Sunday, January 6, 2008

LDS Missionary Pranks

Missionaries have an unusual sense of humor. What is funny to one missionary may not be funny to another. My experience with missionaries was that they had a limited bag of tricks. I wish the Internet had existed so they could have consulted Pranksite.com; Planet Walley: Wide World of Pranks; Prank Space so there would have been more variety in their tactics. A good one I read was to switch two cereals putting Lucky Charms in the Cheerios box etc. Mormon pranks should not be too vicious since we do have a standard to uphold. You are dealing with young people so pranks are to be expected. The quality of the bar on pranks just needs to be raised a little.

Pranks started almost immediately on my first day. My companion hid another elder's pajamas so he retaliated. The first prank I actually witnessed occurred the second day was about as complicated as stepping on a banana. We were in our room praying right after lunch. My companion opened the door and stepped out falling to the ground in a huge mound of shaving cream. They must have wasted three cans to get the job done. A couple of nights later someone shorted our sheets. It became a war between the two missionaries. Another favorite was pointing out a spot on your shirt saying what's that and then flipping the tie in your face. It was only good a time or two.

One day on my mission I got a phone call from Elder Chris Clarsen. It was the old turnip. He said Elder is your refrigerator running. Without think I replied is the power out. I ran to check the fridge which was running. I came back and said. Yeah. He said why don't you run out and catch it. Duh! It became a running joke with us. I got him back later when I snuck his girlfriend's address and started writing her.

Missionaries did all kinds of stupid pranks like telling an elder that there was alcohol in the pudding to ruining their dinner by pouring a whole container of salt or pepper on their food. You can't see salt in potatoes. One elder like to thumping you on the head when you were praying saying did you feel the spirit. Stealing a couple of missionary name tags and giving them to the other guy was also popular. The funny thing was watching them when they discovered it. Usually it occurred when the investigator kept calling them the wrong name and they would look down and view their name tag as the light came on.I read an interesting post a while back on Common Consent about three elders in the MTC who bought enemas as a prank. There is always humor in bodily fluids and functions among Mormons.

I had a really bizarre companion once. We lived behind a Becker's convenience store in Georgetown, Ontario, Canada. This elder would go out and stand on the corner. When an attractive woman would go by he would say "Do you like Jello?" Everyone of them would look at him funny. Then he would say "There's always room for Jello." I was so embarrassed for him. He had a mischievous streak. When we would go tracking and you could see someone looking out the peephole he would make his hands into circles with the thumb and forefinger and the three finger up. You would place the three fingers by the ear and twist them up. He would place the circles over his eyes making a Urim and Thummim and start sing a song he adapted from the cartoon Hercules. "Oinkules winner of ancient glory. Oinkules winner of ancient story. With the might of ten ordinary men evil men will fear at the sight of Oinkules." Then he would squeal like a pig. I am not sure if M. Russell Ballard, our mission president knew he did this he would have been apoplectic since it didn't do much in the way of planting seeds and made the guy looked juvenile as he would run away laughing and squealing.

Even UTube has three missionary pranks: Mormon Missionary Loses His Britches; Fake Missionary Call;Monkey Mask.

Most missionaries do pranks to blow off steam. I wonder if others could share a few missionary pranks with us since I didn't find much out there on the Internet.

2 comments:

Hayes said...

In Venezuela, my comp and I were responsible for mailing off the "pouch" mail to the states. WE had a few rich sisters, so we would write on the outside of their letters, "mom, I have these two awesome ZL [and I would extol some of our virtues]." The final plea would be to send these two brave missionaries a HUGE care package.

it worked!!!

Dr. B said...

That's pretty funny.