"Commitment is doing the thing you said you would do, long after the mood you said it in has left you." George R. Zalucki


Saturday, January 16, 2010

Beautiful Awkwardness

I went to the distribution center yesterday to get some garments. As I approached the glass doors I saw a HUGE arm! And I thought "wow, that huge arm must be attached to a HUGE man!!". Sure enough, it was indeed attached to a huge man inside. He was about my age and was with a woman who looked like his mom. He was wearing a thin white shirt, so i could tell that he was not endowed. It APPEARED to be a mother who was lugging her inactive son with her to the distribution center just so she could get him on Temple grounds. I heard them talking and realized that he was a football player for the Florida Gators (where I attend school). I spoke to him for a moment, bought my garments, then left. About 15 ft outside of the door, I stopped and thought "if he's inactive at UF, I need to invite him to church." I tromped back inside in all my glory, got out a sticky note and wrote my name and number on it (PURELY for missionary reasons, seriously, not interested). I then said "John. What's your number". All of the old distribution worker ladies started going "ooOOOOOooOOOOOoo". And the mother-figure said "are you going to convert him"? My initial defensive reaction was "no" which was immediately followed by "well, maybe" as soon as I realized what she had said... and that he was not a member. He said "I'm already there". I gave him my number and said "John, you should come to our ward. It starts at 10 at the institute building". He replied "oh yeah? We go to Gainesville 5th ward". I persisted "you should really come check out the singles ward. We could use you and it's really good". Once again very nicely and sheepishly:"we go to gainesville 5th ward". We parted ways because I had to work at the temple that night. As I left the Dist. Center it finally clicked that he had said "we". Then I vaguely remembered hearing the mother-figure talking about people receiving their endowments. That's when it hit me... I think he was engaged to a member. That's why "WE" attended a family ward, and why he was "already there" in terms of conversion. So, basically it looks like I just totally hit on a football star who was already engaged. Not only that, when I got out of the temple that night I had a message on my phone from the Dist. women telling me that I forgot my bag of garments!! HAHAHA! I had left them, and they used the sticky note I gave that guy to call me. The note was in my bag when i went to pick them up today. hahahaha. Oh man. Good times. At least the Lord knows He can trust me!!!

1 comment:

Angela Bassett said...

I love you. You are AWESOME!

When I was 14 or 15, I had a teacher that prided himself on being a thinker. We had some enlightening discussions in his classroom. He helped me ask some great questions that led to tremendous answers that still guide me today. We agreed on many things, but were at odds on a few. One of them was religion. I had a lot of respect for this man, but it amazed me that someone who claimed to be open minded was blind to just how closed minded he was when it came to God. He was always challenging my faith. He considered my beliefs to be a sign of my weakness. His claim was that unless it could be acknowledged by the 5 senses, there was no proof that God existed. I struggled as a young person to help him understand that he was limiting his understanding to what he had personally experienced, cutting himself off from other possibilities. The best that I could do was to try and help him understand how I knew; that things of the spirit could only be understood and perceived by the spirit. Years later, I still don't have a better answer to this one fundamental question, but I face the same dilemma. This blog is dedicated to preserving stories and experiences of missionaries in the Arizona Mesa Mission both during and after their formal missions. Some stories are fun and light hearted, but others are of a spiritual nature. The blog forum is so convenient, yet the format is limiting. There is more to these words than letters on a page. To truly understand the messages requires not only an open mind, but a soft heart.

After all, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a Heaven for?- Robert Browning"

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