This is a great story my brother sent to me.
I served my mission in Birmingham, England. We found that one of the hardest things for new missionaries to do is to walk up to someone on the street and start talking to them about their beliefs. This was hard for several reasons. For starters, most people aren’t comfortable striking up a conversation with a complete stranger, especially one so personal as religion. This is far out our natural comfort zones. Secondly, in England, religion and political beliefs are seen as personal (and touchy) subjects. People don’t like to talk about them period, let a lone with a stranger from a foreign land, standing between them and their destination. It takes quite a while for missionaries to get used to “street contacting” as we called it and can be very frustrating. We found the only way to get used to it is to do it, and to do it often.
One time I was training a new missionary from the small town of Sugar City, Idaho. He was a timid farm boy who had never been to a big city in his life. Suddenly he found himself in Cardiff, Wales, a city of close to 400,000 people. He was shell-shocked. Each day we’d go to the city center and contact people in the busy streets. I went about stopping people, getting appointments and passing along our information. As the hours passed I kept my eye on my companion (who was standing about 40 feet away) and noticed that for every 20 people I stopped he would MAYBE try and stop one. Most of the time he just looked right through people, too afraid to talk, almost like he was waiting for someone to come and mug him.
We had a talk one morning about his fear of contacting people in the streets. He told me he get’s anxious and nervous at the thought of trying to stop someone and just lets him or her walk by. “Let’s play a game,” I said. “The next time you or I see someone and think “Man, I WOULD NOT want to talk to them.” we have to stop whatever we’re doing and go talk to that person.” My companion thought for a minute and reluctantly agreed. As we walked to the city center that day to contact people I made a conscious effort to talk to every weird person I saw. I wasn’t afraid of talking to the weirdo’s, in fact; they were my favorite people to stop because they always said crazy things that lightened up my day. But I made it look like I was playing our little game so he would join in. As we arrived in the city center we started contacting. All of a sudden I saw this HUGE 6’3’’ professional rugby player walking towards us. He had a set of gold teeth and tattoos all over his bulging biceps, which were the size of my thighs. It was the first time in months I thought, “Man, I WOULD NOT want to talk to them.” I looked over at my companion and started laughing because I could tell that he saw him too AND he saw him first. He looked at me. I smiled. He looked at the man, then back at me. I gave him the thumbs up and pointed at the man and nodded. My companion looked like a solider about to storm the beaches of Normandy without a gun. I could see the lump in his throat as he slowly trudged towards the man. To my surprise, the man stopped and listened to him! I watched for a few minutes then continued contacting people. 10 minutes turned into 20, which turned into 40. Finally the two parted ways and my companion ran over to me with a smile like I have never seen. “That was a professional rugby player and he wants us to come teach him!” he squealed like a little girl. We went and visited the man later that week and every week for the next five months. He eventually joined our church and was baptized. I still stay in touch with that man to this day and he has become one of my closest friends that I met during my time in the United Kingdom.
I served my mission in Birmingham, England. We found that one of the hardest things for new missionaries to do is to walk up to someone on the street and start talking to them about their beliefs. This was hard for several reasons. For starters, most people aren’t comfortable striking up a conversation with a complete stranger, especially one so personal as religion. This is far out our natural comfort zones. Secondly, in England, religion and political beliefs are seen as personal (and touchy) subjects. People don’t like to talk about them period, let a lone with a stranger from a foreign land, standing between them and their destination. It takes quite a while for missionaries to get used to “street contacting” as we called it and can be very frustrating. We found the only way to get used to it is to do it, and to do it often.
One time I was training a new missionary from the small town of Sugar City, Idaho. He was a timid farm boy who had never been to a big city in his life. Suddenly he found himself in Cardiff, Wales, a city of close to 400,000 people. He was shell-shocked. Each day we’d go to the city center and contact people in the busy streets. I went about stopping people, getting appointments and passing along our information. As the hours passed I kept my eye on my companion (who was standing about 40 feet away) and noticed that for every 20 people I stopped he would MAYBE try and stop one. Most of the time he just looked right through people, too afraid to talk, almost like he was waiting for someone to come and mug him.
We had a talk one morning about his fear of contacting people in the streets. He told me he get’s anxious and nervous at the thought of trying to stop someone and just lets him or her walk by. “Let’s play a game,” I said. “The next time you or I see someone and think “Man, I WOULD NOT want to talk to them.” we have to stop whatever we’re doing and go talk to that person.” My companion thought for a minute and reluctantly agreed. As we walked to the city center that day to contact people I made a conscious effort to talk to every weird person I saw. I wasn’t afraid of talking to the weirdo’s, in fact; they were my favorite people to stop because they always said crazy things that lightened up my day. But I made it look like I was playing our little game so he would join in. As we arrived in the city center we started contacting. All of a sudden I saw this HUGE 6’3’’ professional rugby player walking towards us. He had a set of gold teeth and tattoos all over his bulging biceps, which were the size of my thighs. It was the first time in months I thought, “Man, I WOULD NOT want to talk to them.” I looked over at my companion and started laughing because I could tell that he saw him too AND he saw him first. He looked at me. I smiled. He looked at the man, then back at me. I gave him the thumbs up and pointed at the man and nodded. My companion looked like a solider about to storm the beaches of Normandy without a gun. I could see the lump in his throat as he slowly trudged towards the man. To my surprise, the man stopped and listened to him! I watched for a few minutes then continued contacting people. 10 minutes turned into 20, which turned into 40. Finally the two parted ways and my companion ran over to me with a smile like I have never seen. “That was a professional rugby player and he wants us to come teach him!” he squealed like a little girl. We went and visited the man later that week and every week for the next five months. He eventually joined our church and was baptized. I still stay in touch with that man to this day and he has become one of my closest friends that I met during my time in the United Kingdom.
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