This
has been a very crazy week. First of all, I've been dizzy all week, and
that's just now going away. My mission president's wife (Sister Center)
was pretty concerned because we couldn't figure out why. But it's going
away, so it's all good now. :)
I think I'm going to neglect most of the week in favor of two main stories.
1:
Sometimes we get texts from Church headquarters with referrals to go
visit people in our area. These are the media referrals; so anytime
anyone requests a visit from Mormon.org, or at a pageant, or whatever.
We had gotten a text for an excommunicated man a few weeks ago, but it
took us forever to be able to go see him because we have to go through
the bishop first for excommunicated people. Then we got a text for a
less active man with the same last name. But this time we got a home
address. The first one had only given us a work address, so we'd been
stopping by the business, but hadn't caught him. The home address was
for Lichfield Lane, and since they both had the last name of Lichfield
we figured if we found one, we'd find the other.
So we decided to
go on an adventure to find them. Turns out Lichfield Lane is down in
Shengri-La (spelling? no idea). Shengri-La is a random oasis valley,
that has a little pond and park where people get married all the time.
We went down in there, got very very lost, and had to stop to ask
directions from a guy who was working in the stables. He gave us some
directions to the second man's house, which main revolved around the
fact that they had a fountain in front of their house and we couldn't
miss it.
So we drove around in the what we thought was the
area he had described and couldn't find the house. We ended up at the
end of a dead end street in front of a house with a bunch of kids
playing outside. They all stopped and stared at us (they obviously don't
get many people there) and we proceeded to shamelessly break some
mission rules.
For missionaries
who have a car, it's required that the passenger missionary always get
out and direct the driver whenever you back up. I was not about to get
out of the car in these people's driveway, amid all those staring
children, to back the car. So we just backed up (praying we wouldn't hit
something and have to explain that to Elder Wooley) and ran away.
We eventually
found the house, after driving by it about 4 times. Their fountain
wasn't on, so it just looked like a bush in the middle of their
driveway. There were a few cars there, so we figured they were home, but
nobody answered. We were pretty sure they were home, because it
smelled, and looked, like they were having some sort of fire in the
backyard. After some minimal snooping, we realized that there was nobody
in the backyard, but there was smoke billowing out of their window.
Fairly concerned, but not wanting to trespass and give any crazy people
an excuse to shoot us, we went over to their neighbor's house. (By the
way, there were only two houses in this part of the valley.) Their
neighbors had about 5 cars outside their house, but nobody answered
there either. There was this weiner dog out in the yard that took one
look at us and then bolted with his tail between his legs.
Still
worried, we went back and knocked on the first house again, but nobody
answered. By this point the smoke had stopped, and we were pretty well
convinced that there was a serial killer in there. We decided we should
go tell SOMEBODY that this house was possibly on fire, so we decided to
go find a neighbor that could call them.
After driving
all around that whole stupid valley we realized NOBODY was home. It was
starting to feel like some sort of horror movie, because this was
clearly one of those not-quite-a-compound areas where everyone is
related. We decided to go back to the stable and at least tell the horse
guy, only HE WAS GONE!
Finally,
we accepted that the only available option was to go back to the house
with all the kids and tell them. When we drove up we almost died because
all the kids were gone, and we were like WHAT FREAK SHOW IS THIS?! But
then they popped out from around the back of the house.
As
we got out they ran to the door yelling that the missionaries were
coming. We were like, ok, well, they at least know who we are. Hopefully
that's a good thing. As we're walking in the house we hear a lady say
"I hear one of them's a Peart". That through me for a loop. Turns out
that they're members and they're also Pearts.
We
went in and told them about the horror story happening in their
neighborhood, and the husband was like, "Oh yeah, that's my cousin, I'll
text him." (Totally called that one. They're all related.) Luckily,
they were members and quite nice. We talked for a little bit and
established that we were, in fact related. He was like "Oh, have you
hiked up to Jacob's rock?" I was surprised and asked him if he meant
Jacob, The Jacob, as in Jacob Peart that crossed the plains. Apparently
that was the Jacob Peart he was talking about, and apparently said Jacob
came down here and carved his family tree into a rock. Pretty cool. I
gave them my mom's email address so they could send her the pictures.
I
let them know that I was pretty sure that my uncle had Jacob Peart's
diary, and therefore we were the purer strain and they were just posers.
They consented that that was apparently the case. :)
The
wife's parents were also there, and apparently they knew Virginia Peart
and Joe Peart because they're from Vegas. It was weird, but cool.
2:
Last night we were coming home at the end of the day and as we drove by
the house of a single sister in one of our wards, we saw a man standing
outside of her door. We were pretty sure that it was the town creeper,
so we decided to drive by again to make sure. We ended up driving by
three times, which meant that we were able to be positive that it was
him, and he was able to be positive that it was us. He was very clearly
snooping around her house and as we drove by the third time, he put some
stuff at her door and hopped on his bike. We hurried up the street to
Brother Cox's house to have him call the lady and let her know.
Mr.
Creeper was about caught up to us on his bike, so as soon as Brother
Cox opened the door we barged right in and slammed the door. He was
equally concerned, and said he'd give her a call. (Apparently she's out
of town, visiting someone in Texas.) As we left we flew to the car,
jumped in and locked the doors. We carefully inspected the street,
praying Mr. Creeper wasn't watching us. We drove around the block before
we went back to our house, since she lives right around the corner from
us. When we got home, we locked all the doors and windows, and prayed
that he hadn't figured out where we live. The mission is very careful to
make sure people can't stalk us home, so we were hoping we hadn't blown
it. We texted the elders in our district to let them know who was
guilty if we showed up dead. Our district leader was the only one who
didn't laugh at us. He called us and told us to let him know if we
needed him to come down. The other elders all laughed at us because
they're buttfaces. Clearly our district leader is the only one who has
met this man. He's an old, excommunicated guy who has way to much
interest in sister missionaries. He also is crazy because he's fried his
brain through all of his meth use. Whenever we have to go by his
trailer (one of our investigators lives across the street from him), we
park where he can't see us and sprint to their house. Long story short,
we barricaded ourselves in the bedroom last night and each slept with a
piece of pvc pipe to be used as a beating stick if necessary.
We made it though. :) Still alive, and no sign of Mr. Creeper.
As
for actually missionary stuff, we're doing alright. Michael is doing
good, and still has his baptism set for the 3rd. We get to teach him the
chastity lesson tonight, so that should be fun...
OH! I almost forgot. This past friday we had a
baptism! It didn't count for our numbers because he's an 8 year old in a
member family, but I'm still excited. His family is pretty new to the
church, so we were teaching him the lessons to get him ready. Kind of a
special case, but whatever. Anyway, his name is Logan and he's super
adorable. The very first lesson I ever taught on my mission was with
Logan, so I was kind of excited that he was the first baptism I had too.
:) The first time I met him, he was this little 8 year old with a
Mohawk and a pirate earring. But by the time he got baptized he had
shaved the Mohawk and switched to a little diamond stud. He's cute. :)
Anywho, I have to go now! Have a good week everyone!
Sister Peart
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