This Week on Hoarders....

This week on Hoarders:

On Friday Elder Petrucka got the opportunity to go to the endowment session of a less active woman he helped reactivate a few months ago. I was super excited because that meant I got to got to the temple too but the Zone Leaders told us that the AP's were only letting Elder Petrucka and Elder Smith (Elder Petrucka' s old companion) go to the temple. So I got to spend my Friday in Hillsboro.

Thursday night Elder Bibeau texted and told me to bring service clothes and I was pretty excited because I haven't done service since a branch member, who shall remain nameless, tried turning the missionaries into his indentured servants. 

I showed up at Hillsboro around 10 am and at 11 we got in the car to go do some service. We went to this old lady's house that looked like at one point in time would have been very nice but it was all run down and gross looking now. Elder Bibeau called the lady and she told us to walk her dog first. So Elder Cook grabbed a leash that was lying on the front porch and opened the door to this house. A really dirty dog came running towards us and we leashed her up and started walking. After we walked about a block the dog farted on Elder Cook and that made him nauseous so he passed the leash off to me. It was really nice to be walking a dog again because before I left home my own dog refused to go on walks with me. We walked the dog around for about 30 minutes and returned to the house. 

This time the old lady answered the door told me to call her 'grandma' and beckoned us to come inside. The temperature outside was about 55 degrees and somehow when we went inside it was colder than outside. That was the first red flag. The old lady made us sit and talk with her for like an hour and she gave us lottery tickets (I didn't win anything). That was the second red flag. There was also a bunch of old junk in this old lady's hallway but I didnt think anything of it because sometimes old folks like to collect stuff. After we talked for an hour  she told us she needed help moving some boxes and trash bags in her upstairs hallway, "no big deal," I thought, "helping old ladies clean up is part of doing a good turn daily."

As we walked down a long cold hallway to get to the stairs I noticed a few more things: she didn't have any lights on, there were 20 year old rat traps laying about the place, the plaster on her walls was breaking off in chunks, and also more rat traps. 

I walked up some questionable stairs slowly, being careful not to touch anything I didn't have to. At the top fornthe stairs I found myself in a darker, colder hallway. When my eyes adjusted I gagged. The walls were lined with junk on both sides. Boxes with mold growing on the side. Rat footprints on magazines older than me things that any rational person would have thrown away once it became outdated in 1989. Elder Cook came up next and in his best TV announcer voice he said, "On the Next episode of Hoarders..."

The Old Lady told me that my 'job' was to hold a trash bag open while she threw things away. I have to give her credit, she threw a few things like water damaged books and shoelaces away. But everything else she refused to part with. 

Every time she picked up an object she would talk for 5-15 minutes about it and then say, "I'm sorry, I just can't beat to part with it," and then would put it back.

Aside from me, Elder Cook was the least comfortable person there--Elder Bibeau loved being there in the trash for some reason-- and every 20 minutes or so the old lady would call Elder Cook fat and Elder Bibeau would join in and also call Elder Cook fat. Really not nice. After about the fifth time of being called fat Elder Cook excused himself and went downstairs. Once he was on the main floor, I was the only one able to see him. Since he was technically an ASL missionary for a few transfers he did some sign language that looked like he was conveying his anger. He then motioned for me to come down and talk with him.

He grabbed me by the shoulders when I approached him and said, "I really don't like it here and I know you don't either. Missionaries have been coming here every Friday for the past 5 years to help 'clean up' and we've gotten nowhere. This place needs to be condemned. I'm going to stand right here until it's time to leave I'm sick of being close to questionable growths on the wall and being called fat all the time."

I told him I would try and get us to go on a lunch break. A few minutes later the old lady told us we could go get lunch and come back. Elder Cook and I were overjoyed when we got outside because it was warm and clean out there. 

Now it was Elder Bibeau's turn to be angry. He told us that we were being babies and that the house wasn't THAT dirty. We just ignored him, maybe we were being babies but at least this baby knew ground zero for the Bubonic plague when he saw it. 

After lunch we came back dreading to go back up into that cold, dark hallway. But suddenly, a tender mercy of the Lord pulled up in a Corrolla. It was a missionary that had served in Hillsboro 2 years ago visiting this old lady. She made us all sit down and talk again, in her surprisingly clean dining room for another 2 hours. 

After he left it was just about time for us to get going too. The last thing she had us do was put a few briefcases in her attic. Unfortunately the only instruction she gave us was: "Don't wake up the varmints, there are more of them now and they've gotten a whole lot bigger and faster than I remember." Also, "Elder Cook, you're too fat to go up there so it has to be Elder Murdoch or Bibeau."

She didn't even tell us where her attic was.  

We found the ladder and I had just about reached my limit. I told Elder Bibeau since he enjoyed this place so much he should be the one to see the most of it. He still wasn't very happy with me or Elder Cook but I didn't care. 

On a more spiritual note 

President Whitney told us the new mission goal is to reach 111 baptisms by the end of March. This is a rather ambitious goal for our mission but we've been instructed to read Ether 12:12 if we become discouraged. 

"12 For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith."

The only way you can expect miracles to occur is if you have faith. 

Love y'all,

--Elder Murdoch

Step one of me becoming Dirty Dan