Yup a real solid lead....

"So this week we were trying to find and talk to the 3 solid potential families in this area, so we drove out a ways to where one lived and found out that the dad is in jail, and the rest of the family is in Red Deer... So that was a bummer. But hopefully we will be able to find more solid potentials this week."

So heart warming...NOT. Can't imagine a mission in "The Chuck".

RB

To a missionary, every potential investigator is "solid", I've noticed. No matter how tenuous. If they say hi to someone on the street, they say, "Hey, we came across several solid potentials today." As though it means something. And even some of their actual investigators, if they can be called that, are "solid" if they give them the time of day. Of course, these are the same people who dodge them, break appointments, can't be reached for weeks on end. I guess it is a requirement to make everything that happens every day sound positive. Just think what kind of blogs we could really enjoy if missionaries were given free reign to write without proscriptions.

Another complex issue I've seen reduced to a simple solution, followed immediately by a baptism:

Sr. Hernandez & Sra. Gomez have been living together for ten years and have three children, but were never formally wed. But they commit to baptism so then they have to be chivied to get all the paperwork they'll need to get married! I've seen a number of weekly letters with photos of the wedding, followed by photos of the baptism the next day.

I know why they don't have to wait for a period of time (so they can pump up that month's 'tisms), but what's the pretext for absolving them of the their 'sins'?

Same with drinking and smoking! They only have to say they're a few days 'clean', and into the fount they go!

Looks like the situation hasn't improved since my years in the Alberta-Saskatchewan mission in the early '70s. Except I doubt the current mission president is as big an @sshole as mine was.