiting with this gentleman, one of the ladies over the event was unable to find the person who usually gave the prayer on the food, so she asked Sister Anderson if she thought I would be willing to do that. 

Sister Anderson said “yes, I think so, go ahead and ask him.” 

She asked me and I agreed to offer the prayer/blessing on the food. The request caught me a little by surprise and I don’t think my prayer was all that eloquent, I am not even sure I actually blessed the food. Afterward, I thought, I probably need some training from our neighbor and friend Keith Buhler who offers the morning prayers for Idaho’s State Senate.

Interesting side note: The woman who asked me to offer the blessing on the food and her sister are very involved in the social events at the clubhouse and they both volunteer at a charity thrift store down town that is operated by the Baptist Church. The senior missionary couple who served prior to us, had offered to do volunteer work at this thrift store and were turned down, apparently because of our faith. A number of Baptists teach that we are not Christian but a cult. So I found it interesting that one of these good ladies would ask me to offer a blessing on the food for a fairly large social event for this area. So maybe we are making a little headway.

The clubhouse was pretty packed and there were very few seats available. This same lady made it a point to find seats for us. We ended up sitting across from a retired couple and were just making casual conversation. I asked them what they did for their careers, they had both worked in banking and he had been an Investment banker. I asked him if there were any places to stay if we had family or friends visit. They told us of several places and he got up and went and got a pen and paper and wrote down his phone number and email address. They also offered to take us and show us where these places were. 

He then said through the course of the evening several times, something like, “Let’s not make this a one-time thing. I hope we see you again.” 

I did talk to them a little about what we do as missionaries, but did not ask them if they would like to have the discussions. They seemed pretty friendly. This is not the way any of us remember missionary work. When this couple left, I then went and located the first gentlemen who approached me.

He shared his phone number with me and we talked religion for about 20 minutes, specifically about the reformation. I got to know him a little better and he said had visited with the sister missionaries in the past. He said they told him that he would have these feelings that would let him know of the truth, but he said his mind doesn’t work like that; he had to have pretty convincing factual information. I described to him where we lived and we agreed to make contact and continue our discussion. This person said he was living in a trailer. So I suspect he is on the other end of the economic spectrum from the first couple who I suspect are well off. It will be interesting to see which of these parties end up being receptive to the gospel.  Hopefully they will all be receptive.

The following is kind of my self- speak recently and maybe it is working:

We worship a God of Miracles, expect a miracle. We tell the Joseph Smith Story, the God of the Universe and his son visited a young boy in answer to a prayer. Rather than going about our daily lives thinking a miracle is not likely, I am going to expect that they will happen. I am thinking this is the Lord’s work, miracles happen all the time.