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I thought I would try to lighten my personal mood by inviting others to join me in reminiscing about stupid stunts at the MTC, whether performed by you or another; whether personally observed or only heard about.

I will lead off by saying that, when I went to the MTC in November of 1979, they didn't yet have the slick name badges, but instead had a white piece of plastic over which they pasted a plastic strip with the last name punched out individually at the front desk.

I remember going to the front desk and telling another missionary who worked there making name tags that I had lost mine and needed another. "No problem," he said, inserting the plastic strip into the handheld machine, "What's your last name?"

"I'll spell it for you," I said, holding my breath. "S-T-A-R-S-K-Y."

"Starsky?" he said punching out the letters with a grin. "That's kind of an odd coincidence."

"Yeah," I said. "I get made fun of a lot because of it."

He completed my name strip which I proudly affixed to my name badge.

"Oh, yeah," I said, as if suddenly remembering something of minor importance. "My companion lost his name badge, too."

"Let me guess," the guy at the counter said, "Hutch."

"Well, Hutchinson, actually, but you were close," I said.


By this time we were both smiling and he did up a second name strip with "Hutchinson" on it. After that, my companion and I were off to the races, wearing our new custom-made name badges proudly around the MTC. (I was known to enter our MTC district study room by throwing open the door and rolling quickly through the threshold into a crouching stance as if to avoid gunfire.)

The funny thing was it started a fad of sorts, and not long after we would see companionship walking around sporting name badges like Batman and Robin, or Ranger and Tonto.

Good times.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

I wasn't nearly that creative.

But I'm fairly sure my companion and I invented MTC planking. :D

We had pizza mailed to us when we were in the MTC, and had a really cool pizza party.

My Companion's brother sneaked in with his old name tag and brought him (my companion) burger king.

There was a huge snowball fight one night. That's about it.

Boys having fun at the MTC?

PREPOSTEROUS!

It must be stopped at once otherwise it could lead to homosexuality!

mercyngrace wrote:I wasn't nearly that creative.

But I'm fairly sure my companion and I invented MTC planking. :D

Sounds fun. Is that anything like waterboarding?

In addition to surreptitiously putting shaving cream in another missionary's shoes, I did some things that weren't very nice.

There was this one missionary in our district (we will call him Elder Shumway) who was from New England and got up at five o'clock every morning to read scriptures in the little study area on our floor. He bragged all the time about how he did this instead of waiting to get up at 6:30 a.m. like all the other missionaries. (Okay, 6:40 a.m. for some of us.)

Anyway, I decided to have a little fun at his expense. I snuck into his room late one night when I was sure he and the other occupants would be asleep, got his alarm clock and set it forward three hours so he would actually be getting up at 2:00 instead of 5:00. (This was back when the innocent missionaries would leave their rooms unlocked at night. By the time I left, all that had changed, I think.)

I left his room and saw the big clock in the hallway which stuck out from the wall, one face toward Elder Shumway's room and the other face toward the rooms down the other end of the hallway. I cannily realized that Elder Shumway would see this clock face upon leaving his room at 2:00 in the ante meridian and realize he was being had, so I got a chair, opened the glass cover of the clock face Elder Shumway would see, and set it forward three hours, as well. I didn't do anything with the opposing hall clock face as I figured that would be superfluous.

I then went back to bed and chuckled myself to sleep.

The rest I know only from a report I had from Elder Punt, another missionary in our district who had his room down the hallway from Elder Shumway.

Elder Punt told me the next day he woke up at about 3:00 a.m. and went out of his room and into the hallway to get a drink from the water fountain under the clock when, what should he see but Elder Shumway studiously reading his scriptures in the study area. Elder Punt was impressed and told Elder Shumway so. Elder Shumway said he always likes to get up extra early at five to get some additional study in.

Elder Punt rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looked up at his side of the clock, which distinctly had hands at 3 and 12, and he asked Elder Shumway what time he thought it was.

Elder Shumway said it was six o'clock.

Elder Punt kindly showed Elder Shumway the other side of the clock.

The rest was left to my imagination.

I, of course, immediately placed Elder Punt under blood oath to not reveal the instigator of the plot.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

My favorite MTC memory is walking around the campus and behind the temple in the summer sun with the beautiful trees all around us. I know this is not a stunt but I love that memory. I fell in love with trees at the MTC. I also learned how to study at the MTC. Those are the two things I cherish.

I also learned about Cambodians, their culture, and their history in the MTC. This was very good for a sheltered boy like me.

My branch pres told me I remind him of the scripture verse about the lilies in the field but that made me sad because I felt far from the innocence of such. The lingering guilt I felt about my sins brought the bitterness to my sweet experience there.

Hi, Zeez!

My problem was I didn't feel guilty about my former sins. I was too busy adding new sins at the MTC to have time for feeling guilty about the past.

I was there during the winter, so no nice trees for me.

But I do remember two similar things:

1. Marching up the hill to the Provo Temple every PDay morning at o-dark thirty with the stars blazing away above. (Or "the sidereal heavens" as Bruce R. McConkie would have put it.)

2. The evening star on the magenta horizon greeting me every evening as I left the cafeteria.

The fact you remember these things so fondly indicates to me only that you should not have been troubled by former bitterness. Yours is a sweet soul and one close to God in every meaningful sense.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

consiglieri wrote:Sounds fun. Is that anything like waterboarding?

No, but tracting sure is.

So this didn't happen while in the MTC but rather, with a companion on my mission.

This comp and I were like oil and water. Our personalities just did not mesh -- at all. As a result there was a lot of tension between us.

Anyway, one morning I walk into the living room of our apt to discover my comp diligently shining my shoes. I walked up, grabbed my shoes away from him and said: "Elder xxxxx this isn't a damned Church video from Seminary. Give me my shoes!"

Today I look back and regret my snarkiness but at the time I couldn't stomach what I perceived as an attempt to "mend" our companionship pulled straight from a New Era Mormon Ad.

Later on this comp and I actually became buddies and laughed about our early struggles to get along. He was actually a pretty great guy.

Seth

I did something that didn't seem too dicklike at the time I did it, but looking back, it was pretty dicklike. I dumped about half a bottle of Old Spice cologne into the heater vent thingy mounted on the wall in another companionship's room. It was so strong they actually slept on the floor in a different room for several days. They never came after me either, and I heard how bad it was from 3rd parties. I am pretty sure they knew it was me who did it - not sure why I wasn't confronted about it.

I don't remember why I did it, but I do recall it seemed like a good idea at the time.

There was an elder who used a fiberglass rod he'd found somewhere like a pool cue to knock a golfball around the hallway. It was a golf game he made up with "holes" all around the floor, and I started playing it with him and we'd be knocking this golf ball all around the hallways in our dorm. Eventually someone told us we had to stop. I don't know why, but it must have occurred to someone that we were having fun, and that just had to be wrong.