Elsie's Notes from New England - THEMission edition

Sometimes I'm a little slow to the punch.  Let me tell you a little story and see if you get there before I did.  I use the word "little" in the figurative sense.  This post is longer than normal.  You've been warned. Last Sunday, I received an invitation to speak in church.  I like to speak in church.  I like to prepare my talks, write them up and have them ready to go ahead of time.  I always tweak them and leave stuff out at the last minute, and sometimes I'll add an impromptu story that feels appropriate in the spirit of the moment.  My assignment was to talk about 1 Nephi 3:7.  This is a single verse that is pretty much iconic to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It is the statement of a 16 year old Israelite named Nephi who tells the prophet (also his father), upon being asked to do something pretty big and dramatic, "Yes, I'll go and do this thing, because I know that whenever God asks us to do something, he prepares a

Whining aside, would it seem out of place If my nose and my eyes should secede from my face? I’m not really ailing; no chills and no fevers But these turncoat vestiges won’t be believers They won’t stop their dripping and stinging and running And now they’re pursuing recruits with their cunning Both Ears and good Throat, at the top of their list, Have been stronger than Lungs in their will to resist I’ve tried to assuage them; I’ve got Puffs with aloe I don’t know what’s made them so surly and callow My cheekbones assert, and I’m not one to doubt them, That maybe we’d be better off here without them. If I don’t do something, their mutinous lies Will infect every corner, till somebody dies! So, would it be nuts?   I’d look funny, I know But maybe I ought to just let the three go.