Tracting Stories: The Good & The Bad

Couple of quick stories from the mission. They're not spiritual religious experiences or anything, just funny things that tend to happen on the mission.

Elder Evans and Elder Bell were a companionship - two of the first missionaries I lived with. Both funny fellows - Bell had a nice full set of hair and so did Evans. But Evans was worried to death that he was losing his hair. He'd run his fingers through his hair, and look at the amount of hair that would be there, and we would say, "Don't worry Evans - not that much is coming out," "Oh yeah? You do it!" And then we would run our fingers through our hair and we'd have just a small tiny amount less than him, "See! I am losing my hair!" So one day they're out tracting, and they see an Aloe Vera plant, and Bell says to Evans, "You know, I've heard Aloe is good for hair loss," "Really?" They had knocked on the door several times but nobody was coming to answer it. So Bell says, "Go ahead, just take a little piece off and try it." "You think I should?" "Yeah - how will they notice a little piece?" So Evans goes to break it off, and a whole foot and a half long section comes off. "Aw, Fetch!" he cries - so he goes to break another little section off to make it a little less noticeable, and another huge chunk comes off instead, "Aw, fetch!" So here's Evans standing in the door with two huge foot long pieces from the Aloe Plant and wigging out. And then the owner opens the door...

There were a couple of missionaries out knocking doors - and they came to this one guy who'd evidently run into missionaries before, and was sick of talking to us. They start to talk to him, "Hi this is Elder Smith and this is Elder Young," and then the guy pulls out a machete and starts chasing them with it. They both got away and everybody was happy, the missionaries were safe and the guy was sitting peacefully in his apartment. A couple of months later another missionary, Elder Gibbons, tracted into Machete Man, and he starts BRT'ing with him. BRT stands for Build Relationships of Trust - missionary term for chatting with people, getting to know them, asking them where they're from, introducing yourself etc., you know - shooting the breeze, chewing the fat, making small talk, etc.) with him. Gibbons BRT'ed so well that Machete Man gave him his machete.