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When we lived in Indiana—waaaay back during the Cretaceous Period when my husband was in graduate school and I was a marketing rep for WordPerfect Corporation—we sublet our basement to LDS missionaries. The people before us had had an open door policy and let the missionaries just walk right through their house any old time they wanted “to get the mail, check the time,” whatever. There was a door separating the downstairs apartment from the upstairs house, and the original renters had removed it so the Elders would feel like part of the family.
We put it back on.
We'd been married two years. I was young. I hadn't had kids yet, ergo, no stretch marks or veins or anything too icky. We were also young enough to assume that since the elders didn't know us from the mailbox, they wouldn't just come traipsing through our house.
Well, slap me with a referral but we were naïve.
One day, as the hub and I sat at breakfast noshing on shredded wheat and dressed in our P.J.s (because it was early, okay? Too early to be sociable), one of the little dudes from the basement moseyed his way into our kitchen. We froze, spoons halfway to our mouths.
He stared at us. We stared at him. He blinked a few times. We blinked back. Then, without a word, he trotted on past us and through the living room to drop a letter into the box affixed to our house.
Wha?
On his return trip there was more frozen staring. I punctuated it with surprised eyebrows just so he got it. I was sure he'd felt the discomfort and the potential Door-Back-On-It's-Hinges-ness of his little trek, and didn't think I would have to tell him he wasn't welcome to come that way anymore.
Well, one morning I was in the shower. I got out and realized I had left all my clothes in my room, which was adjacent to the bathroom down the short hall. Really short. More like a little convergence between the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom.
I thought, what the heck? I'll just streak to my room and get my clothes. So, hand on doorknob, I start to open the door. Suddenly I got this little feeling: Put Your Robe On.
Huh. I thought, Why? It's three steps to my room. No big. I'll just streak. Hand on doorknob.
Put Your Robe On.
Really? That's just silly. I don't feel like it. My room is right there. I can practically touch it with my ha—
PUT YOUR ROBE ON!!
Okay, okay! Yeesh. Keep your shirt on. I'll put on the robe.
So I put on the robe. Then I opened the door.
Annnd came face to face with missionary-boy. He stared at me. I stared at him. He stared at me. I nearly fainted. Fully-robed.
My hub talked to the clueless kid that very night. He rehung the door. And the missionaries walked around the house to get their mail from that day forth.
As for me, I tried to listen to little impressions from the Spirit a whole lot more quickly.
Also, I wear my winter coat when I go from bathroom to bedroom now. Just in case.
Alison Moore Smith is a 61-year-old entrepreneur who graduated from BYU in 1987. She has been (very happily) married to Samuel M. Smith for 40 years. They are parents of six incredible children and grandparents to two astounding grandsons. She is the author of The 7 Success Habits of Homeschoolers.
Thanks for sharing! What a great story. Alison: I am so not surprised.
I love this story! I guess that’s why they have more rules now about where the missionaries can live. 😉
I can’t even express how much I was hoping you ignored the prompting.
Okay, I lied. Just didn’t want to shock anyone. I walked out completely nekkid and missionary-boy is now the lead singer for a death-metal band. I ruined his life.
Better?
Infinitely.
Yeah, I feel better, too.
How funny!!! Or not, depending on how you look at it!! 🙂 This hits very close to home for me! The missionaries live with us, as well!! They live in a one bedroom apartment attached to the backside of our garage. It’s a totally self-contained apartment with a full kitchen, livingroom, nice large bathroom, it’s own air, heat, water heater, etc. The good thing is that there are very strict mission rules about all this now. (Maybe there weren’t “back in the Cretaceous Period”, or maybe there were and they just weren’t being followed???) They access it by walking down the side of the house, to the backside, where their front door is. Their “backdoor” exits into our garage, but it stays locked. But, since the apartment doens’t have a washer or dryer, (or the hook-ups), they use ours in the basement during their P-day. They have their own key to open the back basement door, but they can only do their laundry on their P-day between 6:30am and 10:30pm. On their P-day, the door coming to the upstairs in our house remains locked so they can’t access the house.
How cool that you have missionaries with you! Their apartment sounds great. Heck, I’d live in it.
Yeah. I’m pretty sure our missionaries had rules too. The previous family just kind of blew past them. We had some really good missionaries, but for a little while the city was a mess because of a group of scary elders. They had to bring sisters in to clean it up because people wouldn’t listen after watching some of the behavior. Over all, though, I loved having the missionaries close by. Sounds like you’re enjoying it too.
We had one cute elder (after scary-robe-boy) who used to sit with his ear pressed against our kitchen door whenever we played Verdi’s “Requiem” on our stereo (which was a lot because CD’s were a new thing and we were obsessed with bombastic music and how it sounded on our new speakers). I found this out one day when I had the Dies Irae cranked and I opened the door to take something outside and this elder fell over onto my feet. He was totally mortified. Jumped up and said, “Er. Sorry. What is that music!? It sounds like the Second Coming!”
Cute boy.
If you want to hear the Wrath of God at the Second Coming, according to Verdi, here’s a url (Sir George Solti): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW1Uc-grcMs
Reminds me of a story my grandma told me once, the missionaries were living with them in the winter and got a little over excited when the snow came, they shoveled snow up against the door so my grandmother couldn’t get out of the house. I laugh when grandma tells the story but she still has a dead serious expression as she insists that “it wasn’t funny!” I guess being trapped in a house with 9 kids was traumatizing for her 🙂
Was it Ben Franklin that said “house guests and fish stinketh after three days” ? My hat off to anyone who can live, even semi-communally, for long periods of time with anyone but their own spouse.
What about kids? 🙂
Hahahaha!
Sorry- I’ve been an empty-nester for too long. I’ve nearly forgotten the days before I was able to go about the house in whatever attire I chose.
I don’t know. Sometimes my kids DO smell like stinky fish. Especially after a soccer game . . .
Wow! lol, love this story. 19-year-old boys can be so clueless sometimes.
Oh, my dear. It SO doesn’t end at 19. Bless them. 🙂