Missionary Journal (1978-1980) - Page 13

April 26, 1978

ALL MY BUTTONS ARE FALLING OFF! One fell off the front of my brown suit, both buttons on both brown pants are ready to go, the one on the black pair of pants is falling, and all the buttons on my black vest are unraveling exactly like my mother said they would.

Elder Garret, our new afternoon teacher, says that I'm developing a good accent. He says I won't sound too much like a gringo. I hope maybe that's a realization of the promise that I would be hindered in no way through inability to communicate, but I don't know.

It's a big thing here at the LTM to do little things for your companions, and everybody is doing everything they can for everybody else. But they've gotten to a point where everyone wants to be self-sufficient so doing little things for others is making things very difficult. Every missionary makes sure that before doing anything else that their bed is made because if they don't someone else will. Everyone keeps an eye on their shoes and knows exactly where they are so no one will wax them. But last Saturday when Elder Lachaga got up late and had to hurry to get ready, he forgot to make his bed. So me and my companion decided to take off all his sheets, blankets, and even the pillowcase. We left only the pillow and the bedspread and then made it look like we had made his bed. But that morning, since Elder Lachaga was in a hurry, he didn't notice that we had rearranged his bed and we let it go until that afternoon, then we hit him with it. Everyone knows that you are supposed to be grateful for everything so he felt every bad that he had forgotten and didn't notice. So we both were thanked up and down, but we insisted that it was nothing (which it was) and we all had fun that night when we got into bed.

There has to be a certain amount of that sort of thing to keep sane (but I'm not sure how much because most people here aren't very sane). I remember in our morning class with Elder Slieght (a man that I've come to love and respect) that our district has always been one that teases each other or at least that's... Next Page