Disappointment

[Craig Jessop]

I had a convert on my mission who I thought was gold. Now he's joined the army, which isn't bad (obviously), but I just found out that he's gone off the deep end into alcohol and sex and just that crappy lifestyle. Do any of you have advice as to what I could say to him without offending him that he won't talk to me anymore?

[NerdGirl]

Well, I think you need to decide what you want to accomplish by talking to him. Do you want to let him know that you're concerned about his choices and his well-being? Do you want to make sure he understands that you're still his friend despite how he chooses to live his life? Do you want to find out if he's having some kind of major new problems in his life and this is how he's dealing with it? Do you want to see if he needs any kind of help and offer it to him? Probably your goal is more than one of the above and some things I haven't even list.

Now I'll tell you how I would respond, although your response might need to be different depending on your personality and the details of the situation that I don't know. But I think if I were you my main goal in talking to him about it would be to let him know that I would still be there for him as a friend and that I would always care for him and not think he was any less of a valuable human being even if he was making life choices I didn't agree with. I would also want him to know that I was available if he ever needed to talk to someone about anything and that I wouldn't judge him or stop talking to him no matter what he did or told me. This is generally my approach with people who are making life choices that I don't agree with. I figure that they are already hearing from everyone else how wrong what they are doing is, and in many cases this makes them close up and when their life choices get them into some serious trouble, they feel like they can't go for help to the people who have told them they are wrong. I want them to feel like they can come to me when they are ready to turn their lives back around. I think they need to be able to still be close to someone who holds the values that they have temporarily put away, because that will make it much easier for them to come back to those values in the future. Not to say that I'm some huge paragon of virtue, but I do make certain lifestyle choices that are different than those of many of my friends, and I've had friends turn to me for support and confide in me when they've wanted to make a lifestyle change. It's nice for them to have someone to talk to who will just listen and not point out that they are making or have made mistakes, but who is also not making those same mistakes, if that makes any sense. Like if someone is trying to quit smoking, it's hard if the only people in their life are their smoking buddies and the people who constantly remind them that smoking is a disgusting habit that they need to quit. They don't want to confide in the latter group about how hard it is to quit, because they just feel judged, but their smoking buddies are no help because they don't want them to quit!

So after all of that, I would probably say something like this to him (although this a really girly way of saying it, but imagine it's translated into man-to-man language):
"Hey Billy Bob, I wanted to talk to you about something. This is a little awkward, but I heard that you've been making some lifestyle choices that are a little different than what the Church teaches. I know you probably see me as this super-religious missionary guy, so you might not have wanted to tell me about it, and it's true that I believe that those lifestyle choices are not what bring lasting happiness, but I want you to know that I don't think any less of you as a person and I'll always be your friend regardless of what you do. I consider you to be a really good friend and I hope you feel the same way, and I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. Even if we don't feel the same way about things, I'm still always here if you need anything. I hope that you're doing okay and that everything's going well in your life. If you ever need help with anything, I'm here for you. I hope that we can keep in touch and keep updated on each other's lives, and I really wish you all the best with your new career in the army. I think it's awesome that you're using your life to serve our country and really the whole world in such an important way."