No "Buts" About It

Hey Everyone!  So I have been thinking lately about our interactions with missionaries and how it affects their ability to move forward with hope that they are improving.  I’ve noticed that there is a culture that missionaries either avoid having meaningful evaluations or become discouraged when they are evaluated.  I’ve noticed that this stems from feelings that the effort that they put into preparing, studying, and teaching aren’t enough and that those feelings make them less in our eyes and in God’s.  Obviously this isn’t true, and I want to share with you one application that I think we can all consider as we seek to help missionaries both see the good that they are doing and also have a desire to improve.  

My idea is very simple:  We need to eliminate the word “but” from our vocabulary, especially when we are evaluating with missionaries.  Let me explain: Oftentimes we seek to start evaluations by giving the missionaries a few things that they are doing well to help them feel better.  For instance, “Elders, you did a great job of helping John understand what the Book of Mormon is…”  and then we ruin it by saying, “BUT you didn’t do it powerfully enough and it didn’t seem very personal to him.”  Or we say, “Sisters great job at bearing your testimony, BUT the investigator doesn’t really care if you know it’s true if they don’t.”  By using the word “but” we have totally destroyed and negated every good thing we’ve said previously to the missionaries in that evaluation.  When we give feedback this way it can crush a missionary’s self esteem and makes them feel like nothing they do is good enough.  I suggest that we examine ourselves and see if there isn’t a better way.  One thing I’ve experimented on lately is replacing the word “but” with “and.”  For instance, we could say to missionaries, “Great job helping John understand what the Book of Mormon is, AND how do you feel we can help the Book of Mormon become more personal for John as we continue to teach him?”  Or, “Sisters great job at bearing your testimony, AND how can we help Jane gain her own testimony of this principle as we teach her in the future?" This approach acknowledges the good the missionaries have done and focuses more on adjusting their teaching for the future instead of dwelling on imperfections from the past that they cannot change.  

Brothers and Sisters, I feel very strongly that we can change the culture of evaluations and use them as something that missionaries look forward to and see as a valuable resource for their teaching.  “But” is a powerful word that can very quickly dispel feelings of love and confidence that are necessary for missionaries to experience as we help them to fulfill their purpose.  I know a lot of you are already great evaluators, and that this does’t apply to everyone, but if it does I invite you to experiment and see if this simple application of eliminating “but” from our vocabulary can make a meaningful change in the culture of the MTC.