NOM

I was contacted by the sister missionaries via text last night. They asked if they "could come over tomorrow night to wash their car".

I said sure. Later I realized "tomorrow night" is valentines night. For the Noche de Amor, we will be washing the missionaries car.

Honestly, it's not that big of a deal. We intentionally didn't plan anything special, our evening already had something else planned and we decided to celebrate Valentines on Thursday. But the irony is comical.

The missionaries are always welcome at our house. We live in an almost rural area and since we have Sister missionaries, they are told not to be out and about at night with strangers and should try to spend dark hours with members. They have a billion rules regarding their mission vehicle.
So we're happy to provide a safe place for them to crash and help out. It just speaks to the ridiculousness of a mission now. Go hang out with members in another state to build your testimony. I think these girls are enjoying their mission, but it can't be what they envisioned. There aren't any new members being baptized. Their area is a bunch of middle to upper middle-class families that already have entrenched religion or no religion and live here because they don't want to be bothered. Good luck convincing anyone here to donate 10% of their income.

That sounds like a really bad porno.

It's valentine's evening. The Sun is about to set. There is an aroma of love in the air. The time might be right. Kish Kish pops the little blue pill, turns on the TV and waits for Mrs. kish to get back from the Circle K with a cheap bottle of kangaroo wine.

As the sound of tires coming up the rural dirt road gets louder, Kish starts to "perk up". Suddenly there is three distinct taps on the front door. Confused, Kish mutters to himself, "Why doesn't she just go through the garage?" Again, three more distinct taps are heard coming from the front door. Stiff and sore, Kish gets up and groggily yells, "what is wanted?"

As he opens the door, two bright eyed 20 year old women are standing there. They introduce themselves as the new very attractive sister missionaries recently transferred from Temple Square. Surprised, Kish asks, "what happened to the other frumpy sisters?" The very attractive sister on the left says, "they've been transferred out. The very attractive sister on the right says, "but they told us we could come over and wash the car!" As she leans forward, the cheap polyester lace of her garment protrudes just enough that Kish gets excited. It could be the little blue pill meant for Sister Kish and her cheap bottle of kangaroo wine. Or it could be a previously undiscovered garment fetish.

Kish quickly summons them to the garage and slams the front door, narrowly gyrating his hips backwards and avoiding every mans nightmare of disaster proportions. As he returns to the garage with bucket in hand, he turns on the water and begins to soap up. He notices the sister missionaries remove their sweaters, carefully transferring their black name tags to their blouses. The sister missionaries slowly and meticulously wash the car. First the inside of the tires. Then the outside if the tires. Round and round, like the doctrines of eternity, they wash the tires. First the front, then the back. Then they move in synchronized harmony only companions from temple square can muster and begin to wash the trunk.

Kish, still standing in the garage can't stop staring. As he imagines the sister missionaries removing their jumpers, he pictures them in their polygamy panties washing the car from front to back. Up and down. Side to side. Out of habits developed in his youth, his muscle memory kicks in and his hands slide gently down into his pa.....

Suddenly he snaps out of it as the horn of Sister kish's mini van blares as she pulls into the garage. As she gets out of the car she says... "When did the sister missionaries get here", she says loudly. Kish! Kish! What is wrong with you! "When did the sister missionaries get here", she repeats?

They just landed. They're from Temple Square. Bow chicka wow wow.....

Holy crap Red Ryder! If I had a beverage of any kind it would have exited my nose about four times!

I also found Red Ryder's creative writing to be illuminating.

Well, the car was washed, but it didn't go down like RR had fantasized.

A few highlights. The missionaries have a Nissan Pickup truck for the mission vehicle. They asked us to help wash it because it had recently been repainted and apparently the can't use an automatic car wash yet. But I was surprised they repaint mission vehicles. The vehicle has an external GPS and governor that controls and records basically everything about their driving.

The teaching pool is relatively small. This isn't surprising, but missionaries don't have a lot going on in terms of traditional missionary activity. They are teaching 4 individuals currently, which is pretty good. They cover 2 wards. They are also giving the new member discussions to one person. Basically, it's all the same stuff taught before baptism but just a repeat to make sure the newbie understands.

The sister missionaries love doing service. This isn't necessarily bad, but a lot is trivial service. Raking leaves, doing dishes, cleaning garages is great and all - but this is not the type of service that I think the one true church should be focused on. If I send my kid to do service for 2 years, I would hope it involves digging wells, building community centers, etc. Doing things that would be difficult or impossible for people to do themselves.

Lastly, the amount of down time in the missionary schedule is amazing. Today is meetings day. Basically, they spend all day once a week in zone or district meeting (includes weekly vehicle inspection). Thursday is planning day where they spend most of the day planning activities for the next 5 days. Monday is Pday and mostly uneventful. I'm not criticizing the missionaries, but I was surprised to see how much down time there is. I think this is a natural side effect of not having many people to teach churchy stuff, not much durable service projects and general lack of ability for the missionary program to be relevant today.