The Unauthorized Investigator's Guide to
|
Missionaries Following Up
Arrange to Follow UpImmediately after the investigator agrees to a commitment, the missionary is supposed to instruct him that he will be following up and making a plan to keep the commitment. If the commitment is to go to church, this will involve arranging to go to church. If the commitment is to obey the word of wisdom, this might involve the missionaries confiscating your coffee and tea. Another aspect of this is to project confidence and faith that the investigator will fulfill the commitment and will be blessed for doing so. Again, this confidence and faith is to be projected without regard to sincerity. Make Regular ContactsPart of the follow-up process is to keep contact with the investigators. They will try to see you at least every other day, and schedule follow-up visits between discussions. Hopefully the follow-up visits will be brief, and involve asking you if you have any questions and asking if you are reading the Book of Mormon and such. From my own experience, after the first discussion there are 2 basic types of follow-up visits. The question the missionaries ask is always, "have you started to read the Book of Mormon?" If they haven't started to read it, the missionaries will ask if they can all sit down and read a chapter together. If they have started to read it, they will say yes and the missionaries will ask if they have any questions. In this scenario, the investigator is usually disturbed by the hero Nephi cutting of the head of the villain Laban in the 4th chapter--it is an act of violence in the name of God that seems excessive given the circumstance. These follow-up visits are designed to give encouragement and support to the investigator as he changes his habits to those of the textbook Mormon.
|
|
