Do-Re-Mi

I'm a couple days late getting to this, but Sunday morning I had the well-known 'Do-Re-Mi' from The Sound of Music stuck in my head, but the lyrics were a little different.  I'll play the song for those who want to hear it and then explain what was going on with the words in my head....

OK!  So.... I served an LDS mission in Rome, Italy from 1998 to 2000.  I was 19 when I left, 21 when I came home.  During that time, I served in 6 different cities (Potenza, Avellino, Rome, Carbonia, Ascoli Piceno and Cagliari.)  I loved my time there and I made tons of friends, both those who were of my faith and those who weren't as well as loads of other missionaries.

In this post I'm giving a shout out to Dan Smith-  we met at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah and ended up in the same apartment in Rome, Italy in the spring of 1999.  We were immediate friends, and we still are.

So... I'm tangenting (not a word) a bit, but as missionaries we are taught something called "The Commitment Pattern" which is a tool to get the investigators we are teaching to really commit to do and try certain things as they are considering becoming Mormon.  We used to jokingly call it "the manipulation pattern" which I guess is funny, even though I hope from the bottom of my heart that nobody I taught as a missionary felt manipulated by me!  I'm going to list the steps in the commitment pattern and then explain their relevance to this post today.

(I'm doing this by memory so I'm sure I got something wrong)

1.  Build relationships of trust with your investigators
2.  Feel and recognize The Holy Spirit
3.  Present your message- teach.
4.  Find out- ask questions to understand what they're thinking
5.  Resolve Concerns as they come up
6.  Invite, using "will you" as a segue.  "Will you attend church this Sunday?" for example.
7.  Follow Up at a later date

At one Missionary Zone Conference, we were told to put a skit together for other missionaries- which was a fun way to break up the hard work we were doing day-to-day.  Putting the skit together was right up mine and Dan's alley as we are both singers and creative people, so we worked hard to make a fantastic, hilarious skit.  The end product made me really proud.

I don't remember all the details (this was nearly 20 years ago) but there was a part in the skit where we were making time to teach "The Commitment Pattern" to other missionaries, Dan and I played the teachers and began singing to the melody of "Do-Re-Mi"

♫ Let's Start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you Read you begin with 'A-B-C'
When you teach you Begin with 'B-R-T ♪  (Build Relationships of Trust)

Anyway, this went into the chorus of 'Do-Re-Mi' with the following lyrics:

♪Trust- is what you need to build"
"Spirit- must be felt and recognized"
"Then Present- the true message"
"Find out everything you can"
"When brought up, Resolve Concerns"
"Invite, Committing with 'Will You'"
"Follow up- A.S.A.P."
"That will bring us back to B.R.T....T!♫

Then we went into a choreographed dance section when we ended up in a circle holding hands, but adhering to mission rules, we placed Book of Mormons between the male and female missionaries so that they would be holding the edges of the book instead of hands!

Our Ragtag Group of Missionary Performers (I'm the one biting a tie)

So, who knows why- I've learned lots of things over the years and I've retained little, but for some reason, this parody we did on 'Do-Re-Mi' has always stuck in my head, and the lyrics were there Sunday morning as well.

I loved my time in Italy and this is a very happy and fun memory for me.

I hope this story was funny to some and not just some random, lame, inside joke.

I lubb you blog-reader-person.

-Brady