One missionary called Glen one day to report that he didn't have enough money on his MSF card to buy water. Glen said, "What do you mean, you don't have enough money to buy water? What kind of water do you buy?" "The small bottled water bottle, of course", he replied. "Are you in your car?" Glen asked. No, he was at home. "Well, why don't you just get a drink out of the tap?" Glen asked. The elder had no answer. (No, the water isn't awful here like it is in Phoenix or Florida. I always drink it out of the tap.)
Another missionary told me this: "My companion is complaining that I snore too loud. What should I do?" Ummm, stop breathing at night?
And another missionary told me this at his companion's doorstep approach: "We're representatives of Jesus Christ and we have a message that we'd like to share." Several other exchanges followed. The person at the door told them that he was Catholic, at which the companion retorted, "What? So you don't believe in Jesus Christ? I don't understand that."
A missionary came in to the office and said, "An investigator who is in the hospital would like a blessing." After I asked several more questions, the last one being, "How long ago did he request the blessing?" The missionary responded, "Eight days ago." Really? This was just a few days after the request for a blessing that I got, and I promptly called the elders assigned to that hospital, and the elders promptly went to that hospital and found that the patient had expired only a few minutes before. So eight days. Oh my.
One missionary called Glen to report that the window in his apartment had been broken. Glen said, "Do you know how it broke?" "Yes--a rock was thrown into it." Glen said, "Do you have the rock?" No. "That's kind of unsettling," Glen said, "Do you know who did it?" "Well, uh, yeah," said the missionary. "Who was it?" Glen asked. "It was Elder ______". When Glen asked the elder who apparently did it, he said that he was "just throwing pebbles and it must have hit a weak spot in the window." Uh huh.
A companionship of missionaries who are assigned to a far away place in the mission were traveling in the evening and hit a deer, damaging their car but leaving them without any injury. While filling out the required accident report for the Church, they read the question about the witnesses who saw the accident. Without hesitation they wrote, "Nine other deer."
At a nervous elder's first baptism, he left his black socks on and went in to the font to baptize the person. He was quite embarrassed that President Black was at the baptism!
Gotta love these missionaries. They are the Army of Helaman!
Here's a few of the happenings this week:
On Sunday we were invited by Elder Peacock and Elder Crapo to attend the Samoan Ward where they are assigned and where they were asked to speak. Oh, what a neat experience it was! Polynesian wards are just a treat. The whole service was done in Samoan and then sometimes they would use English. The songs are sung from the Samoan hymnbook. Elder Peacock gave an amazing talk and Elder Crapo bore his testimony. Here we are at the Samoan chapel and with us are two Samoan elders from the Las Vegas Mission. It's a pretty unique area, the only one of its kind in our mission, that they share this ward with two Las Vegas missionaries and two Las Vegas West missionaries.
It was Elder Hammond's birthday this week, so we celebrated it with birthday cake. He is the assistant from Ghana and is an incredible missionary. Everyone just loves him! Elder Alford, the other assistant, is sitting by Glen and Sister and Elder Dana are pictured. It has been so very pleasant in the office with Sister Dana there. She is doing such an awesome job and we are so glad to have her.
Elder Peacock came in to the office on Wednesday and asked me if I were celebrating the holiday. I asked which holiday I should be celebrating, and he said, "Hey, it's "Administrative Professionals Day, and we just want to wish you a Happy Administrative Professionals Day!" He gave me this card with the following note he wrote on the inside:
Can you believe how sweet that was? We just have the nicest missionaries here! After they left, I looked on our calendar that we keep near the copy machine, and sure enough, there was the holiday printed on the calendar! It made my day--actually my week--no actually, my month.
It was especially rewarding because this was a kind of hard week to see one sister missionary be hospitalized for four days and another sister missionary who went home early. We felt so bad for both of them.
On Saturday Glen pulled out his golf clubs and went golfing with Carl Truman--how fun is that? Glen loved it. While they were gone I ran five miles and I loved that too!
On Saturday afternoon, we went to the temple for Ward Temple Night with the Johnsons, our beloved Relief Society President who was released, and her dear husband who is in our bishopric. We ate dinner at the temple with them and it was fun to visit. Lots of our ward members were there and it was wonderful to attend the temple with them. We really love our ward!