Lunch with the Boss and We Get Yelled At in a Parking Lot

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 to reason with each option.

KFC? I don't even really like KFC so, no. 5 Guys then right? No, wait what if I order the Cajun fries and get the seasoning on my shirt? I'll look like a dweeb. Chik-fil-a sounds like a pretty good option but I just ate there the other day, oh, and Elder Shiday is from Atlanta so he probably eats chick-fil-a everyday and wants something else. Wait, I think Elder Shiday is from Eritrea maybe he wants African food? Nope, it wasn't an option listed and I can't do Fufu again. Subway? [At this point I imagined some punk working at Subway messing up Presidents order giving him pickles when he specifically asked for no pickles and then when he eats it a mustard covered pickle falls on his lap.] McDonald's? Ah, yes. My first love, classic McDonald's. It's been my go to since Freshman year, my rock of fast food. Yes...

"Lets go to McDonald's!" I blurted out naïvely. President sat there, stupefied. Processing what was probably the dumbest thing he heard all week. "Well... ok." He said reluctantly. 

As you can imagine, it was awkward. In the last Zone Conference sister Whitney mentioned how being married to President is hard because he doesn't talk a whole lot and he doesn't show emotion. This turned out to be an all too true statement. I thought maybe we would be able to get to know him better but he didn't seem too interested in talking. He silently ate his Big Mac (No pickles) and occassionally asked us about our investigators. 

On a more spiritual note:

I went on exchange this week so it was me, Elder Shiday and Elder Bugingo in a refugee complex I saw from the road one time. I was excited to find people that maybe spoke French or if not, Kinyarwanda or Amharic or Kunama (the languages spoken by my companions) but to my dismay most of the people were Somali. Somalis are just very scary looking people. Have you seen Captain Phillips? They look exactly like those guys. Not even other Africans feel very safe around large crowds of them. I offered one of the women a card. She hissed and turned her back. Another thing about Somalis, they're all Muslim. The violent kind apparently. 

I kind of shrunk and walked silently because I thought at any moment someone could tell me they were the captain now.

Everyone we tried to talk to was Somali and just ignored us. Then I saw this old guy, wearing a Cowboys jersey sitting on a bench outside of his house. He probably wasn't Somali so I walked over to him and offered him a card. He was American, possibly the only American who lived there. He thought he had talked to missionaries before but wasn't sure. We shared a scripture with him out of the Book of Mormon, cant even remember what verse but he said he really liked it. He started off about how crazy the world was and how the people that lived around him were all pretty wacky. I thought he was going to keep talking and just preach to us like most people but then all he said was, "Keep the man upstairs in your heart and in your head and you'll be alright." Then he told us to have a good day and to carry some water with us always. For whatever reason that really touched me, I thought he was some wannabe preacher but instead he was just a wise old man sharing his knowledge with us. I hope the English elders are able to teach him further. 

Je vous aime,

Elder Murdoch