Race for the Prize

So I totally forgot to tell the best story that happened to me last week so here it is a week late.

 

You see, in our apartment, we had been without a toilet plunger for a while. Fortunately, that hadn't caused any major issues yet, but it was just asking for trouble. So one morning about two weeks ago, our worst fears were realized. Elder Lemon found himself with a sizable obstruction preventing the proper drainage of the toilet. Now, he did what was only logical in such a situation and attempted to remove said blockage through the clever use of a toilet brush. As you can probably tell, such an attempt was brave, but futile. So this is where I come into the story, as I walk in the hall past the bathroom and overhear Elder Lemon muttering something about "the sword in the stone." You see, instead of improving our unfortunate toilet predicament, the toilet brush solution only proved to exacerbate our dilemma.

 

Action was required, and so the brawn and muscle of Elder Bartlett was called in to yank the brush in question forcibly out of the toilet, and thus claim his rightful place as heir to the throne. Unfortunately, the exertion of Elder Bartlett was also fruitless, as he emerged merely with the handle while the brush was still firmly lodged in its porcelain confines. Hard decisions were required at this moment. How were we to successfully unclog our toilet and once again see its waters freely flow?

 

Elder Lemon and I decided to take a trip to Lowe's, in search of the proper implements that would allow us to finally solve this problem once and for all. We decided that we were in need of a proper plunger...and some very large pliers. We endeavored to find such tools on our own, but we were forced to swallow our pride and ask one of the friendly sales associates for direction. Elder Lemon walked up and boldly stated, "We're looking for a plunger...and some long pliers." One can only imagine the amusement that sales associate received upon being asked by two Mormon missionaries where to obtain a plunger and long pliers. She responded, "That doesn't sound like fun." We assured her that it was not. She then yelled over to one of the other sales associates, "Hey, these guys are looking for a plunger and some long pliers." He responded, "That doesn't sound like fun."

 

After having obtained the needed tools, we hurried through checkout, where the cashier strangely asked us if we were somehow preparing for Memorial Day weekend. We returned home, where to our great joy, the pliers were in fact long enough to finally remove the toilet brush and thus end our toilet woes once and for all.

 

That was probably one of the funniest situations of my life. Also slightly embarrassing. And I learned that if you clog a toilet, nothing short of a plunger or long pliers should be used to remove the obstruction.

 

Anyways, back to this week. This week was mostly just a lot of tracting. I've taken to singing my own version of the primary song "Pioneer Children": "Pioneer children sang as they knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked." It's led to some interesting experiences. One trailer we knocked on, the door was answered by a hispanic woman who spoke broken English, so we did what we normally do and switched to Spanish. She still seemed like she thought we were speaking in English and told us that she was Catholic but that we could talk to her son, although he only spoke Spanish. We told her, in Spanish, that we could in fact speak Spanish. Her son came over and we introduced ourselves as representatives of Jesus Christ.  He responded by telling us that he had already been to England and closing the door. We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out why he thought having been to England was in any way relevant to what we were doing.

 

I went on two splits this week. One of them was the first one that I've actually had to conduct. It was pretty fun. I went out with Elder Boothe who's an English Elder in my district. We mostly just tracted, but it wasn't too bad because Elder Boothe is a pretty cool guy.

 

Splits really got me thinking about the importance of studying the gospel and the studies we have as missionaries. I feel like a lot of missionaries don't know how to study. They just read and hope to find something interesting. One of the really important things I've learned on my mission is that just as important as studying the gospel is knowing what to study. There's a lot of missionaries who avoid studying the basics like faith and repentance because they think it will be boring. But really there's never enough that we can learn about the most simple doctrines. You can tell the missionaries that know what to study because they understand the basic doctrines well enough to be able to teach them simply and clearly.

 

Love,

Elder Grasley