Popping Wheelies

More adventures with Elder Van Dyke and his bike. Poor kid.

Dragon's Burning Bossom

Years ago* I submitted a gag to the New Era of a pair of smoldering missionaries exiting a dragon's lair (where the dragon is sitting on a pile of ill-gotten treasure) with one commenting to the other "The lesson was going well right up until we got to the part about tithing." The magazine purchased the gag and never published it (which is why it has never appeared on this blog). 

Since then, I've been dying to include a dragon/missionary comic on this site. Today, that itch has finally been scratched.

*Thirteen years, to be exact.

Field is White

Some of my most memorable times as a missionary were doing service. In one area, my companion and I volunteered at an orphanage where we simply played with preschool kids for a couple of hours a week. Many of the children suffered from physical ailments in conditions that, more than anything else on my mission, felt like Soviet-era living. It was incredibly rewarding service for us.

In another area, my companion and I taught an after school English class at the local elementary school. In both cases, the service was strictly for service sake. The only proselyting we did was (hopefully) the example we set.

Oscar Mayer

I love the idea that some kid might hear that particular verse and interpret it this way.

Smile

I learned a trick to a good smile as a missionary: you open your mouth as wide as you can first and then the smile comes naturally. The only problem is when the door you just knocked opens before you're done with the mouth exercise and the person on the other side of the door is staring at your uvula.

The Theory of Relativity

To be clear, this never happened.

At least, I'm pretty sure the missionaries never taught Albert Einstein a lesson on a park bench. Do you know who did have gospel discussions with him though? President Eyring's father. Henry Eyring was a world renowned chemist who worked with Einstein at Princeton. And while I'm writing about Dr. Eyring and Albert Einstein, let me share with you a funny story found in Dr. Eyring's memoir.

Erying recounted walking with Einstein around campus and wrote the following:"At noon we walked out into what had been a rose garden, but in wartime had been replanted as a victory garden. Now, I'm a farmer from Pima, so I guessed what the crop was, but I didn't know whether Einstein knew or not. So I picked up a plant and asked him what it was. He didn't know. I asked [the gardener] what it was. He said, "They're soybeans."

"Well, I though what you would have thought: "Einstein doesn't know beans." (Reflections of a Scientist, Henry Eyring, 1983, Deseret Book Company: Salt Lake City).

Fishing for Mail

To be clear, this never happened.