Missionary Road Trip
22 Feb 1982
Today was the wildest day! We got up at 4am to finish translating an article we needed to get to the Elders by 7:00. They were going to go to the recording studios today to get it put on tape. At 7:00 as we were finishing the last sentence, the phone rang. We didn't answer it, because we knew it would be the Elders and we wanted them to think we were on our way. So we rushed out the door, I put my coat on over my pajamas and Sister Bird threw on Elder DelRey's sweatpants. When we got to Jonquiere, they had left.
Well, we hadn't gotten up at 4 in the morning for nothing, so we drove up to Alma, where they were supposed to meet the other Elders. An hour's drive. In we walked into Elder Patterson and Ewart's apartment in our lovely attire! We had missed the other Elders by 3 minutes. So off we went to St.-Felicien, another 2 hour drive.
The Elders were supposed to meet at Guy Bouchard's shop, but we must have missed them again because the shop was closed. We knew Guy lived somewhere near, but his name wasn't in the phone book. We finally went to City Hall and they told us the nearest recording studio was in Roberval, another hour's drive. So we headed down the street, intending to go to Roberval, when suddenly we saw Guy Bouchard standing in the middle of the street! This was no coincidence, just another instance of God's guiding hand upon our lives. He came up to our car and said, "What are you doing here?"
Well, it turned out they were recording in his house, just down the street. He had gone to get a microphone and that's why he was standing in the middle of the street. He must have thought we were kind of strange to drive all the way up to St.-Felicien, give the manuscript to the Elders, then leave right away. But we couldn't stay--even for 5 minutes--because we didn't want to take off our coats!
Questions by my 25-year-older self:
1. What were Elder DelRey's sweatpants doing in our apartment?
2. Why didn't Guy Bouchard, a native French speaker, do the translation rather than two American sister missionaries?
3. What was so important about the translation that we had to drive a 6-hour round trip to deliver it? Obviously it wasn't as important to the Elders as to us!
4. Whose idea was this?
5. Who drove?
Another opportunity to look ridiculous on the large screen at the final judgment.
posted by Bored in Vernal @ 5:43 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Yep, your # 1 was the first thing I thought of, BiV. If your mission president allowed crossdressing, he was a lot more lenient than mine.
Although...there was a woman in my mission who always fed us elders, and who always greeted us at the door by saying "OK, go in there and take off your pants." She kept some sweatpants she got from the Goodwill store in her spare room, and we always changed into them so she could mend our suit pants while we ate, since bicycles are murder on suit pants. It was really nice of her to feed us AND mend our clothes at the same time. And it was always funny to go to her apartment with a new elder or greenie without warning them beforehand what to expect. Their eyes usually popped right out of their heads.
I truly cannot remember...these things are lost in the dim reaches of memory. The only thing I can think is perhaps we were doing their laundry??? If so, I was _much_ less of a feminist than I am today. I haven't even done my husband's laundry for the past few years.
The first thing I thought was #1 myself! Ah the details we leave out when journaling. Lol =)
I like the looking back and asking questions part. It really is interesting to compare what we're thinking as we write now and read later.
#6 What was the article that you were translating?
(This motivated me to go back to the Writing One's Life post and review my journals--I think they call it poaching)
So happy to find a fellow CMMr. I also served in the Canada Montreal Mission (January 96-May 97. I met my husband there (he was my D.A.). Just last night we were reading letters we had written while I was still on my mission and he was home. I know everyone thinks their mission was special, but there is just something about those 'Cois, franchment. We want to take a trip back to Montreal.
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