A real funny thing happened when we were on a bus going to an appointment with our Russian translator and new convert, George Konstantinov. Before we knew it we had arrived at the building and our bus stop came. I said, "Whoa, this one really snuck up on us." George asked, "What this mean, snuck up on us?" Then he said, "What's sneak, snuck, snack, and snake?" They all sounded the same to him. Elder Campbell and I laughed and explained what they meant.

Here's one door approach that I'll never forget. My companion was talking and asked the man his name and the name of his dog, and continued on with the door approach. Later towards the end he said good-bye, but he called the man his dog's name. I think the man was named John, but he ended up calling him Mitch when we left. We didn't realize that until they closed the door and we heard his wife laughing really hard. We started laughing our heads off. He was so embarrassed.
--Elder Rob Draughon--

I was a new missionary, out less than a week, and still stuggling with a new language (Canadian, eh?). We had a dinner appointment with a part-member family. During the course of the dinner I sloshed a bit of water onto my chair and asked, "Could I please have a napkin?" Noting the puzzlement on my host's faces I clarified my query with, "I had a little accident and my seat is wet." After the whole family broke into uncontrollable laughter, my companion informed me that what I should have asked for was a "serviette", and to them the term "napkin" represented a diaper. For the rest of the time I served in that area I would see a grin on their face every time I was recognized by one of the family.
--Elder Doug Wheeler

I thought I might take this opportunity to confess the true nature of the notorious U-haul charade. My nefarious companion and I happened upon that fateful preperation day (P-DAY!!!) with not even the slightest mischeif in our hearts, though a bit of contempt for our beloved TTC was present. Having eight hours of errands to run, and five left on the clock, my humble companion and I sat (and sat) as we awaited our public chariot to conduct us to our various destinations. Lo and behold, a moving van passes our favoured bench with this taunting ad adorning the sides: $19.95/day. We squirmed for at least a good three seconds before succombing to the wiles of the adversary and plotting our revised schedule.

The fortune of our next decision is yet to be determined...

We announced our newfound wheels to a few colleagues, and soon the traveling party had grown to over ten elders, seven of which had the memorable privilege of cruising in the back! A quick stop at Pizza Hut, a casual trip to laundry, and some hearty shopping were all that punctuated that trip, though the legends have been growing with each telling. I am often flattered by the various encarnations of these tales.

If one really needs a good (and true) tale for the next party, then feel free to contact me directly for some mind-boggling adventures. Peace be upon you. Hey, is anyone still wearing those silly bracelets?
--Elder Brett Stucker

The mission had been officially split one month and the Boyer's were welcoming in the first arrival of new missionaries. My departure home was scheduled the next day, which I had promised not to make known to the new Elders. Elder Neyman and Elder Spencer (who were replacing me) went to the airport to pick up the new missionaries. Before Elder Spencer and I left the apartment he broke the key off in the door lock. We were late and tried to fix it by taking it apart as quickly as we could. BOING!! springs went everywhere! I had to go pick up folding chairs from the Mississsauga chapel (the mission home was void of furniture at the time) for the welcoming reception. I was in such a rush with so much racing through my mind that I quickly fueled the car at the nearest station and raced out towards Mississauga. Once I got the chairs, I realized what I had done. I had LEFT THE GAS STATION WITHOUT PAYING! I was the first missionary to have a police search out on the President's Cavalier.

To spruce things up, I was the sickest I had ever been on my mission that day with the flu, and was up until 2:00am driving missionaries to the new area's. What a great last day!
--Elder Jon Kenneth Ramsay

This story took place in Belleville, so it shouldn't suprise anyone. I had just received a new companion, Ryan Mecham. My previous companion and I had baptized pretty much the whole pool before he left, so E. Mecham and I were stuck with tracting. I have an aversion to tracting, so one day as we started pounding on yet another street, I recieved revelation. I knew, through dinner appointment experience that there was a member who lived on this street, so to freak my companion out, and to alleviate some of the boredom I decided to tract the house as usual, but instead of a warm fuzzy door approach I would rip loose with a hell-fire and damnation call to repentance (All this done assuming the member would answer the door..

The plan proceded perfectly, E. Mecham was ignorant that a member lived there, and we were knocking. The door opened, I took up a dramamtic stance, and pointing a cryptic finger I cried,"Repent ye, repent ye, in the name of the Lord!" The person who answered the door look suprised, my companion choked, and the door was slammed in my face. After a moment of thought my next revelation came,"That wasn't the member!" I found out later that the member had just taken in a new border that and he had been accosted by the JW's that morning, so he really wasn't in the mood. Don't worry, things got smoothed out.
--Elder Stephen R. Carter

This is when I was in the Oshawa Ward and we had the sweetest little old Missionary Mom. She was 87 years old and had been a convert for about ten years. Every week ever since she had joined the church she had her Boys over for dinner. Most times there were 4 missionaries in the ward and Mom Butson would either take us out to Teddies or some where else and when we left she would pack a little Hamper for us to take. The dear old lady was only on a pension and she would insist on feeding us every week with out fail, not to mention she was about 95% blind also. We used to have so much fun with her dressing up in her old clothes and getting Mom to try to pick witch boy it was.

When it came to home time, even though she was a single sister living by herself she always insisted on giving each of her boys (Whom she remembered by name) a kiss on the cheek and a cuddle good-bye. It was so much fun trying to trick Mom into thinking you were one of her other boys. She differentiated us by how tall we were, so the trick was to either get down on your knees whilst you got your cuddle or to stand up on a box. Needless to say we used to do all kinds of things to each other whilst we were getting our only legitimate cuddle from a single sister on our whole mission.

God bless this beautiful lady's soul. She did all she could with what little she had and blessed the lives of many a missionary whom served in the Oshawa ward. I served in that ward for 8 months and when one of her boys left it was a part of the tradition for Mom to pass on a little mimentoe. It was usually a doilie she recently hand croched. As she was blind this was a miricle in it self. My doilie was white with a small purple bit of thread sown in to it, I'm sure she wouldn't have realised.
--Elder Brent Kimpton

While tracting one day in February, a warmer type-dry day for February, my companion and I ran into a nice guy who asked us to come back in an hour. We finished the street and returned and sure enough he was there. I was serving in the sunnybrook zone, at Lawrence and Allen rd. Anyway, we went into this man's home and he offered us a drink which he called "a Barbados special", the two of us being thirsty, accepted. He went into his kitchen and we heard the makes of a fresh drink being mixed. He told us it was lime punch. He was back there for what seemed like about 10 minutes. When he came out he handed me a tall glass of a green colored punch, which I gulped a fair mouthful of. My wise companion, elder Shapiro, upon smelling the liquid asked what was in the mixture. The man answered," lime concentrate, scotch, brandy, and vodka." I had already swallowed my first gulp and was about to take another when he said that. We explained that even though it tasted well, we couldn't drink it. I find it fun

It’s ironic that previous to my mission I had kept the word of wisdom faithfully, but on my mission consumed alcohol. I felt dizzy and sick about 30 minutes later, and that is all I remember!
--Elder Chad Simons

Elder Carl Oblad and I were serving in Toronto in the famous/infamous Chalkfarm Apartments in the summer of '91. We had gone to a gator's place for an appointment but we were bombed so Oblad was writing a note on a post-it on his door. While he was doing this I was unwisely playing with the fire alarm which was right next to the door. This alarm had already been set off so the guard was missing and the switch was rather loose if you ask me (not that I had experience with other alarms to base it on). Suddenly I had set the alarm off. You should have seen the look on Oblad's face. Knowing that there are fines for doing that sort of thing, we bolted for the elevator. while inside we remembered our note, sitting unfinished on the door next to the alarm. Rather incriminating. So Oblad peeked out to see that no one was there, ran and got the note and we headed to a member's home. Silvier Brown from Ghana, for those of you who knew her. As we walked in I said to her, "Gosh Silvier, what's with these fire alarms, who would do something like that?" Then I asked, "Does this happen often?" To mey relief she said yes.
--Elder Robb Aleman

I was a ZL in the Mississauga ward when this happend to us one night Feb '98. We just got in our apartment on a cold febuary night after the blitz, when we found our apartment a total mess. Like I mean, there was goo in our pans, sand in our shoes, paper all over our walls, light bulbs unscrewed, and I was kind of happy and kind of not. I was happy because I love to play pranks on everyone so I knew I had to get back at whoever did this to our apartment. On my desk, it was written, RULDS2? with the candy my mom had sent me. So we knew it was either a missionary or a member. We had a phone call from the District Leader that lived around the corner from us saying that his appartment was messed up! That he had brushed his teeth and found garlic powder in his toothbush, goo allover, there beds were soaked with water and the windows opend so they would some what get cold. So we decided to just all go to bed, and deal with it the next morning. Well at 2 am, my companion was going to the bathroom to do his "business" when I heard something fall. I went out to check on him and the bathroom door fell on him. Whoever it was that was playing a trick on us, unscrewd the door nails, enough to have the door open without falling. That was kind of a funny picture. Anyway, the next morning, we woke up with the phone ringing and it was the DL around the corner to see if anything new happend, and I told him what happend, and i looked at my alarm clock and it was 8:30!!! they changed our alarm to wake us up at 10!! We went to the DL's and found that the pranksters put sardines in the elders vents so that way with the heat comin out it would stink it up.

We later on found out who did all of this, it was an 18 year old prankster member boy, and a girl, Sara, the DLs baptised the week before who got together and did this. I didnt get a chance to get jesse back, but I sure did get sara! It was a real funny experience
--Elder Shawn Vanderhoven

In the winter of 90-91 I was serving with Elder Sean Drummond. I had recently snowed and we were tracting out a street. We were having little success until we came to a door. A man by the name of George answered and I started my approach. From with in the house I heard a fast approaching dog. When the very large pit-bull jumped up on me. George managed to pull him off of me and said that we should come by the side door. I said, OK. Hey I was a missionary, however the thought that he was trying to keep my impending death from the view of possible witnesses crossed my mind. We went in, taught a first and he invited us back and to a little league hockey game he coached.

So the next Saturday we went to the game on our lunch and his team was amazing. They won by some huge amount; like 12 to 2. We went to a few more games as we taught George and the scores were always huge. 9 to 0, 11 to 3. One day as we were near the sixth discussion George told us he wasn’t interested but that he wanted to make a confession. Of course we tried to tell him that he didn’t need to confess to us however he went right ahead.

George said, I haven’t been completely honest with ‘use guys.’ You see when ‘use guys’ came to my games I told the kids that ‘use guys’ were scouts!
--Elder Mark Harvey