How orthodox were you as a missionary

[pellegrino]

I liked to maintain an image of possible rule breaking, but in reality I was fairly obedient. I was in San Remo Italy, and a good friend commuted to work in Nice, France. I would have him purchase postcards of scantily clad women on the beach, I would write a little note to the APs, and have my friend send it from Nice (so it had the correct postmark) to the mission office. I loved the subsequent phone calls.

I also sent postcards to friends in missions around Europe, but instead of stamps, I would cut out the pictures of the GAs from the center of the conference Ensign and handwrite the amount of lire on it. My friends always got them. I'm sure mail fraud would be against the rules, but if the Italian mail system is so inept, then the problem is theirs in my opinion.

No major rules infractions, but just some "looking the other way" when it was appropriate. Oh, and I would never leave a dinner appointment early just to be home on time. And culturally, we were invited to some late dinners.

The best dinner I ever had didn't start until 9.30 (they started cooking when we got there at 8.00) and we didn't get home until 1.00. I loved the holidays in Italy.

[LA Ute]

He would invite the entire zone to his Flores, Peten area to get together to play Bball, to play soccer, to hitch hike to Tikal, to go cave exploring, to listen to marimba music, we even left the mission area a couple of times and traveled into Belize….

Wow, I remember when the first two missionaries went to Flores. It was 1975 and Elder David Schow, a former comp of mine, was sent as the senior. There's probably a stake there now. I never got to Tikal - missionaries went on their way home, and there was bad weather when it was my turn and no planes were flying. I'll go someday.