Dear J,
On Sunday, my roommate and I went down to Houston to visit my favorite missionary at her new church! We weren’t sure what to expect but judging from what she said about her new area, we figured it would be pretty rough. I brought my gun just in case. After about an hour drive with the windows down because my truck’s AC is out, we rolled up to a nice little church. I left my gun in the truck.
We got in there and debated on the best way to surprise her. We decided to just walk straight up to her and say Hey what’re you doing here? So that’s what we did. She was talking to some old guy when we showed up so on one hand I felt bad for pulling her away but on the other hand, he gets to see her all the time so get outta my way. She was so excited to see us! She couldn’t believe we were there. She did that thing people do where they’re so excited that they laugh and hide their face. We said we came to bust her out. We talked for a little bit and caught up as much as we could before church started.
Since she’s a missionary, she’s not really filled in on what’s going on in the world. I let her know that since she’s been out, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, and Mac Miller had all died. She thought I was lying at least about Kate Spade. I had also written her a nice letter before we came so I gave her that along with one of those little knives that looks like a key. I told her that as long as she aims for the soft spots (neck, eyes, temple) she should be fine. She’s tough. She also asked us to stalk her sister’s boyfriend to make sure he’s a good guy.
Her church was wild. A baby on a leash tried to climb on her companion’s lap. Another kid wearing a paper hat danced across the floor during a talk. Everybody except the bishop was 30 and up (the bishop was 28). I don’t remember exactly how it happened but the guy giving our Sunday School lesson on baptism brought up a what-if scenario about what would happen if he died taking the missionaries to a strip club! My favorite missionary tried to steer the conversation back on track but it didn’t work. Later on, somebody brought up that they knew a 40 year old woman who wasn’t married yet and one guy said that unless the church lifted the ban on polygamy, he couldn’t take on any more wives! Those people were hilarious. I’d probably keep on going down there if it didn’t take so much gas and if my truck’s AC wasn’t broken.
After the lessons, we got to talk to my favorite missionary more. She asked how everyone back in College Station was and how things were going at church. Also while we were talking, some little kid came up and told me I looked like an actor from Transformers. When I asked him which one, he said it was one that was mean to the girl in the movie. I’m not sure if that was a compliment or not. I couldn’t ask him because he had already ran off with a bag of popcorn. I don’t remember what I said later on but it made my favorite missionary laugh and hit me. Now I’m not 100% sure but I’m pretty sure she’s not allowed to hit me! If I had the Melchizedek priesthood that would technically be elder abuse. That’s ok, though. It was just a love tap.
The worst part of the whole trip was leaving her.
She had a meeting to go to so we had to cut the visit a little shorter than we wanted. Maybe if we had told her beforehand that we were coming we could’ve planned something. Oh well. I’m glad I got to spend as much time with her as I did. I told her we’d back back for her birthday, though. Hopefully I’ve got her polaroid album done by then.
I think she’ll love it.
-Jeston
Follow me: @DoHpodcast and @JestonTexeira
Jeston is a former student of Texas A&M, the author of Jesse Granger: Bushranger in Hit the Ground Running, and a volunteer at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, TX.