I hope they call me on a ...

As part of my new bishopric duties, I showed up at the church tonight wearing a white shirt and tie. I had expected to attend opening exercises for mutual. As it happened, however, the missionaries were in the parking lot with a number of priests (also in white shirts and ties) gathered round. Apparently, it was "exchange night" with the priests.*

For a moment it seemed they might need someone else to drive, and I was hardly in a position to make myself seem unavailable.

At one point, an aged onlooker in a Scout leader uniform wondered in what seemed to be a mocking tone of curiosity -- mingled with an air of superiority: "Hey, are you guys going tracting tonight?"** (As though it could be the evening's only worthy pursuit if we were to spend it with the missionaries).

"I sure hope not," I blurted before having a chance to measure my words. The uniformed inquirer was taken aback by the apparent defiance, which I then pressed further by noting "I've already done two years of tracting."

Not willing to give up, he then rejoined with what seemed to be a mounting sense of superiority "Well, we've all done two years of tracting."

"Ah yes," I replied wryly, now determined to win the point, "but I made sure to do mine well enough that I wouldn't have to do it again."

I suppose some see a kind of bravado to tracting. It's like missionary manual labor -- meaning it's hard, and not something missionaries generally look forward to. Perhaps if I were a more upstanding member of the church and a more diligent returned missionary, I would've been chomping at the bit to get out there and go tract out my neighborhood and show both the missionaries and the priests how we Spanish missionaries worked it in Roseville.

Not tonight.


* Why they stopped calling them "splits" is beyond me -- maybe to avoid the inference or implication that ice cream might be involved?

** Apparently he felt safe that he wouldn't volunteered since he was wearing a scout uniform.