Of Missionaries and Blueberry Pie

I am not in California today. And I will not be in California tomorrow either. This fact makes me a little sad. And I would like to take a moment to explain why. You are going to have to excuse me for doing a little something that we Mormons tease each other about quite a bit. The next paragraph of my blog is going to start with an incredibly cliche phrase. More cliche than "It was a dark and stormy night", this phrase strikes fear in the heart of most girls at BYU, it draws a yawn from church attendees and it draws eye rolls from younger brothers and sisters and children everywhere. But it is where the story of my weekend begins, and so you must understand that I served my mission in Paris, France.

When I was on my mission...
(there now, was that so bad?)
When I was on my mission, I was in a wonderful area called Melun. It was just outside of Paris, and I was struggling a little with the people I was supposed to be working with. Missionaries are divided into districts, and districts are supposed to work like teams, supporting each other and supporting the people they are teaching and working together towards a common goal. But the district I was in functioned more like a sudden-death contest. Unfortunately, at that point in my life I was not prepared with the social skills or confidence to face such a match. And the people who were supposed to be my team were less than patient with my lack of skills and did everything in their power to prove to me that I did not measure up. I was very lonely. I was working my heart out doing something I was absolutely passionate about, but I had nobody to speak to about it. I had only recently become "Senior Companion" and with that responsibility I got the first of many calls from the mission president containing the phrase "Well, Sister Pratt, if you can't help Sister ____ to want to be there/obey the rules/get out of bed/etc, then we will just send her home." I never trained. I just got that companion that was on her last chance. It made things even more lonely. And during one particularly lonely Sunday, I went to church and saw a new face. As is a missionary's duty I wandered over to meet the new face, and struck up a conversation with a girl named Lucie. Lucie was visiting family in the ward that day. She normally belonged to another ward but had come with her aunt and uncle to help with their children (and their children were a handful!) We had a wonderful talk. She was kind and friendly and she put no pressure on me to be any less or more than I already felt that I was and it was exactly the kind of boost that I needed in order to continue filling all of the commitments I had made in order to be where I was. I had one conversation and I felt like if there was just one person who really believed I could do those things and be those things then I probably could do it. I don't even remember the details of the conversation, couldn't tell you one thing that we talked about except that when I walked away from it I didn't feel quite so lonely. Which makes all the difference in the world.

A month or two went by, and I learned a lot, and I gained a lot of confidence and I aquired some skill in dealing with 19-yr-old boys and I got transferred to another wonderful place called Torcy. And the phone call from the mission president contained some of the same phrases but didn't quite frighten me so much, because I knew that not only was I finally prepared for whatever lay ahead of me, Whatever lay ahead of me was going to be great. So I went to Torcy, and my first Sunday in church, I had barely even walked in the door when a woman who I had never seen before greeted me by saying "You are Sister Pratt? Yes, you are. I knew you would be. My daughter told me about you, and she prayed you here. She's not here this week, but she will be. I need to tell her that you made it." I asked her who her daughter was, and she explained to me that it was none other than Lucie. And I knew immediately who she was talking about and what she meant.

Without divulging too many personal details, I must tell you that great adventures came about in that amazing place called Torcy. We began spending time with Lucie and her family. I am sure that the Elders sometimes felt that I was horning in on their time with their amazing family, but the Elders couldn't really hang with Lucie the way we could (mission rules, you know) nor could they connect with Lucie's mom the way we could. And we could never have connected with Lucie's brothers quite the way the elders did. It took all of us, all of our different gifts and quirks to really come together. Let me explain with a couple of examples. Have I mentioned that much of my life has been spent as a somewhat socially deficient individual? Some of those deficiencies came about as a result of my HS years in a small town with a lot of problems. You have heard the stories. But that small town with alot of problems gave me insight that I could have never had in a socially efficient environment. I had no idea how to speak with boys. I had no idea how to joke around and have fun nor did I have any ability to be lighthearted when serious matters pressed. I'm not sure that I was even aware that in some cases, a serious matter required a lighthearted approach. At the same time, my faith had deepened to understand how to love people through some difficult times, and it had taught me that sometimes that love will lie dormant for years before it is felt or understood. I knew that you teach what you can while you can and sometimes you have to walk away while the seeds are barely even safe from the next storm.

Enter onto the scene then two elders. One is a quiet new missionary with some great perspective and patience, the other is a rowdy and rarely reverent wrestler. These two are exactly the Elders that every fiber of my being would object to. They are the "types" that my father told horror stories about and that my logic told me to fight against. But I had learned in my last area to give people chances, so I fought the logic and allowed for faith. The Elders pulled some pretty impressive stunts. There was the stealing of the chickens. There was an incident involving alot of string. There was a fairly intense food fight. They were clowns and they were insane at times, but they were drawing people in with every stunt they pulled. People wanted to be a victim of their next stunt. People understood that they offered their silliness with just as much love as the rest of us were trying to pour into our stuffiness. People were learning how to laugh at themselves and at life and by "people" I mean me. And Lucie and her family. And members of the ward and people in our classes and even people on the trains who saw jus how much fun you could really have all the while wearing a suit and a name tag. And all the while they were doing all the really important things that missionaries are supposed to do, like building trust and showing love and teaching truth. Then came the day that I got to try my hand at this thing called fun.

A birthday was coming up, and my companion had told me about an incident in which one of the crazy Elder's had a narrow miss with Methyl Blue. That's the stuff that makes your urine turn blue. She told me how she and other sisters in the mission had tried from that day on to set him up for Methyl Blue, and always had failed. And we recognized that we had opportunity. We called Lucie's mom. We explained the situation. She very kindly offered to teach us how to make blueberry pie in order to celebrate a birthday. We met, we made pie, and on the next morning she drove us to our meeting with pies in hand. All through the meeting we stared at those beautiful, glistening pies on the table. At the end of the meeting we cut into them and served them. And the elders ate the pie so eagerly that at first they did not notice that we did not partake. But the whole time, our target Elder sat chewing his pie thoughtfully. They noticed that the taste was a little off, but they did not want to hurt our feelings. Then, just as the Elders lips were turning too blue to be naturally occurring, Elder "Target" noticed that his trusted "Sisters" were not partaking of the periwinkle pastry. The wheel suddenly turned a little faster, a few things clicked (I could almost hear the clicking) and there was a roar as the table was pushed halfway across the room.

"SISTERS! YOU! YOU!" (he pointed at my companion) "You were there! AND YOU!" (He pointed at me) "YOU little...."

During this outburst the rest of the elders suddenly looked up, and upon seeing the blue lips of every Elder in the room, they each made their own deductions. One was thrilled, and promptly consumed the rest of his pie and dished up another plate. Another shook his head quietly and said "I understand it had to be all of us in order to get him." And one elder simply said "Bravo"
And I felt, perhaps for the first time in my life, that I was really a part of something. So did Lucie's mom, and Lucie (who was in on it as well), and Lucie's brothers who felt "victimized" along with the elders.

Elder "Target" never spoke of the incident again. But his companion whispered to me at church about two weeks later "I don't know about him, but it's still blue."

It wasn't about the blue though. It wasn't about the stolen chickens and the stories to send home. I couldn't sum it up in a letter home any better than missionary work could be summed up in our weekly stats. And weekly stats might be more descriptive and more effective if they included a category for such shenanigans. Number of hours contacting:30, Number of Service Hours:10, Number of discussions taught:12, Number of Baptisms: 0, Number of people that trust us a little more: 6, Number of people that laughed with us: 47, Number of Elders Peeing Blue: 6. Number of members that want to spend time with us and introduce us to their friends: 134. Improvement in myself, my confidence, social abilities and ability to trust others, priceless.

I am not talking here about a group of missionaries that slacked off in order to play games with each other, to flirt with each other or with members. We didn't miss a single contacting hour or service hour or member appointment during that process. But the quality of every one of our actions was improved because we were enjoying our work, enjoying our relationships, and enjoying our lives. It's a lesson that I am quite sure I could only have learned in that area with those individuals. It seems a trite thing to type it out, but you could interview the Elders who knew me before, during, and after and perhaps you would gain a greater perspective of the importance of the experience. I am so grateful that Lucie prayed me to her ward.

So what does that have to do with this weekend? We have all moved on since then. I for one am better for the experience, and I know that those relationships have impacted my decisions every day since then. We were never people that would travel in the same circles. If we had met up at school or even in church, we probably wouldn't have even noticed one another. But thrown together in that place and time forced us to learn from each other and care for each other. And now that our lives will not often cross again, we are left with the impact of the bond, the awareness that our lives are a little different because of each other. But what do you say to that?

Lucie had a baby recently. Her mom came out from Paris and this weekend we were all getting together to meet the new little guy and have a little reunion. I couldn't get the time off work because of all the time I have spent on hospitals and funerals lately. And I ache a little to know that the gang will be back together and I can't be there. But at the same time, I'm not sure how to talk to people who have changed me so profoundly. I suppose I could simply offer them some pie, and if they trusted me enough to eat it then I would know that the feeling was mutual.