3rd Verse

10/21/24

It has been seven days since you last received my correspondence. This week has been really long, but I made a goal to make it to at least November, and I'm almost there.

I'm gonna say some things in this email that might surprise a few people and others might be quite unsurprised. If you haven't figured it out yet, I care comparatively little about what other people think of me. I know what is right and I know how to treat people because it just makes sense.

I will explain what my frustrations this week were and what I've done to combat them. If I'm being honest, nothing has really changed but I know a bit more about myself than I did last week. This might be a bit everywhere, so forgive me if my writing fluency suffers a bit as I try to get all of my thoughts down.

CATEGORY: HOLISTIC REVIEW

As I told my aunt, I am the scum of the earth here. To the people I interact with daily, I'm just some weird religious recruiter that they dislike before I speak. To the ward members, I'm just some new kid to order around. To inactive people, I'm a pest. To other missionaries, I'm "disobedient" because people gossip. Some of the rules that I've ignored have been the only reason I've made it this far. You already know how the mission president feels about me. People here think that I'm stupid because I don't know all the acronyms they use and don't accept everything I'm told immediately.

Here is my reality: I am unapologetically myself because I'm not faking things for anybody. It is really easy for me to tell when someone is being ingenuine and I see a lot of that here. There are so many two faced people here that put on a personality and follow rules only when they are around any sort of authority. Thus, I have two options. Keep doing what I'm doing and feel good about it despite disapproval or change and feel like a fraud. I am going with the first one.

I had better conversations with people this week. When you don't invite someone to church immediately and just talk to them for a second, they tend to like you a bit more. For those who know what the following means... yes, I do have to speak to women as well, of whom I am very afraid. I mentioned that I was a missionary but if they clearly weren't interested I didn't talk to them about church. I talked to them about their major or their clothes or why they were in Ottawa. I got some disapproval for it, but I don't care.

Church will be church. I went this week and not a single ward member spoke to me. I hated last week, so I went and sat with some people in the back who looked a little lonely. I sat down next to a guy in a black and white shirt without a tie and a guy who had a white shirt and tie but looked very uncomfortable. I sat down and gave him a fist bump. We didn't talk cause sacrament was starting, but the three of us stifled a laugh when the hymn said 'molest' (really immature, I know, but they could've chosen any other lyric). Afterwards, I took a minute to get to know the two of them; one was named Marco, and he was a member in his youth but fell away from the church when he moved to Europe. Now that he was back in Ottawa, he wanted to be free of some things. His friend was name Marc (Marc and Marco) and he was from Ireland. He had the full accent and he said he left Ireland because people are fighting with the police. He liked the service so I invited them to sit with me for second hour and told them I had no idea how it would go. I like them both. I also met a 4th year student named Jackson who was just a normal guy. He was just looking to see what our church was about and what kind of rules we had going on. I told him I could talk to him more later if he wanted, and then we talked about other things.

Earlier in the week, I heard about a less active member named Yobo. He plays football and is working to get to the NFL. He has a chance. I texted him and asked him if we could throw a football around with him. He said yes. And then, he showed up at church, which he hasn't done in a while. I don't know if those two things were related.

I really relate to the inactive members. I know how they feel. I know a lot about their reasons. Why? Because I was them. I've been in their shoes. I hated going to church. I know how they think because I think that way too. I guess this ward has a lot of people who stop going because they don't feel very accepted at church.

I know what you're thinking, so don't even say it. "Oh my gosh Will that's why God sent you to Ottawa..." Respectfully, shut up. Just kidding. That was harsh. I know how to be nice to people and these people exist in every ward. There are people in your ward wherever you are that don't feel accepted because of the way we treat them. And most people don't care. Going over covenants for the 50th time without being vulnerable about why they are hard makes people who struggle feel alienating. Talking about pornography as a sin causes people who have problems with it to feel worse. Explaining again that we should report our ministering assignments makes even genuine interactions feel superficial. Asking the younger lady if she is dating anyone yet can cause stress. From someone who has been in places like these, please stop treating people like you're saving them by bringing them to church. You're not, and they can tell that's what you're doing and what you think. Some people need a break so they can figure things out. Would you treat people like people instead of statistics? Thank you. That is my goal as a missionary, whether in an official church mission or not.

That brings me to my next point. I don't believe in everything the church teaches. Please don't tell me to study more and that I will gain a testimony of it. I won't for some things. And I know what some people will say to that too. "Don't harden your heart, you're being like the Lamanites". I promise you my heart is anything but hardened. I have gone to great lengths to ensure I'm not missing anything. I just finished reading the Book of Mormon for the first time. I prayed, just like Moroni promised blessings for. Guess what? Nothing. I sat and prayed for about an hour and felt nothing. I didn't have some witness that it was true or a feeling that I knew of its truth. I think that is a book about people who tried to follow God and how that affected them. I think there are valuable lessons to learn in there about how remembering God and trying to live like Christ is important. There are similar lessons in the Bible. And the Quran. And the Torah. We don't have a religious monopoly. I don't believe that you have to be LDS to be saved and if your ordinances aren't done, too bad. I don't know that the 3 kingdoms thing is exactly how things will work either.

If you made it through that paragraph, you might have a few thoughts and you might be tempted to call me to repentance. Hear me out. I'll tell you why I'm still here and why I'll still find a way to work the gospel in my life. I'm not just giving up on it all if that's what you're think.

What is the point of religion? Why do we go? What does it do for us? What does it do for others? There are people who seriously benefit from religion. There are people who really need it but don't know how to get involved. Religion is meant to help us live a better life and focus on other people a little more. It is meant to help us find more joy and better the world. It is meant to try to explain things that have no explanation and give people hope for a better world. All religions are doing that, whether through Jesus Christ or Allah or another deity. They do it in a variety of ways: meditation, prayer, scriptures, etc. There are people who need that. Even if I don't need that right now, some people do. I think our church has a lot of good things, but it's also fairly bad at recognizing when it says something harmful, and a lot of people are hurt by that. I want to help people see the good parts of our church and teach them how to deal with the bad parts too. Just because you don't agree with tithing doesn't mean you can't come to church and feel Christ's love. Some people need just that part right now. Who am I to judge which parts of the gospel apply to each person?

I'm about out of time tonight. I'm working on caring about some of the standards, so don't be offended if I answer you on another day besides Monday. I had a good conversation just now with someone and I'm trying to apply some things I learned. I'll be here till next week I think so I'll see you then.

Miss you all,

Will Ott

I'll update the photo album tonight so don't be sad there's no pictures. I'm also out of time.

Also, I just killed 24 cockroaches upon reentering our apartment. We just found another. So 25.