How to screw-up a perfectly good missionary opportunity

Now having grown up in mormonville my whole life I don't have a lot of experience talking to people of other faiths, well about faith anyway, I talk to them all the time. Since most everyone I know are of the LDS faith we have a lingo and sometimes we take it for granted. Nevertheless, I had an experience this past week that reminded me what a weak willed fool I am when it comes to openly talking about my faith with others.

First, as part of my own justification, therefore meaningless, I have to say that I am a passive person. I don't like confrontation and I always seem to have a problem expressing my point of view in a persuasive manner. I did serve a mission, that helps, but let's be honest, like marriage your companion takes the slack for your weaknesses as you help him with his. Self-justification done? Now on with the story.

So my family and I went camping again this past week. We stayed a little longer this time and it was more fun because of it, and we were a little better prepared, even with the rain. Late the second day a family of three pulled up and set up camp on the campsite across from us. They had a little boy that was the same age as my little girl, so of course my wife wanted to introduce them so they could play together. She invited the mother and the son over to roast marshmallows, the father was otherwise occupied. So the woman was chatting up my wife, if you haven't chatted with my wife you certainly should, she has never had an English class but her English is good and she learned it chatting. Anyway, the woman asked how we met and my wife responded that we met on our mission. This is were Mormon lingo comes in, in Utah when you say "My mission" people understand that you are talking about a two-year period that you spent for the LDS church spreading the Gospel. Outside of Utah people think of some military operation, at least from my understanding, please note that once again my knowledge of what others think outside of Utah is very limited. So the woman is of course confused and asks "A christen mission?" Suddenly my wife has to take care of something for one of the kids and I am left to answer. My mind starts racing, 'how in the world do I explain a mission in a sentence?', 'some people don't think we are christens. how do I explain that?', 'I also don't want to give the impression that an LDS mission is some kind of place to fall in love (I will explain the whole thing later this summer, it's not what you think)', 'didn't the ruling for the same-sex marriage just come down in California? Is she going to want to talk about that?'. 'I really don't want to get into a religious debate while I'm on vacation.' I think the last one was by far the biggest stumbling block of my train of thought. So I answered, "Yes, we served a christen mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" I didn't add "The Mormons" because I was already running for metaphorical cover from a religious debate. At that point my wife came back and the issue wasn't raised again.

Moral of the story? I'm a coward when it comes to really opening up about my faith. Sure, I hide behind the story that I am just trying to be a good example, but let's be honest, your example is going to leave a good impression on people but it sure isn't going to inspire faith. My suggestion to myself and to anyone that cares is that we shouldn't be afraid, and should just dive right in no matter what. Why? Because the gospel brings happiness that they might otherwise never know on this Earth.

Well, there you go.