The missionaries came over last night. It was fine. We ate some food and chatted a bit. Nothing particularly noteworthy.
Then they sat down for the "spiritual message" and I took the opportunity to do the dishes. Unfortunately, I could still hear. It was one of those pressure-your-friends sales sessions that we all love to hate. I don't believe there actually was a spiritual message.
First they asked if my wife had any friends she could refer (the answer is a firm no. She is in academia; she didn't say it outright to the missionaries, but all of her friends and colleagues are liberal academics with either no or very niche religious interests. They are barking up the wrong tree with her).
Then they asked if she could manipulate (not their word, but it is exactly what they were asking) some friends she mentioned who are interested in family history into meeting with the missionaries based on their statuses as "family history consultants." Like, people don't know what Mormon missionaries are all about? People aren't going to believe that they're going to get help with anything without being proselyted to, dudes. So naive.
Then they asked what kind of activities could maybe get more people to show up to ward activities.
(Quick aside here: I learned last night that the recent big annual EQ family activity with picnic, pool, guns/a shooting range had only four elders show up, and I understand that most didn't bring their families. Hahahahahahahahaha. I hope this trend continues.)
My wife (as we both have many times before) pointed out that having guns at these events is alienating for the [laughably small] segment of Mormons that don't like guns, and perhaps something more oriented around games or music would be better? The missionaries agreed and said they'll plan stuff like that.
(The problem here, of course, isn't the type of activity planned. They've had plenty of games and music activities. It's that Mormon activities are boring, prescribed, lifeless events, with people belonging to the most consistently conservative religious group in the country, often held in ugly, smelly church buildings, where you will be faced with usually silent judgment but sometimes sharp rebuke for any deviations from Mormon cultural norms, and you can't even have beer to help ease everyone up, even though the MF'ing Word of Wisdom says right there that beer is allowed; CAN THESE PEOPLE NOT EVEN READ???! ...Sorry, tangent/rant).
Anyway, then the missionaries asked if they could check in with my wife for referrals/invites on a weekly basis for the next two months until the ward potluck in September. I was proud of her for at least trying to establish some amount of boundaries, saying, "Look guys, my non-member friends know I'm Mormon and have made it clear they're not interested. I don't think it's appropriate to invites my colleagues or students to church activities, so it's really unlikely I'm going to have anyone to refer to you."
They answered, "Well, someone doesn't have to be your best friend to come out to a church event. You could invite new neighbors or whoever. And as you know, when you pray for missionary experiences, they come. So we'll check in with you every week to help you to remember to pray for missionary experiences. We'll just send you a text, and if you don't reply, we'll assume you had no update for referrals that week. Good?" What could she say from a faithful mindset? She tried to say no, but Mormons are notoriously bad at both establishing and respecting boundaries.
Meanwhile, I'm in the kitchen just rolling my eyes so hard that I'm becoming rather familiar with the contours of my brain. This kind of stuff was some of my least favorite from being a member, and hearing from my new perspective was just insufferable. Wow.
For the record, I didn't mention a word of my thoughts on any of this to my wife, and I don't plan to. Hopefully their weekly texts won't mess with her head too much. But if I say nothing, my guess is that she will put in token efforts to pray for missionary opportunities, will not talk to anyone about the church, won't send any referrals to the missionaries, and probably won't even be too keen to attend the ward potluck. Wish me luck.
P.S. Oh, and I think the missionaries were robots. The awkward questions, man. For example, we have some new bookshelves we're working on setting up and filling in. My wife was telling them we're excited to get all our books put up, and they ask, "Oh, is reading your favorite thing to do?" My wife was really thrown by that, "...Um, we really love to read. I don't know if it's our favorite thing?" So they try to pin her down: "Oh, so what is your favorite thing?"
It's like their programming doesn't allow for nuance, only absolutes. Hmm, that actually sounds really familiar.
