My Mission. Behind the Scenes.

I've been re-reading the emails I wrote home while I was a missionary (In New England, 2014-2016) and thought I'd share some of the gems I found. You hear a lot about the miracles that happen for missionaries, and I witnessed a lot. But this is more 'behind the scenes'...

I meant to pour lotion into my hand, but I accidentally unscrewed my water bottle and poured myself a handful of water. 

We were getting ready to sing a hymn at the beginning of class in the MTC. I tried to start us off, but nobody else followed. I kept assuming they would eventually so I ended up singing the whole thing by myself.

We stopped to talk to a girl on the street and when we were saying goodbye, I shook her hand. She must not be used to shaking hands with people because she gave me her hand like she thought I was going to kiss it and then when I took it, I accidentally popped all of her fingers at once. 

Someone apologized to their dog and I accidentally said it's ok. 

We passed a man on the street and asked him if he wanted to learn more about Jesus. He said, 'I'd rather go to the dentist'.

One of the elders that we share a car with found a bra wash bag in the laundry room. He didn't know what it was so he kept making a big deal about 'Who does so little laundry that it can fit in this little bag??' Finally, I told him what it was, but he didn't hear me and thought I said it's for midgets.

We were talking to a guy on the street about the message we share and right before he left, he said, 'Can I give you a hug?' except instead of waiting for an answer, he just leaned in for one. I panicked because we aren't supposed to hug guys as missionaries, but I didn't know what to do so I leaned back super far and stuck my hand out to shake his hand. Then I took my other hand and patted him on the shoulder and said, 'How about a pat?' He looked at me like I was a freak because of course he doesn't know our rules. He was like, 'Ok, how about a pat...?' and then he patted my companion on the shoulder too.

I accidentally smacked our ward clerk, who is an old man, in the face because someone came to church who I was not expecting and I got excited.

When we went to the assisted living place that we help at, we were playing hangman and I told one of the ladies she did a good job. She's hard of hearing so she looked at her friend and asked, 'Did she just tell me to shut up??'

My companion and I are trying to start up friendly conversation when we go tracting instead of just inviting them to learn out of the blue, but we're still getting the hang of it...

Us: "Your dog is so cute!"

Them: "Thanks."

Us: "Where did you get him?"

Them: "The SPC. Now what do you want, I'm not gonna hold the door open all day."

I fell off two people's porches. I walked off of someone else's.

The other day, we were at someone's house for dinner and the wife said, 'Ok, we'll just get you some leftovers!' and the husband looked at her and said, 'Honey, no.' so she didn't.  

One of the elders told me I remind him of his mom.

One of the other elders told me that I remind him of his dad. 

Yesterday, two young women invited their friend to church and brought him over to introduce him to me. They told me beforehand so I was expecting it, but I'd just finished up with a super awkward interaction with someone else and was still feeling awkward. So when they said, 'This is our friend!', I wished him a happy mother's day. He stared at me, my face turned red, and I said we'd better get to class. 

This week someone told me that if I was a man, he'd punch me in the face.

I put my temple dress on backwards and walked around that way until a temple worker said, "You can wear it however you want, but traditionally people wear it the other way..."

Sorry my email isn't longer. I'm distracted because we're all emailing as a district this week and all the elders are talking about how they wish their feet smelled like donuts. 

We had a dinner appointment last night with a family in the ward. The husband knows that I usually ask for less food than everyone else so yesterday, when he was dishing my food, he said, 'Here's your bird feed'.

At dinner with a family in the ward, they filled up their cups with V8 juice, but ran out halfway through filling up my cup so they filled it up the rest of the way with water.

We passed a woman out walking her dog and the woman had a sucker in her mouth. Instead of asking what kind of dog she had or something, the first question I thought to ask was 'what kind of sucker is that?'

While tracting, I got the hiccups in the middle of asking someone if she'd like to learn more.

We went to get haircuts. I asked for an A-line and she didn't not give me an A-line. She gave me bands and a lot of other awful that I can't explain. When my companion saw it, she asked if I needed a hug.

We went to help a member of the ward move on Wednesday. Their son told me that he's 'very in love' with me and when we were leaving, he grabbed my hand and said, 'You can't leave, you're too much of a woman!' He's 8.

This week, someone told me that I look like an English midwife from the 50's. 

LOVIES!

Kelli