Mission Memories -- Port Charlotte -- Sister Wilson: Part Three

Are you ready for more fun mission stories and pictures?  Here we go!

Don't I look professional?  Check out the sweet computers from 1992.

This was when we did service at the Sheriff's Station.  As I recall, we entered warrants for arrest into the computer.  It seems to me that most of them were for check fraud, domestic abuse, and DUI. Stuff like that.

I always wondered if we ever tracted into anyone who we had entered warrants for.

If I recall correctly, by mission rules, we were supposed to perform four hours of community service every week.  It was supposed to be something where we could wear our name tags and be visible in the community.  I'm not sure this fit the bill very well, but at least the people in the office could see us :-).

I enjoyed my service at the Sheriff's office.  It reminded me of working in medical records at UVRMC.  :-)

Sister Wilson working at the Sheriff's office doing service.

during our lunch break at the Sheriff's office.  :-)

Sister Wilson and I taking pictures of each other while out tracting.

I think this was a common theme with Sister Wilson.  I seem to have several pictures like this with us taking pictures of each other at the same time.  :-)

Seems like that white dress is all I ever wore :-)

I guess this would be a good time to tell another story.  Although this one is somewhat more incriminating than some of the others.  I figure that the Lord knows about it anyway so it doesn't matter if I put it on my blog for all the world to read. :-)

In the Florida Tampa Mission it was a mission rule that we could only listen to music on P- day.  And then it was limited to: music composed prior to 1800 i.e. classical, music composed by Janice Kapp Perry, and music by the Mormon Tabernacle choir.

I did really well at keeping these rules until Sister Wilson came along :-).  Well, that excludes inadvertently listening to Billy Ray Cyrus or Garth Brooks blaring out from people's houses while we were out tracting.  :-)

I don't know why we decided to do this, but we were out shopping and happened across the music section.  We ended up purchasing a couple of tapes.  I bought Brooks & Dunn "Brand-New Man" because I would often sing that song while tracting.

"I saw the light I've been baptized

by the fire in your touch and the flame in your eyes

I'm born to love again, I'm a brand-new man."

I figured it was about baptism, so it was okay :-)

And Sister Wilson bought Garth Brooks, Christmas album.  :-) All I remember about that is when he is singing silent night, he breaks into a story that starts out "my wife Sandy and I"-- we always got a kick out of that part.

So, we listened to some illegal music for a while.  But we eventually repented and put the tapes away.

it looks like I put this picture the wrong spot before.  Once again, this was an extermination company that had cars that look like mice.  We saw them everywhere we went.  So we saw this one parked here, and thought we would get a picture by it.

Sister Wilson by the Truly Nolan car.

I don't know what we were thinking, pretending to explain The Book of Mormon to a closed door.

I guess it was a good photo op because it looks like this is a vacant house with a real estate lock on the door.  :-)

Sister Wilson explaining The Book of Mormon to a closed-door.

did I already put this picture on here?  It looks familiar.

okay time for another story.

Let me preface it by saying that in Port Charlotte we had a huge area.  30 mile diameter.  I think.  I just remember 30 miles.  I don't remember if that was radius or diameter.  Anyway, we were given an allotment every month of 1000 miles that we could put on the mission car. which might seem like a lot.  But, with such a huge area and driving around every day.  The miles really add up.  Even with careful planning we usually ran out of miles at the end of the month.  We would usually just call the mission office and ask if President Brimhall would give us more miles -- he usually did :-).

Who would always plan our day around dinner appointments or teaching appointments and go do media referrals and tract in the vicinity of our appointments.  In order to save miles.  We really did plan quite well :-)

Anyway, one day we had a media referral out in the boonies.  It was an area we had never been before.  Well, this was 1992 so this was long before GPS, or any fancy technology.  We always carried a good map with us and referred to it often. since I was the senior companion, and therefore the driver, I delegated the responsibility of reading the map to my companions.  But I usually ended up pulling over and looking at the map myself :-) 

Well, this particular street we were looking for showed two ways to get there.  The first route was much longer , but as indicated by the map, was paved.  The second route was much shorter, but as indicated by the map, was a dirt road. 

Of course, the dirt road appealed to us because it was much shorter.  And we would save miles.  But we weren't sure what the dirt road was like -- muddy, full of potholes, Rocky, etc.? 

We knew the paved road would be the safer option.  So we debated on which road we should take. 

I felt a little uneasy about going on the dirt road.  But as I recall, Sister Wilson convinced me that we should take that road.  I guess she was looking for an adventure. 

So against my better judgment, and against the advice of the Holy Ghost, we headed down the dirt road. 

I knew pretty much right away that it was the wrong choice.  It was very bumpy, full of potholes filled with standing water, and muddy.  

Well, sure enough, we got stuck.  :-(

This is pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, but luckily we weren't too far from a house.  We were hoping that someone would be home, and we could use the phone to call for help.

Thankfully, there was an elderly lady at home, who graciously let us use her telephone.  We called one of the members in the Port Charlotte Ward, who had a truck that could pull us out.

Thankfully, he came and saved us.  It was very embarrassing.  :-(

I learned a valuable lesson about listening to the Spirit. I hate it when I make stupid choices!

Needless to say, we never went down dirt roads again, if we could help it.  To make matters worse, once we finally did that media referral, the people were rude to us.  :-(

I don't remember this house, or these children, but that's par for the course for me.

I would much rather be hanging out with the kids playing on the playground equipment than talking to the adults :-)

for some strange reason, I vaguely remember this truck and taking this picture.  Although I'm not sure why.  :-)

something I look forward to every day!  Checking the mail!  And reading my letter from dad!

I actually do remember this quite well.

This was a DA at a member's house.  It was probably the fanciest meal I've had on my mission at someone's house.  It started out with appetizers -- shrimp cocktail.  Which is what the picture is of above. Shrimp was something that we were frequently served at our DAs.  Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of shrimp.  As you can probably see in the picture below.  :-), But I was a sport and ate it anyway :-)

As I recall, the lady was a member and I think she was the Relief Society president. Her husband was not a member.  They had a lovely home on the water.  We had an excellent meal in their dining room.  It's a good thing Grandma Sabin was a stickler for table manners -- they came in handy at this DA and throughout my mission. 

Well, good manners always come in handy :-)

you can see by my face how much I loved the shrimp.  :-)

This was a Seventh-day Adventist couple that we tracted out.  They graciously invited us to dinner, and allowed us to share the first discussion with them.

The dinner was lovely, but when we got to the discussion things changed a little bit.  They were not receptive at all to our message and became even a bit combative.  I don't know if their objective was to try to convert us to Seventh-day Adventist or if they were just very defensive of their own beliefs.  But whatever the reason, the discussion did not go well.  :-(

But other than that they were very nice people :-)

I think this was the office guy who was in charge of the mission car fleet.  I don't know for sure, but this might be the day we got our new Ford Escort!  Pictures to follow :-)

self-portrait again, while tracting

 We asked this lady, who is actually someone we tracted out and wanted a copy of The Book of Mormon, if we could take a picture of me explaining The Book of Mormon to her.  We always started with a short history of The Book of Mormon and marked 3 Nephi 11 and Moroni 10:4-5 for them.  From the looks of it, it looks like I'm explaining 3 Nephi 11 in this picture.

On an average tracting session, I would say we usually gave out about 3 books of Mormon.  Sometimes it would be zero, sometimes six.  But we did give out a lot of books of Mormon on my mission.  It seemed like we were always requesting cases of books from the office :-)

 I think this should have been in the previous post, but oh well.

What a good-looking companionship :-)

I think by the looks of the button on my jacket that this was my birthday.  So this picture is actually out of place because I have a separate file for birthday pictures.  But it ended up here.  So I will talk about it.

That is our sweet Ford Escort.  It was my first mission car I got that was brand-new.  If my memory serves me correct, Sister Wilson gave me the license plate that we put on the front of our car for my birthday.

There was an airbrush place -- I think in front of Wal-Mart -- that we often passed by when we went shopping. Anyway, Sister Wilson, and I ended up buying some T-shirts with the rebel flag and our names on the back.  I have plenty of those pictures to show you later :-).  But this license plate was done at the same place.  If you can't read it it says.  "Stone and Wilson" with the rebel flag.

This was a lady we taught.  If memory serves me right, the gentleman who was her boyfriend, I think, was a member.  What I remember about her is.  She was the secretary at another church.  I think maybe Presbyterian.  But she was always very open minded and always did her reading -- pretty much a perfect investigator.  I was transferred before we finished the discussions with her but I do believe she ended up being baptized.  And I think they got married!

This will conclude today's post. But stay tuned, there's much more to come :-)