The One About The Missionary Who...

I got a request recently to tell the story about the Missionary who walked all the way to the MTC from Lehi, Utah.

It was 03:00h when a sea green Ford Probe pulls up to the front doors of the MTC. First of all, any time a sea green Ford Probe pulls up anywhere, you immediately need to be on your guard. There's just something abou the Probe that makes me feel uneasy. You never know what's going to come out of a Probe. Tonight was no different.

I walk to the window and see this middle aged couple helping this tall lanky kid out their car with his backpack. They looked really freaked out and as soon as he was at the front doors of the MTC they took off as fast as they had arrived. Their exhausted passenger didn't seem to notice. In fact he didn't seem to notice too much at all. He had this blank stare going on that told me the lights were on but not quite everybody was home. We buzzed him in and he starts talking about how he's reporting for his mission. Time for a brief explanation on how the MTC works:

Every Wednsday is "new missionary day," the day when all the new missionaries called to serve in their respective fields of labor, report to the MTC to check in and start their new lives as full time representatives of the LDS church. Now because we often recieve young men and women from other countries or other parts of the United States, many will report the day or night before due to flight schedules or other travel plans.

So at first, things did not seem too strange when he began by telling us that he was from New York and had arrived "early" to report in to the MTC. We looked him up on the computer and couldn't find the guy's name anywhere. So I immediately begin looking him over, noticing the far out gaze. Who was this guy? Why was he here if he wasn't on our system? Why had those people in the Probe dropped him off and then raced out of the MTC so fast? Why was this guy... covered in dirt? Covered in dirt. I don't know why I didn't notice it before but this poor guy's six foot frame was covered in dirt with patches of grass stuck to him. When I realized what I was seeing I asked him, "Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well you've got dirt all over you. What happened?"

"I got tired."

"Uh, tired of what?"

"Walking."

I looked over to my partner who looked just as confused as I did. I continued, "What do you mean walking?"

"I've been walking for a long time."

"Are you on any medication we should know about?"

"Oh yeah!"

That question seemed to jarr him out of the stupified exhausted gaze he had been trapped in. He ran his fingers through his dirty flat top, shaking the grass out as he went. Eventually we figured out that he had flown to Lehi, Utah to stay with his sister before he was to report to the MTC the FOLLOWING WEEK. That's right folks, he was a week early. But he didn't know that. He was supposed to be on medication for depression and anxiety as well as a seperate medication for; what he called, and you have to believe me: SHORT TERM MEMORY LOSS.

So how in the world did he end up at the MTC a week early, all covered in dirt and grass?

Well, first we called his parents who acted like we had just found a long lost relative. It turned out he had stopped taking his medication while at his sisters house. According to our guest, his sister was supposed to help him remember to take his pills (remember the short term memory loss?) but she has 8 kids all within one to two years apart so, "things got a little crazy over there adn I had to get out." So our friend decided to leave and go to the MTC early in order to ease the burden on his sister. How did he do this? He walked. "And walked, and walked, and walked." Pretty soon his medicine wore off and he forgot what he was doing. But since he was dressed for the occasion and had a backpack on his shoulder and a Book of Mormon in his hand, he figured he was on his mission so he started tracting. He said, "I started knocking doors and talking to people asking them for directions."

"Did anyone help you out?"

"Well a lot of people told me where I could go."

"So you didn't have too much success?"

"Not really, but this one lady gave me dinner and then sent me back out."

So he walked from Lehi, forgot what he was doing and started tracting in Utah County without much ecclesiastical success but still managed to get a dinner appointment out of the whole ordeal. Classic.

When I asked him how he got all dirty he told us how he got really tired and decided to lay down.

"Where did you lay down?"

"On the grass next to the road."

"Which road?"

"It was big and the cars were going fast. I can't remember what it was called."

"I-15," I asked half jokingly.

"Yeah!"

I couldn't beleive it. He had layed down in the grass next to I-15 to catch some shut eye on his way to the MTC. He went on to tell us that he woke up hungry and started eating grass when the couple in the Probe found him. It's true you never know what to expect from a Ford Probe. Well once we got him cleaned up, and checked in to the MTC, and notified the local and state authorities of his whereabouts (yes, his family had filed a missing persons report), we gave him his room key and escorted him to his temporary residence. When we got there, he reached in his pocket to pull out his room key but it wasn't there. He had left it at the front desk.

We got his key for him and took poloroid pictures of the front desk, his residence hall, and his room number, and gave them to him. Then we took photos of ouselves to give to him in case he needed to find us but couldn't remember who we were. I don't know what happened to that guy, but I'm sure he's okay.