I joined the
Mormon Church in December of 1968. Soon
thereafter, I became friendly with the missionaries whom had taught me the
pre-baptism lessons I needed for the introduction to Mormonism. As a result, I was privy to some of their
stories of missionary experiences. I
will relate two of them below.
Practical
Joke #1
Mormon missionaries always come in pairs and are referred
to as “companions”. Such pairs share a
modest apartment and are placed together for varying amounts of time before
being split up and paired with a different companion. Under these circumstances companions get to
experience each other’s idiosyncrasies.
One such pair had the following habits. One insisted on being the first one in the
shower each morning. The other had a pet
gold fish and would always be the first to drink from the cold water jug upon
returning to the apartment each day after being outside in the hot Southern
sun.
One day, as a practical joke, the first companion
secretly placed the other’s gold fish in the cold water jug before leaving the
apartment. As expected, the other
missionary arrived home and grabbed the water jug and began to drink from it
before he noticed the now dead gold fish inside. Internally, he was seething with anger but
did not show any outward signs other to acknowledge the “joke”. But he was already plotting his revenge.
The night before an important gathering of all the
missionaries in the district, when he finished his shower, he set up his
practical joke. During the week, he had
purchased a pack of blue Rit Dye gelatin capsules. That night he removed the shower head and put
several capsules in the pipe. Replacing
the head, he then went to bed. Getting
up a little early the next morning, he informed his companion the he was going
to walk to the chapel where the meeting was to be held and was leaving
early. Thus, he left his companion alone
and departed.
During his walk, the gelatin capsules eventually
dissolved. When the companions met at
the meeting about one hour later, the one companion said to the other after
looking at him for a moment, “Are you feeling a little blue today, Elder?” As you may expect, his companion’s exposed
skin (head, neck, hands) was bright blue.
Practical
Joke #2
This next story takes place in the panhandle of
northwestern Florida. A newly assigned
missionary, called “Greenie”, was assigned to a companionship for a short time
until he could be paired with his own companion. The greenie arrived about two days prior to
another missionary meeting which was to take place in the morning in Panama
City. It was necessary for the
missionaries to leave early in the morning in order to arrive in time for the
7:30 AM meeting.
There were two companionships and the greenie sharing a
car for the trip, 5 missionaries in all.
After about an hour of travel, the driver pulls the car over next to a
field of watermelons and suggests that they go pick up a few for all the
missionaries to eat after the meeting.
Everyone gets out of the car and the greenie says something like, “Isn’t
this stealing?” He is told it is okay,
that it has been done before, and not to worry.
The greenie agrees to help.
Just as the greenie picks up his water melon and removes
it from the vine, a young black man appears and demands to know what they are
doing in his water melon field. One of
the missionaries pulls out a pistol and shoots the black man who falls down
mortally wounded to all appearances. The
missionaries tell the greenie to get back to the car and start walking away
down the road towards their destination while they stay behind to hide the
body.
After hiding the body, the missionaries get back in the
car and drive up to the walking greenie and pick him up. They explain that this type of thing does
happen occasionally, but no one cares because it was a black man, so don’t
worry. Of course the greenie is in total
mental turmoil.
After arriving at the meeting and unloading the melons
the missionaries attend their appointed sessions. The greenie is then informed that they will
be staying for regular church services.
Just before the services are to begin, a black family arrives and the
greenie is startled to see the young black man who was shot and buried walk
into the chapel. The four missionaries with
whom he rode then introduced the family and privately explained that they had
set him up as an initiation prank.
Practical jokes may be fairly common, but most are cruel
and not very funny. I do not condone
them because they usually result in escalating rounds of revenge jokes and can
easily result in violence.
© 28 July 2014
About
the Author
I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale
and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to
turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm
in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
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