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Apparently “Preaching the Gospel”
Isn’t for Everyone
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White Planes, NY—The newly called ward mission leader of the White Planes West ward, Mark Woodbury, has told several unsurprised friends, family members, and acquaintances that he’s “just not that into missionary work.”
Brother Woodbury’s lukewarm interest in spreading the Gospel was obvious to the bishop who called him. Said Bishop Afton, “yah, he told me that he doesn’t ‘do splits’ and that he didn’t even really enjoy missionary work when he was a missionary, but we are all hoping he will grow into the calling.”
The lack of enthusiasm on Brother Woodbury’s part was also obvious when the missionaries had a new investigator at church on his second Sunday in the calling. Brother Woodbury successfully avoided the middle-aged woman, and reportedly told his wife that “that lady really doesn’t look like member material to me.” When the missionaries enthusiastically told him that she had a baptismal date set for March, Brother Woodbury’s reply was “well, you know a lot can happen between now and then.”
Even sharing the Gospel with people he knows has proven difficult for Brother Woodbury. His next-door neighbor, Mr. Howard Morris, once had a conversation with him about religion. When Sister Woodbury asked about the conversation a few hours later, he told her that “there wasn’t much to tell.” Two weeks later, when Sister Woodbury returned from her neighborhood book club meeting where Mrs. Morris was in attendance, Sister Woodbury bluntly asked her husband, “did you tell Howard that we’re Unitarians?!” Mark told his wife that he was “testing the waters to see how he responded to that one before jumping into Mormonism.”
