Elder Will Murdoch-Ft. Worth Texas Mission

A few random events: Africa's new car: We got a call from our vehicle coordinator saying that considering the size of our area (absolutely massive) there was no way we could go on bikes or rather, bike because Elder Shiday's is in a warehouse somewhere or something. I was kind of hoping for a truck or a Malibu or even another Corolla but what we got was a Ford Focus. It was similar to the car I failed my first driving test in. I was optimistic that perhaps it was driven by sisters before we obtained it but the interior revealed that was not the case. The back had been so stained it resembled Neapolitan ice cream. I dreamt back to my high school days with my Elantra where the previous owner had spilled a frosty or something and I always had to explain it wasn't blood and I thought of the many more times that lay ahead of me where I would have to make a similar explanation. Africa's old car gets totaled: Unfortunately "Julie" our Corolla (I didn'...

Shr3cked: On Friday  afternoon we were in south Fort Worth and literally all of our appointments had cancelled on us for the next 3-4 hours. Not wanting to waste time in an all Swahili complex being unable to talk with anyone we decided to go to some complexes in west Fort Worth to see if there was any potential there. There was one street in particular we were looking for and as we got closer and closer things were starting to look promising, we even saw a woman who according to Elder Shiday "looked like she spoke Kunama(his native language)." We kept driving and accidentally passed the complex we were planning on seeing. There was a "T" in the road so Elder Shiday told me to flip a U-turn. I was in the left lane and deviated from it a little in order to make the turn.  The next thing we saw was a car headed straight for my door and then the screeching of tires and then, nothing.  There were no screams, no cries of warning, no "Look out!" Not...

Papa Jean: We have this investigator named "Papa Jean." He insists that he goes by this name and will not respond to "Jean" or his last name or any combination of them unless the prefix "Papa" is there. Eventually, we're going to have to break the news to him that his name is already a popular pizza chain and he'll have to change it due legal issues. Anyway, Papa Jean is really quite nice but he has just one problem: he has the insatiable urge to be baptized. He went to church the first time he went to church he came without us inviting him and left half-way through sacrament meeting. The he called us 4 days later and said that he "chose" our church. He allowed us to teach him the Restoration but that was it. He didnt let us come back but he still came to church. Then one day he said he would tell us  in 3 weeks  what day he wanted to be baptized. Then he dropped off the face of the earth for those 3 weeks. We He wouldn't an...

Lunch with the Boss: Elder Shiday, Elder Alleman's old companion returned to the mission on Wednesday and so he's in a trio with us until transfers then we'll see who goes where. President Whitney told us that he'd meet us at the Stake Center with Elder Shiday, then he'd take us to lunch.  He pulled up in style in his 2018 Avalon with our new companion in shotgun. We put our bags in the trunk and hopped in.  After sitting in silence for a few moments President Whitney pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and said, "Well, I took the liberty of looking at our options and here's what I found: -KFC -5 Guys -Chick-fil-a  -Subway -Mcdonald's" None of those options sounded like President Whitney would approve so we awkwardly all grunted hoping someone else would choose. When no one did the burden of decision was placed upon my back by Elder Alleman who said, "Elder Murdoch gets to decide." I started to panic and began t...